Part 44

Towards the end of November, 1778, a "body of troops, under Lieutenant-colonel Campbell, sailed [from New York] for Georgia In the squadron of Commodore Hyde Parker; the British cabinet having determined to carry the war into the Southern States. At the same time General Prevost, who commanded in Florida, was ordered by Sir Henry Clinton to march to the banks of the Savannah River, and attack Georgia in flank, while the expedition under Campbell should attack it in front on the seaboard. … The squadron of Commodore Hyde Parker anchored in the Savannah River towards the end of December. An American force of about 600 regulars, and a few militia under General Robert Howe, were encamped near the town, being the remnant of an army with which that officer had invaded Florida, in the preceding summer, but had been obliged to evacuate it by a mortal malady which desolated his camp. Lieutenant-colonel Campbell landed his troops on the 29th of December, about three miles below the town. The whole country bordering the river is a deep morass, cut up by creeks, and only to be traversed by causeways. Over one of these, 600 yards in length, with a ditch on each side, Colonel Campbell advanced, putting to flight a small party stationed to guard it. General Howe had posted his little army on the main road, with the river on his left and a morass in front. A negro gave Campbell information of a path leading through the morass, by which troops might get unobserved to the rear of the Americans. Sir James Baird was detached with the light infantry by this path, while Colonel Campbell advanced in front. The Americans, thus suddenly attacked in front and rear, were completely routed; upwards of 100 were either killed on the spot, or perished in the morass; 38 officers and 415 privates were taken prisoners, the rest retreated up the Savannah River and crossed into South Carolina. Savannah, the capital of Georgia, was taken possession of by the victors, with cannon, military stores and provisions; their loss was only seven killed and nineteen wounded. Colonel Campbell conducted himself with great moderation; protecting the persons and property of the inhabitants, and proclaiming security and favor to all that should return to their allegiance. Numbers in consequence flocked to the British standard: the lower part of Georgia was considered as subdued, and posts were established by the British to maintain possession. While Colonel Campbell had thus invaded Georgia in front, General Prevost" entered the State from Florida, "took Sunbury, the only remaining fort of importance, and marched to Savannah, where he assumed the general command, detaching Colonel Campbell against Augusta. By the middle of January (1779) all Georgia was reduced to submission. A more experienced American general than Howe had by this time arrived to take command of the Southern Department, Major-general Lincoln, who had gained such reputation in the campaign against Burgoyne, and whose appointment to this station had been solicited by the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia. He had received his orders from Washington in the beginning of October."

_W. Irving, Life of Washington, volume 3, chapter 37._

ALSO IN: _W. B. Stevens, History of Georgia, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 2)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779. Washington guarding the Hudson. The storming of Stony Point. Marauding warfare of the British.

