Part 2

Norton, in his general description of Sullivan, says: "His eyes were keen and dark, his hair curly black, his form erect, his movements full of energy and grace. His height was five feet nine inches, and a slight corpulency when in his prime gave but an added grace. General Sullivan was a man of undoubted courage, warmth of temperament and independent spirit equaled only by his patriotic devotion to his country's cause and his zeal in all public affairs." Doubtless he was too impatient and outspoken and may have been deserving of some measure of blame, still his faults should not have detracted from that meed of praise to which he was justly entitled. Neither should the jealousies of his brothers in arms, which prompted them to ridicule his achievements, question his reports and detract from his hard-earned laurels, have weight with the historian. Yet such has been, in great degree, the case, and the name of Sullivan occupies a lesser space in the history of the Revolutionary struggle, than those of many others whose achievements fell far short of his in magnitude and importance. Sullivan has been made the victim of the intrigues and petty jealousies of his times, and while for this his own indiscretions may justly be blamed, the duty is none the less incumbent on the present generation to render due homage to one who is a brave soldier and a devoted, disinterested, self-sacrificing patriot. As Amory has justly said: "A friend of Washington, Greene, Lafayette, and all the noblest statesmen and generals of the war, whose esteem for him was universally known, to whom his own attachment never wavered, he will be valued for his high integrity and steadfast faith, his loyal and generous character, his enterprise and vigor in command, his readiness to assume responsibility, his courage and coolness in emergencies, his foresight for providing for all possible contingencies of campaign or battle-field, and his calmness when the results became adverse."

Could the character of Sullivan be fairly said to be that of a great man? Does he measure up to "bigness?" Remember a little man seldom does big things. Briefly, what did he do in this Indian campaign? At the beginning of the Revolution there was a democracy of six confederate states within the present boundaries of our own municipality. So strong had this democracy grown that it dominated the inhabitants of a territory of more than a million square miles. Their battle-cry was heard from the Kennebec to Lake Superior, and under the very fortifications of Quebec they annihilated the Huron.

Their orators were fit to rank with any that we have to-day. Their legends are the legends of a people whose souls were filled with poetry. Their military tactics were those of a people trained for war--successful war. Man to man, they were what no other barbarians have been, a match for the white man. They held the gateway to the West and their position made them umpires between the mighty nations of the Old World who were struggling for the possession of the New. Civilized in a sense they were, but they were barbarians too, and savages to their very heart of hearts. Rapacious, treacherous, cruel beyond belief,--they were dreaded alike by friend and foe. Their home was a _terra incognita._ No colonist had trodden it. From no peak had trapper looked across the profile of their land. Their numbers were unknown and could only be guessed at by their achievements--and these were terrible.

How silly of Gordon to criticize Sullivan for over-manning his expedition. Darkest Africa is better known to-day than was then the land of the Iroquois. They were re-enforced by British regulars, by fanatical Tories; they were led by white men, and one of their leaders was a thorough Indian and thoroughly educated in the white man's lore.

Among this people and into this _terra incognita_ came Sullivan and smote them hip and thigh. He conquered them to the uttermost. He broke down the gateway to the mighty West. With a miserable commissariat, he invaded an unknown country and forever destroyed a democracy that had ruled for five hundred years.

The Indians conquered by Wayne were but a frazzle of the Six Nations united with Indians farther West.

Little men do little things, big men do big things, and great men do great things. Before Sullivan vanished

"that savage senate at the Lake, By the salt marshes, yonder in the north, Dull-visaged butchers, coarsely blanketed Squatted in a ring by their dark Council House And with strange mumery of pipes and belts Decreeing, coldly, death--forever death."

The strongest are the gentlest. It is related that having found an Indian woman too old and feeble to retreat with her people, that Sullivan left her with a plentiful supply of provisions, though, as one of the party writes, "we only had half a ration every other day ourselves."

It is not my province to put forth a brief for General Sullivan, yet that one incident cast a side-light on his character that impressed me more as to the true lovely heartiness of the man than anything I have found. Constancy to a friend is an attribute to those who approach greatness. After the Indian war Sullivan was reviled unmercifully for the devastation wrought by him in the Indian country. Out of his love for General Washington he suffered in silence, while he had in his possession General Washington's written instructions to do exactly as he had done.

Perchance for a good man some would even dare to die. But what of a man whose friendship holds so strong that he may see that which is dearer to him than life--his character--filched from him, and lest he should harm a friend, allow his enemies to do with that character as they wished.

