By Dr. Sherman Williams.
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.
The chief result was the practical destruction of the Iroquois Confederacy. While the Six Nations were very active on the frontier the following year, the Confederacy as an organization had received its death blow.
The massacres at Wyoming, along the New York frontier, especially in the Mohawk, Schoharie and Susquehanna valleys, had so aroused the people that the Continental Congress felt called upon to take action and on the 27th of February, 1779, passed a resolution directing Washington to take effective measures to protect the frontier.
It was decided to send a strong expedition against the Iroquois settlements, and utterly destroy their towns and crops, more especially in the territory of the Senecas and Cayugas. It was no small task to equip a large force and traverse an almost unknown, and altogether unmapped, wilderness which was wholly without roads, in the face of an active and vigilant as well as relentless foe.
The command of the expedition was tendered to General Gates because of his rank. In reply to the tender of the command General Gates wrote to Washington as follows: "Last night I had the honor of your Excellency's letter. The man who undertakes the Indian service should enjoy health and strength, requisites I do not possess. It therefore grieves me that your Excellency should offer me the only command to which I am entirely unequal. In obedience to your command I have forwarded your letter to General Sullivan."
Washington had evidently anticipated that Gates would not accept the command as he had enclosed in his letter to him a communication that was to be forwarded to Sullivan in case Gates declined the service. It was this letter to which Gates referred in his reply to Washington. No doubt it was fortunate for the country that the command of the expedition devolved upon some other person than Gates.
Washington felt somewhat hurt at the tone of the letter he received from Gates, and in a communication to the President of Congress he said, "My letter to him on the occasion I believe you will think was conceived in very candid and polite terms, and merited a different answer from the one given to it."
In his instructions to Sullivan Washington wrote as follows: