To this division, so far as the provinces of New Hampshire and Massachusetts were concerned, the New Hampshire officials objected. Their proportion as a rule being one hundred, to Massachusetts, 1,000. They were informed in reply that Massachusetts had raised four regiments, respectively, for Governor Shirley, Sir William Pepperell, and two for the Nova Scotia campaign, and in justice, this fact ought to be taken into consideration.
New Hampshire retorted in turn, that, while willing to give Massachusetts credit for raising the four regiments named, their province furnished more than half of the men; a circumstance similar to that which occurred twenty years later at Bunker Hill, where New Hampshire furnished more than one half of the men, and Massachusetts took nearly all the honor. A compromise was effected by reducing the number from 600 to 500. It can be seen from this that the provinces of New York and New Hampshire were in close touch in those early days, and the record made in the Civil War by the descendants of the men who fought at Fort Edward and Fort William Henry, was fully equal to that made by their ancestors, as testified to by Sir William Johnson. To the white settlers around him, he was always a kind friend as well as a wise counselor.
To his subordinates, he was a generous and liberal superior. When appointed to take command of the expedition in question, and while negotiating with the authorities of New Hampshire and Massachusetts for the appointment of white officers for the Indian troops, he insisted that as the service would be very severe, they must receive the same compensation as the officers in the regular service, and required what he called “solid satisfaction” instead of a verbal agreement as a guarantee for the payment of the same. He was surrounded on his estate by many of his own countrymen, and lived in the same style, so far as it could be done, as those of his rank did in Ireland. It is fair to presume that the Gaelic tongue was not unknown in his family, for one of his daughters was alluded to as “Sheilia,” and Sir Guy Johnson, his nephew and successor, was credited with being the possessor of a “genuine rich Irish brogue.”
His son John succeeded to his estate and title. As in the case of Colonel Dongan, Great Britain did not possess on the American continent a more loyal or devoted subject or a more faithful officer than it had in Sir William Johnson, and both, as the records show, in blood were Irish of the Irish. It was not his fortune to live when the struggle began between the colonies and Great Britain for he died on June 24, 1774.
On Dec. 14, 1774, barely six months from the death of Johnson, the first rumble of the guns of the Revolution was heard. On that date an armed body of determined men, led by Major John Sullivan and Capt. John Langdon, stormed Fort William and Mary, at Newcastle, near Portsmouth, N. H. The garrison was captured, the munitions of war taken, and in broad daylight, the British flag was hauled down, and, so far as New Hampshire was concerned, remained down forever. This was the first overt act against the Royal government in the thirteen colonies. It was four months before the conflict at Concord and Lexington, and six months before the battle of Bunker Hill.
The powder captured at Newcastle was put to good use at Bunker Hill, and many of the men who handled it in both places had served their apprenticeship as soldiers under Johnson during the various Indian campaigns. John Sullivan was the grandson of Major Philip O’Sullivan, one of the defenders of Limerick, who went with his regiment to France after the surrender. His family was one of the most distinguished in the south of Ireland. His father was Owen O’Sullivan, who was a teacher in New Hampshire for over fifty years. He contributed four sons, all of whom became commissioned officers, to the Continental army. Two of these later became governors, respectively, of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. John Sullivan, when the troubles first began, was an attorney with an established reputation and with a lucrative practice. On the authority of John Adams, he was worth ten thousand pounds when he cast his lot with the advocates of independence. He held the commission of major in one of the Provincial regiments.
He had seen no active service, but possessed a good theoretical military education from a close study of all available works relating to the art of war. His ability was recognized by his associates. He was chosen delegate from his town to the first Provincial congress of New Hampshire, and was selected by that body to represent his native province in the first Continental congress which met in Philadelphia in 1774. He was reappointed January 25, 1775. He was the first person chosen to represent New Hampshire in Congress, and his name heads the first roll of delegates to that body. He was one of the eight brigadier-generals appointed by Congress in 1775, and in less than a year from the date of his commission was promoted to major-general.
His first appointment came to him for his leadership at Newcastle, and his promotion for the ability displayed in leading Montgomery’s defeated army back from Canada, without, it is said, the loss of a man or a gun. The Royal government recognized his ability as it feared his influence. Realizing who was to be held responsible for the storming of the fort at Newcastle, Peter Livius, a Royalist refugee, who had been chief justice of New Hampshire, wrote him in June, 1777:
“You were the first man in active rebellion, and drew with you the province you live in. You will be one of the first sacrifices to the resentment and justice of the government. Your family will be ruined, and you must die with ignominy.” This was the man to whom Washington turned for a leader when Congress determined, in 1779, to organize an expedition for the destruction of the Six Nations. When the Revolution began the colonial authorities sent delegates to the great council of the Iroquois, to secure, if possible, their neutrality in the coming contest. There was good reason to expect it, for the Provincials had fought with them and for them against the French for years. The confederacy could muster at this time about 2,000 warriors. The delegates returned, confident that an arrangement had been effected, but, as subsequent events proved, any action by the Indians to that end was revoked, and fully 1,200 of them were secured for the British service.
It is not necessary, neither was it the intention, to describe here the events occurring on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania during the years 1777 and 1778. The terrible atrocities perpetrated on the defenceless settlers by Indians, Tories, British regulars, and refugees, whose passions were inflamed with hatred against the struggling patriots, were a disgrace to civilization and a foul blot on the British government, which sought to crush the Revolution by such horrible methods. A well-known New York writer, a descendant of some of those who suffered at Cherry Valley, while describing the massacres by the Indians said: “But, after all, I blame much more the English monarch who incited the fiendish warfare, than the red men, who took his gold and fought after their fashion.”