Probably no historian ever lived who could write more wrong history than Benjamin Lossing, who accuses Sullivan of carelessness and want of vigilance as a commanding officer and mentions Bedford and Brandywine. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At Bedford he withdrew his forces because the French Navy would not support him, and it was out of the question to remain in the position he had taken up. We have John Fiske's word for it that Brandywine was a drawn battle.

Of energy he had a plenty. It is on record that after he and General Clinton united (and Clinton was no sluggard) his Division time and again out-marched that of Clinton. At one time he broke road across nine miles of swamp while Clinton following him had to camp in the middle of the morass. So difficult was the morass that the Indian spies who had been watching his advance never dreamed that he would attempt the passage of the swamp, and withdrew to their camps. So confident were the Tories and Indians, that when he emerged from the swamp their campfires were still burning.

Right here is a place to say a word about General Sullivan's veracity. After his return from conquering the Six Nations he reported that he had destroyed forty villages, and his detractors could not find but eighteen. It at last developed that when his subordinates had reported destroying a group of buildings he most naturally supposed that it was an Indian village, and so put it down in his report.

It has been said of him that he resigned from the army out of spite. Well, if he did, he was perhaps blamable. But we should remember that he was dealing with a Continental Congress of the latter years of the war, and if you search history for a thousand years you will not be able to find an aggregation of political castros equal to this same Continental Congress. The men who had made the primal congresses great had set themselves to serve the nation in other ways, and Congress had fallen to those who had some money without brains or brains without principle, or lacking both, were like our modern ones in that they loved "graft" and knew how to get it.

Sullivan was not a liar, and he himself says that his health was failing. If we care to plow through the many diaries kept by officers under him we can well believe that he told the truth, for with the spoiling of the provisions sent to the expedition most of the soldiers did suffer from chronic intestinal troubles, and it would be strange if the commander who takes the same fare as his subordinates should not suffer in the same manner.

And to back up this we must remember that even after he retired he never lost the confidence or the love of the greatest of them all, General Washington. Much has been written of General Sullivan's fallibilities, and fallibilities the greatest have.

We should remember that Sullivan was a Kelt. And through the centuries the Kelts have given us the lordliest orators and golden artists, but for tenacity of purpose no one has celebrated them.

General Sullivan when he was taken prisoner and fell under the influence of the British military power, and contrasting them with the meagerness that he had been accustomed to, for once his heart failed him and his soul sank within him, and it is no sorrow to his name to say that for the moment he thought the liberty of mankind in the Western continent was doomed.

He came from the British to us seeking peace, but after he was exchanged and in his old environment his true native Keltic courage returned and his after life was the life of an ardent patriot.

I do not think we give enough credit to the perceptions of the ignorant.

Suppose to ten thousand ignorant people this entirely hypothetical question should be stated: Around the globe is a people who for three hundred years had been fighting a tyrannical power and well nigh achieved success. Would it be right for a republic to step in and take them away from the power they were in rebellion against, and then this republic by force of arms prevent them from becoming an independent republic? State to ten thousand ignorant people this question, and they will shout with one voice "that it is not right." State this question to ten thousand college professors, and they will back and fill, debate and re-debate, and finally be fogged by their very knowledge and at last come to no conclusion at all.

It has never been sufficiently made clear that the classes fought the Revolutionary war. The educated, the elegant, the conservative, the well-to-do, in short the "better elements," were practically all with the British. While the broken, the ignorant, the discouraged, "the rabble," were the ones that won our liberty. Every single Tory that was expatriated could read and write, while I believe if the muster rolls of my own county, inhabited at that time by the educated Dutch, not one-third of those who enlisted could sign their names. So coldly did the wealthy Dutchman look upon the war that it was a common trick for him to send a slave to serve in the ranks instead of himself.

Sullivan by birth and position belonged among the former class, and yet in spite of position, broke with his own class and gladly took up the sword with the ignorant because he saw clearly that all social progress must from very necessity spring from the discontent of the _Hoi Polloi._ He was a true patriot for he lost his all by giving his attention to public rather than private affairs, and though respected by all and honored by his State, his last years were the years of gloom and the gathering clouds, for his life was beset by heartless creditors. The last scene is the saddest of all, for at his funeral his creditors tried to seize his body and would have done so, except that an old army general drew his pistols and drove off the bailiffs of the law. So was buried one of America's greatest patriots, a constant friend, a brave and good soldier, and a man who, take him ail in all, it is not an exaggeration to call "Great."

THE PRIMARY CAUSES OF THE BORDER WARS

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By Francis W. Halsey.