"After Clinton slipped away from Monmouth and sought refuge in New York, Washington took post at convenient points and watched the movements of the enemy. In this way the summer passed. As always, Washington's first object was to guard the Hudson, and while he held this vital point firmly, he waited, ready to strike elsewhere if necessary. It looked for a time as if the British intended to descend on Boston, seize the town, and destroy the French fleet, which had gone there to refit. Such was the opinion of Gates, then commanding in that department, and as Washington inclined to the same belief, the fear of this event gave him many anxious moments. {3266} He even moved his troops so as to be in readiness to march eastward at short notice; but he gradually became convinced that the enemy had no such plan. … The main army, therefore, remained quiet, and when the autumn had passed went into winter-quarters in well-posted detachments about New York. In December Clinton made an ineffectual raid [in New Jersey], and then all was peaceful again, and Washington was able to go to Philadelphia and struggle with Congress, leaving his army more comfortable and secure than they had been in any previous winter. … He now hoped and believed that the moment would come when, by uniting his army with the French, he should be able to strike the decisive blow. Until that time came, however, he knew that he could do nothing on a great scale, and he felt that meantime the British, abandoning practically the eastern and middle States, would make one last desperate struggle for victory, and would make it in the south. Long before anyone else, he appreciated this fact, and saw a peril looming large in that region. … All this, however, did not change his own plans one jot. He believed that the south must work out its own salvation, as New York and New England had done with Burgoyne, and he felt sure that in the end it would be successful. But he would not go south, nor take his army there. … The British might overrun the north or invade the south, but he would stay where he was, with his grip upon New York and the Hudson River. The tide of invasion might ebb and flow in this region or that, but the British were doomed if they could not divide the eastern colonies from the others. When the appointed hour came, he was ready to abandon everything and strike the final and fatal blow; but until then he waited and stood fast with his army, holding the great river in his grasp. He felt much more anxiety about the south than he had felt about the north, and expected Congress to consult him as to a commander, having made up his mind that Greene was the man to send. But Congress still believed in Gates, who had been making trouble for Washington all winter; and so Gates was sent, and Congress in due time got their lesson, and found once more that Washington understood men better than they did. In the north the winter was comparatively uneventful. The spring passed, and in June Clinton came out and took possession of Stony Point and Verplanck's Point, and began to fortify them. It looked a little as if Clinton might intend to get control of the Hudson by slow approaches, fortifying, and then advancing until he reached West Point. With this in mind, Washington at once determined to check the British by striking sharply at one of their new posts. Having made up his mind, he sent for Wayne and asked him if he would storm Stony Point. Tradition says that Wayne replied, 'I will storm hell, if you will plan it.' A true tradition, probably, in keeping with Wayne's character, and pleasant to us to-day as showing with a vivid gleam of rough human speech the utter confidence of the army in their leader, that confidence which only a great soldier can inspire. So Washington planned, and Wayne stormed [July 15, 1779], and Stony Point fell. It was a gallant and brilliant feat of arms, one of the most brilliant of the war. Over 500 prisoners were taken, the guns were carried off, and the works destroyed, leaving the British to begin afresh with a good deal of increased caution and respect. Not long after, Harry Lee stormed Paulus Hook with equal success, and the British were checked and arrested, if they intended any extensive movement. On the frontier, Sullivan, after some delays, did his work effectively. … In these various ways Clinton's circle of activity was steadily narrowed, but it may be doubted whether he had any coherent plan. The principal occupation of the British was to send out marauding expeditions and cut off outlying parties. Tryon burned and pillaged in Connecticut [at New Haven, Fairfield and Norwalk], Matthews in Virginia [at Norfolk, Portsmouth and elsewhere], and others on a smaller scale elsewhere in New Jersey and New York. … It was enough for Washington to hold fast to the great objects he had in view, to check Clinton and circumscribe his movements. Steadfastly he did this through the summer and winter of 1779."

_H. C. Lodge, George Washington, volume 1, chapter 8._

ALSO IN: _W. Irving, Life of Washington, volume 3, chapters 38-40, and volume 4, chapter 1._

_B. J. Lossing, Field-book of the Revolution, volume 1, chapter 31._

_J. Armstrong, Life of Anthony Wayne (Library of American Biographies, volume 4)._

_C. J. Stillé, Major-General Anthony Wayne, chapter 5_

_G. W. Greene, Life of Nathaniel Greene, book 3, chapters 3-7 (volume. 2)._

See, also, WEST POINT.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (August-September). General Sullivan's expedition against the Senecas.

