[1402] Washington's letters in Sparks, and in Mag. Amer. Hist., Feb., 1879, p. 142.
[1403] Ryerson in his Loyalists of America, etc., devotes a chapter to the Sullivan campaign, which he terms "Revenge for Wyoming." He confounds Zebulon Butler with William Butler, which is not perhaps to be wondered at, for Campbell and Stone did the same thing, although the fact that there were two English officers of the name of Butler engaged in the border wars on the English side, and two American officers of the same name opposed to them in the same campaigns, and the further fact that at Wyoming the forces on each side were commanded by a Butler, were warnings enough that especial scrutiny should be observed in distinguishing these persons.
[1404] General Stryker (p. 7) gives Clinton's force at 1,700, and Sullivan's at 3,500. He states that his account was compiled from twenty published (by typographical error, the compositor has put thirty) and five unpublished diaries. He suggests that Sullivan's delay may possibly have been a part of Washington's strategy. T. C. Amory shares this opinion.
Sullivan's fight at Newtown is thus described by H. C. Goodwin in Pioneer History of Cortland Co., etc.: "The contest was one which has but few parallels. The enemy yielded inch by inch, and when finally forced at the point of the bayonet to leave their intrenchments and flee, terror-stricken, to the mountain gorges or almost impassable lagoons, the ground they had occupied was found literally drenched with the blood of the fallen victims." Accounts of varying length are given in other local histories: Delaware County and Border Wars of New York, etc., by Jay Gould (Roxbury, 1856); Centennial History of Erie County, New York, by Crisfield Johnson (Buffalo, 1876); Annals of Binghamton and of the Country connected with it, from he earliest settlement, by J. B. Wilkinson (Binghamton, 1840); History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham's Purchase, and Morris reserve, etc., by O. Turner (Rochester, 1851); J. M. Parker's Rochester (1884, p. 236); Ketchum's Buffalo (ii. 318); Campbell's Tryon County; Simms's Frontiersmen, etc.
There is a monograph on the campaign by A. T. Norton,—Hist. of Sullivan's Campaign (1879),—and special chapters in Dawson (i. 537), and accounts in the more general works, like Stone's Brant; Ryerson's Loyalists (ii. 108), examining Stone's account; O. W. B. Peabody's Life of Sullivan; Hamilton's Republic of the U. S.; some local traditions in Timothy Dwight's Travels (iv. 204). Gen. J. Watts De Peyster has some essays on the campaign in the N. Y. Mail, Aug. 26, 29, and Sept. 15, 1879.
There are various letters respecting the campaign in the Gansevoort Papers, as copied by Sparks (Sparks MSS., vol. lx.). Cf. the autobiography of Philip van Cortlandt in Mag. of Amer. Hist., ii. 289, and William M. Willett's Narrative of the military actions of Col. Marinus Willett (N. Y., 1831).
[1405] The New Jersey Historical Society has a MS. order-book kept by Lieutenant-Colonel Barber, of the Third New Jersey Regiment, who was also appointed deputy adjutant-general for the Western army. The last entry made is dated Sept. 6, 1779. In Hammersly, and in the roster compiled by General Stryker, Francis Barber is put down as lieutenant-colonel of this regiment. This order-book has been attributed by some to George C. Barber. The library of Cornell University owns one kept by Thomas Gee, quartermaster's sergeant in Col. John Lamb's regiment of artillery, which contains the orders of the day issued at Fort Sullivan from Aug. 27, 1779, to Oct. 2, 1779 also the return march to Easton, the last entry being Oct. 26, 1779. My knowledge of these MS. order-books was derived from Gen. John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y. I am indebted to Hon. Steuben Jenkins for details concerning the Barber order-book, and to Professor Moses Coit Tyler, of Cornell University, for a description of the Gee order-book. Dr. F. B. Hough edited the Order-book of Capt. Leonard Bleeker, major of brigade in the early part of the expedition under Gen. James Clinton against the Indians in the Campaign of 1779 (N. Y., 1865). On Clinton's share in the expedition, see W. W. Campbell's Services of James Clinton (N.Y. Hist. Soc., 1839); Chaplain Gano's Biog. Memoirs (1806). For a portrait of Clinton, see Irving's Washington, 4o ed., v., and Lossing's Field-Book, ii. 112.
[1406] Craft, May 9, 1879, had already furnished a list of journals of the campaign, and had appealed to the public for further information (Penna. Mag. of Hist., iii. pp. 348, 349).
[1407] See note E, at end of chapter.—Ed.
[1408] The journals thus used are Erkuries Beatty's, covering Clinton's movements; Thomas Grant's and George Grant's, covering the march up the east side of Lake Cayuga; and Henry Dearborn's, for the march up the west side of the same lake.