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General Sullivan's expedition of 1779 was an immediate outcome of the massacres of Wyoming and Cherry Valley in the summer and autumn of 1778--not to mention those minor incidents of the Border Wars, which, beginning in the summer of 1777, had converted the valley of the upper Susquehanna into a land of desolation. It was a most drastic punishment that Sullivan inflicted, and such it was intended by Congress that his work should be. "The immediate objects," said Washington, in his letter of instruction to Sullivan, "are the total destruction and devastation of the Indian settlements," He added that the Indian country was "not to be merely overrun, but destroyed." If we have regard for proportions, greater losses were inflicted upon the Indians by Sullivan than were ever inflicted upon the settlements of New York by the Indians.

The expedition, however, failed completely in achieving its main purpose, which was to suppress the Indian raids. Sullivan and his army had scarcely left the Western country, when the Indian attacks were renewed and for three years were continued with a savage energy before unknown. The Indians' thirst for revenge having been thoroughly aroused, nothing could afterwards restrain their hands. Aside from the burning of German Flats and the battle of Oriskany (the latter not properly an incident of the Border Wars, since it was an integral part of the Burgoyne campaign), the injury done by the Indians to the Mohawk Valley was done subsequent to the Sullivan expedition.

In their entirety, the Border Wars constitute a phase of the Revolution of which far too little has been remembered. We may seek in vain for a territory elsewhere in the United States where so much destruction was done to non-combatants. In Tryon county alone, 12,000 farms went out of cultivation; fully two-thirds of the population either died or fled, While of the one-third who remained 300 were widows and 2,000 orphans. And yet, as I have said, the losses of the Iroquois were greater still.

But it is with the causes which led to this savage work that I am here to deal. For quite 100 years, Joseph Brant and the Tories of the Mohawk Valley, with Col. Guy and Sir John Johnson, and John and Walter Butler, at their head, were generally accepted as the original and inspiring forces in all the barbarities committed. The greater offenders, however, were men of much higher station and more ample powers--men who had never seen the valleys of the Susquehanna and the Mohawk, but who lived in London, and as members of the King's Cabinet were in direct charge of the war in America. One of them was the Earl of Dartmouth, the other Lord George Germaine; but it is to Germaine that we must ascribe the chief odium.

The administration of the Province of New York, when the Revolution began, was completely in the hands of Loyalists. New York was still a Crown colony, officials holding their appointments directly from London. Outside the official class, however, there were patriots in plenty; none of the colonies possessed more; but as New York City was completely dominated by Tory influences, so was the Mohawk Valley dominated by the Johnsons and their army of followers, in whom loyalty to England was a deep-seated sentiment and a fixed principle of conduct. Sir William Johnson had died just as the Revolution was about to begin. His successors became not only as great Loyalists as ever he had been, but, being men of smaller minds and fewer talents. They added to the sentiment of loyalty an expression of it which took the form of satanic bitterness and brute savagery. It was these men who, with their followers, became the hated Tories of the frontier of New York--men of whom in some instances, Joseph Brant said, they had been more savage than the savages themselves.

The attitude of the Indians can be best understood if we remember that they had been practically in alliance with the English of New York for a hundred years. When war began between the mother country and the colonies, or between what the Indians called "two brother nations," they were lost in amazement and tried in vain to understand it. Their own history for three hundred years had been one of peace between brother nations. "No taxation without representation" was a principle beyond their comprehension. The men who defied British soldiers in the streets of New York and Boston seemed to them exactly like the French of Canada who in the older wars had stormed English forts on the Northern Frontier, since they were engaged in war with the King of England, and the King was the Indians' powerful friend.

When the Border Wars reached their height, the frontier of New York should have been in a state of tranquility. With Burgoyne's surrender, the center of conflict was to pass away from New York and New England, and was soon to be transferred to Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina. Why then, these Border Wars in New York? In one short sentence, the whole truth may be disclosed. The ministry of George III, after long and laborious efforts, now at last had won the Indians of New York into active sympathy with their cause. For three years they had tried in vain to gain their support, and again and again had held counsels with them, but the net results had been an essentially neutral stand by the Indians.

But let us recapitulate. Soon after the battle of Lexington, Col. Guy Johnson, the official successor of Sir William, convened at his home near Amsterdam, a conference with the Indians, mostly Mohawks, and later, after the result at Bunker Hill had alarmed him anew, fled to Oswego and thence to Canada. Nearly all the Mohawk Indians went with him, as well as a domestic force of about 500 white men, mainly Scotch Highlanders, over whom he had placed in command, Col. John Butler. In July Col. Johnson reached Montreal, Where he had an interview with Sir Frederick Haldemand, who said to the Indians:

"Now is the time for you to help the King. The war has begun. Assist him now, and you will find it to your advantage. Whatever you lose during the war, the King will make up to you when peace returns."