For the purpose of putting an end to the destructive and bloody incursions of Tories and Indians from western New York, directed against the border settlements of that state and Pennsylvania—as at Cherry Valley and Wyoming—General Washington, in the early part of the year 1779, determined upon a measure for carrying the war into the home of the invaders. "The command was entrusted to General Sullivan. The army organized for the expedition was in three divisions. That part of it under the immediate command of General Sullivan, coming from Pennsylvania, ascended the Susquehannah to Tioga Point. Another division under the command of General James Clinton, constructing batteaux at Schenectady, ascended the Mohawk and rendezvoused at Canajoharrie, opened a road to the head of Otsego Lake, and from thence proceeded in a formidable fleet of over 200 batteaux, to Tioga Point, forming a junction with the force under General Sullivan, on the 22d of August. Previous to the arrival of General Clinton, Sullivan had sent forward a detachment which fell in with a scouting party of Indians, and a skirmish ensued. The combined forces amounted to 5,000 men. The expedition had been so long preparing, and upon the march, that the enemy were well apprized of an that was going on. Their plan of defence contemplated a decisive engagement upon the Chemung river. For this purpose the Rangers and regular British troops, under the command of Colonel John Butler, Colonels Guy and Sir John Johnson, Major Walter N. Butler and Captain M'Donald, and the Indians under Brant, had concentrated their forces upon a bend of the river, near the present village of Elmira [then called Newtown], where they had thrown up a long breast work of logs. The united forces of the British allies, as computed by General Sullivan, was about 1,500. {3267} Having ascertained their position, General Sullivan marched in full force and attacked them in the forenoon of the 29th of August. … The battle had been waged about two hours, when the British and Indians perceiving their forces inadequate, and that a maneuver to surround them was likely to be successful, broke and fled in great disorder. 'This,' says John Salmon, of Livingston county, who belonged to the expedition and gave an account of it to the author of the Life of .Mary Jemison, 'was the only regular stand made by the Indians. In their retreat they were pursued by our men to the Narrows, where they were attacked and killed in great numbers, so that the sides of the rocks next the River looked as if blood had been poured on them by pailfuls.' The details of all that transpired in this campaign are before the public in so many forms, that their repetition here is unnecessary. The route of the army was via 'French Catherine's Town,' head of Seneca Lake, down the east shore of the Lake to the Indian village of Kanadesaga (Old Castle), and from thence to Canandaigua, Honeoye, head of Conesus Lake, to Groveland. The villages destroyed (with the apple trees and growing crops of the Indians,) were at Catherinestown, Kendai, or 'Apple Town' on the east side of the Lake, eleven miles from its foot, Kanadesaga, Honeoye, Conesus, Canascraga, Little Beard's Town, Big Tree, Canawagus, and on the return of the army, Scawyace, a village between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes, and several other Cayuga villages. … The march of Sullivan, the devastations committed by his army, would at this distant period seem like Vandalism, in the absence of the consideration that he was acting under strict orders; and that those orders were approved, if not dictated, by Washington. The campaign was a matter of necessity; to be effectual, it was not only necessary that its acts should be retaliatory and retributive, but that the haunts, the retreats, of a foe so ruthless, must be broken up. The object was to destroy all the means of subsistence of the Senecas, desolate their homes, prevent their return to them, and if possible, induce their permanent retreat beyond the Niagara River. The imprudence, the want of sagacity, which Colonel Stone has imputed to General Sullivan in alarming every village he approached by the sound of his cannon, the author conceives a misapprehension of his motives. Stealthy, quiet approaches, would have found as victims, in every village, the old men, the women and children—the warriors away, banded with their British allies. Humanity dictated the forewarning, that those he did not come to war against could have time to flee. … The march of General Sullivan, after leaving the Chemung, was bloodless, except in a small degree—just as it should have been, if he could not make victims of those he was sent to punish. The third expedition of this campaign, which has generally been lost sight of by historians, was that of General Broadhead. He left Fort Pitt in August with 600 men, and destroyed several Mingo and Muncey tribes living on the Allegany, French Creek, and other tributaries of the Ohio. The heavy artillery that General Sullivan brought as far as Newton, would indicate that Niagara was originally the destination. There the General and his officers, seeing how long it had taken to reach that point, in an probability determined that too much of the season had been wasted, to allow of executing their tasks in the Indian country, making their roads and moving the army and all its appointments to Niagara before the setting in of winter. Besides, before the army had reached the valley of the Chemung, the fact was ascertained that there would be a failure in a contemplated junction with the army under General Broadhead. After the expedition of General Sullivan, the Indians never had any considerable permanent re-occupancy of their villages east of the Genesee river. They settled down after a brief flight, in their villages on the west side of the river in the neighborhood of Geneseo, Mt. Morris and Avon, and at Gardeau, Canadea, Tonawanda, Tuscarora, Buffalo Creek, Cattaraugus and Allegany."

