AMERICAN RETALIATION ON THE INDIANS, ETC.
During this year the Americans took a terrible revenge on their old enemies, the Indians. At the head of 5000 men General Sullivan undertook an expedition against the Indian tribes beyond the Mohawk River and upon the upper course of the Susquehanna. In the month of August he encountered a body of eight hundred savages and two hundred whites, under Brandt, Butler, and others acquainted with the art of war; whom, after a bloody conflict, he defeated. Sullivan then penetrated into the very heart of their country, where his followers destroyed houses, corn-fields, gardens, fruit-trees, and everything that would afford sustenance to man or beast. Such were the positive orders of congress, and Sullivan proved himself to be their willing agent in the evil work. Congress passed a vote approving his conduct, but Washington, whose exertions were crippled by the expedition, in consequence of the great force employed in it, inveighed bitterly against it, and in the end Sullivan retired from public service in disgust. While this terrible chastisement was inflicted on the tribes northward of Pennsylvania and New York, similar expeditions were Kent out from the southern provinces for the same purpose. On the other hand, whilst the Americans were spreading devastation and laying waste the towns of their savage enemies, the Indians, whose appetite for revenge was whetted by their disasters, made incursions into the provincial settlements, and made severe retaliation.