Later in the same month, the Earl of Dartmouth, then a member of the British Cabinet, wrote from London to Col. Johnson, that it was the King's pleasure "That you lose no time in taking such steps as may induce the Indians to take up the hatchet against his Majesty's rebellious subjects in America." This letter was accompanied by a large assortment of presents for the Indians, and Col. Johnson was urged not to fail to use "the utmost diligence and activity" in accomplishing the purpose. Col. Johnson was joined in Canada in the spring of the following year by his brother-in-law, Sir John Johnson, the son and heir of Sir William. Sir John had organized a force known as the Royal Greens, composed of loyalists from the New York frontier, and mainly former tenants and dependents of his father's estate.

The Mohawks, who alone of all the Six Nations had gone to Canada, were slow to yield to the importunities of the English, in so far as taking an active part in the war was concerned. A topic of far deeper interest to them was their title to certain lands in the Mohawk and upper Susquehanna Valleys, concerning which they had failed to secure adjustments for many years. In November, 1775, Joseph Brant with other Indian chiefs, sailed for England with a view to accomplishing a settlement of this dispute. An interview took place with the Colonial Secretary, who subsequently was in direct charge of the war in America, Lord George Germaine. Brant made two speeches before Germaine, outlining the grievances of his people, and it is clear from one of them that Germaine then secured the adhesion of Brant to the English cause by promising to redress the Indian grievances after the war, and to keep for the Indians the favor and protection of the King. Thenceforth the responsibility for Indian activity in the Revolution rests mainly on Germaine. It was to him that Lord Chatham referred in a memorable speech on the American War:

"But, my lord, who is the man, that, in addition to the disgrace and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping knife of the savage? To call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitants of the woods? To delegate to the merciless Indian the defense of disputed right, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment."

When the Burgoyne campaign began, Brant had arrived home. New efforts were now actively put forth to enlist the Indians in British service. A considerable company of them started south with Burgoyne, but they subsequently deserted him before a battle had been fought, or even the American army was discovered. With St. Leger a much larger force started for a descent upon the Mohawk Valley. These were in direct charge of Joseph Brant, and comprised the greater part of the efficient Mohawk force. At Oswego a counsel had been held a few weeks before, in order to enlist in British service the other "nations" of the Iroquois, who were assured that the King was a man of great power and that they should never want for food and clothing if they adhered to him. Rum, it was said, would be "as plentiful as water in Lake Ontario." Presents were made, and a bounty offered on every white man's scalp that they might take. The Senecas notably, and to some extent the Onondagas and Cayugas, thus became fired with ambition to see something of the war.

By the time St. Leger arrived at Oswego, about 700 warriors had been secured. Some of them still remained lukewarm as to fighting, but they were at last drawn into the campaign under an assurance that they need not fight themselves, but might sit by during the battle smoking their pipes, while they saw the redcoats "whip the rebels." The result was, that when a battle was imminent at Oriskany, the Indian's love of war was uppermost, and they became the most active participants in the conflict. They also became proportionately the heaviest losers and returned to their homes, not only with doleful shrieks and yells over their losses, but with a determined purpose to revenge themselves on the defenseless frontier. At what frightful cost to the Mohawk Valley they secured that revenge, the story of the ensuing four years bears ample witness.

But, as I have said, the Indians lost more. When the war was over, they had practically lost everything. Their homes were destroyed and their altars obliterated. England virtually abandoned them to the men whom they had fought as rebels, but who were now victorious patriots, the masters of imperial possessions. Nothing whatever was exacted for them in the treaty of peace. Not even their names were mentioned. Such, at the close of the war, was their pitiful state. Everything in the world that they had, had been given to a cause, not their own--the cause of an ally across the great waters, with whom they were keeping an ancient covenant chain. When at last their wide domain, among whose streams and forests for ages their race had found a home, passed forever from their control, they might have said, with a pride more just than that of Francis I., after the battle of Pavia, "All is lost save honor."

THE ORGANIZATION OF SULLIVAN'S EXPEDITION.

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By Dr. Sherman Williams.

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History has not done justice to the subject in telling the story of Sullivan's expedition. There are few if any equally important events in our history of which the great majority of our people know so little. It was the most important military event of 1779, fully one-third of the Continental army being engaged in it. The campaign was carried on under great difficulties, was brilliantly successful, and executed with but small loss of life. It is possible that the movement would have received more attention from the historians had the loss of life been much greater, even if the results had been of less importance.