_O. Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, part 1, chapter 4._

"In his general orders of the 17th of October, General Washington announced to the army the result of the expedition, as follows: 'The Commander-in-chief has now the pleasure of congratulating the army on the complete and full success of Major General Sullivan, and the troops under his command, against the Seneca and other tribes of the Six Nations, as a just and necessary punishment for their wanton depredations, their unparalleled and innumerable cruelties, their deafness to all remonstrances and entreaty, and their perseverance in the most horrid acts of barbarity. Forty of their towns have been reduced to ashes, some of them large and commodious; that of the Genesee alone containing one hundred and twenty-eight houses. Their crops of corn have been entirely destroyed, which, by estimation, it is said, would have provided 160,000 bushels, besides large quantities of vegetables of various kinds. Their whole country has been overrun and laid waste, and they themselves compelled to place their security in a precipitate flight to the British fortress at Niagara. And the whole of this has been done with the loss of less than forty men on our part, including the killed, wounded, captured, and those who died natural deaths. The troops employed in this expedition, both officers and men, throughout the whole of it, and in the action they had with the enemy, manifested a patience, perseverance and valor that do them the highest honor. In the course of it, when there still remained a large extent of the enemy's country to be prostrated, it became necessary to lessen the issues of provisions to half the usual allowance. In this the troops acquiesced with a most general and cheerful concurrence, being fully determined to surmount every obstacle, and to prosecute the enterprise to a complete and successful issue. Major General Sullivan, for his great perseverance and activity, for his order of march and attack, and the whole of his dispositions; the Brigadiers and officers of all ranks, and the whole of the soldiers engaged in the expedition, merit and have the Commander-in-chief's warmest acknowledgements for their important services upon this occasion.' On the 9th of November, 1779, General Sullivan wrote to the President of Congress: 'It is with the deepest regret I find myself compelled to request from Congress liberty to retire from the army. My health is so much impaired by a violent bilious disorder, which seized me in the commencement and continued during the whole of the western expedition, that I have not the smallest hope of a perfect recovery.' … {3268} General Sullivan, in transmitting to Congress an official account of his operations, reported that … 'Every creek and river has been traced, and the whole country explored in search of Indian settlements, and I am well persuaded that, except one town situated near the Alleghany, about fifty-eight miles from Chinesee, there is not a single town left in the country of the Five Nations. … I flatter myself that the orders with which I was entrusted are fully executed, as we have not left a single settlement or field of corn in the country of the Five Nations, or is there even the appearance of an Indian on this side of Niagara. Messengers and small parties have been constantly passing, and some imprudent soldiers who straggled from the army mistook the route and went back almost to Chinesee without discovering even the track of an Indian.' Sullivan was mistaken in regard to the destruction of all the Indian towns as there were several small villages undiscovered by his troops. The principal villages, however, and probably nine-tenths of the growing crops, upon which the Indians had depended for sustenance during the following winter, were effectually destroyed. … While Sullivan fully accomplished the task given him to perform, the results expected were not fully realized. The power of the savages had been weakened, but they were not entirely subdued until years afterward, when 'Mad Anthony Wayne' defeated the confederated bands of the Indians of the west, in 1794, a measure which thoroughly humbled the Indians of Western New York, and gave to the settlers peace and security. Sullivan's expedition was fruitful of great results in other ways, however, than the temporary subjugation of the Indians. The fertile and beautiful country now forming the western part of the State of New York, was then an unknown wilderness, and its value and attractiveness were first made known to the white people through this expedition. … Soon after the close of the war the tide of emigration commenced to flow westward. From the New England States, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, came hardy pioneers, led on by the glowing accounts they had heard of the new country, and the vicinity of the inland lakes, the borders of the flowing streams, the forest-covered hills became the dwelling places of a rapidly growing band of settlers. The road which Sullivan had opened from the Susquehanna valley was followed by many of the settlers, even to the banks of the Genesee. Thus many of those who had shared the perils and privations of Sullivan's expedition against the Indian tribes of Western New York, afterward became settlers of the land they had aided to conquer."

_A. T. Norton, History of Sullivan's Campaign against the Iroquois, chapter 11._

ALSO IN: _L. L. Doty, History of Livingston County, New York, chapter 7._

_O. W. B. Peabody, Life of John Sullivan (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume. 3), chapter 7._

_Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan, with records of Centennial Celebrations (including Historical Address by Reverend David Craft, pages 331-388)._

_J. E. Seaver, Life of Mary Jemison, appendix 2._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (September). Paul Jones' great sea-fight. The Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis.