(v) Campbell's Annals; Stone's Brant.
Preparations to invade the Indian Country.—General Sullivan, Commander-in-chief.—General James Clinton
fertile country westward of Otsego Lake.
It was supposed that the most effectual method to subdue or weaken them would be to destroy their homes and lay waste their fields, and thus drive them further back into the wilderness toward Lake Erie.
Already the Mohawks had been thrust out of the valley of their name, and their families were upon the domains of the Ca-yugas and Senecas. It was, therefore, determined to make a combined movement upon them of two strong divisions of military, one from Pennsylvania and the other from the north, at a season when their fields and orchards were fully laden with grain and fruits. It was a part of the plan of the expedition to penetrate the country to Niagara, and break up the nest of vipers there.
General Sullivan * was placed in the chief command, and led in person the division that ascended the Susquehanna from Wyoming, while General Clinton ** commanded the forces that penetrated the country from the mouth of the Canajoharie. It was arranged to unite the two divisions at Tioga.
Clinton's troops, fifteen hundred strong, were mustered at Canajoharie on the 15th of June, and on the 17th he commenced the transportation of his bateaux and provisions across the hilly country to Springfield, at the head of Otsego Lake, a distance of more than twenty
* John Sullivan was born in Berwick, Maine, on the 17th of February, 1740. His family emigrated to Ameriea from Ireland in 1723. He was a farmer in his youth, and, after arriving at maturity, he studied law, and established himself in practice in Durham, New Hampshire. He was chosen a delegate to the first Continental Congress. After retiring from that body, he and John Langdon, the speaker of the Provincial Congress of New Hampshire, commanded a small force which seized Fort William and Mary, at Portsmouth, and carried off all the cannon. He was appointed one of the eight brigadiers when the Continental army was organized in 1775, and early in the following year he was made a major general. He superseded Arnold in the command of the American army in Canada in 1776. When General Greene became in on Long Island, he took command of his division, and was made prisoner at the battle fought there in August, 1776. He was exchanged, and took command of General Charles Lee's division in New Jersey after the capture of that officer. In the autumn of 1777 he was engaged in the battles at the Brandywine and Germantown, and in the winter following he took command of the troops on Rhode Island. He besieged Newport in August, 1778, was unsuccessful, and retreated from the island after a severe battle near the north end. He commanded the expedition against the Indians in 1779, and this was the last of his military career. Having offended some of the members of the Board of War, and believing himself ill treated, he resigned his commission in 1779. He was afterward a member of Congress, and, for three years from 1786, was President of New Hampshire. In 1789 he was appointed district judge, whieh office he held until his death, whieh occurred January 23d, 1795.