The Clinton-Sullivan Campaign
Did you know this piece of the Revolutionary War?
When thinking about where to go with this months inquiry, I pulled up the family tree. Where should I look? That’s when I found myself wondering about Isaac Glynn. This is not the first time. I took a look into this family member back in college when I was taking a class about the Revolutionary War. It just so happens that after he moved to Vermont in 1807, he wrote about his experience in the war for a local newspaper. He never finished it, but what he did write was rather eye opening. College, however, was so long ago, that my memory of doing this research was a little fuzzy. I decided to go back to digging and see what I could pull up for his military history. The following is quoted from his obituary in 1835.
At the age of 14 he went into the army as a substitute for his father. Soon after, he enlisted for three years, and then during the war. He was in the Bunker Hill battle, and at the taking of Burgoyne. He was with a hunting party of about 30, near Ft. Ann, when they were taken by surprise, by a tribe of Indians, and only himself and two others escaped alive. The next morning he secreted himself under a log from about sixty Indians, who passed within thirty feet of him. He was in the battle at Trenton, where he had a single combat with a Hessian. While scouting through the village he jumped over a fence into a tan-yard, where the Hessian was loading his pistols, who immediately raised his piece, but it missed fire. Mr. Glynn then shot him through the hip and reloading his gun approached near to him, upon which the Hessian drew his sword and made an attempt to stab him, but was stopped by a ball through the head. He was with Gen. Sullivan through the Indian country, and at the taking of Cornwallis, besides many skirmishes at the close of the war. He received his discharge from Gen. Washington and settled at Tyngsborough, Mass.1
Reading through this was a bit curious, because while I distinctly remember reading his personal account of hiding under a log, I didn’t remember getting the general outline of his military service. Furthermore, I have studied the origins of the war far more than the middle or end. The comment about being “with Gen. Sullivan through the Indian country,” caught my attention.
Initial searches brought me to the American Battlefield Trust’s description of the Battle of Newtown on 29 Aug 1779. “The Battle of Newtown occurred on August 29, 1779, as part of the Sullivan Campaign to put an end to the continuous raids waged against the Patriots by the British and their Iroquois allies. George Washington commissioned General John Sullivan to attack the Iroquois nation and destroy their morale, removing them as a threat in the war.”2 Such a major campaign must show up in history books about the Revolutionary War, surely?
In 1778 [the board of war of the Continental Congress] started planning a major offensive against the Iroquois, and by the following summer over 4,500 soldiers commanded by General John Sullivan prepared to march toward native villages in the heartland of New York state. […] With the Americans directing their offensive exclusively at the Indians, the British provided little assistance; the outnumbered Iroquois were left on their own to defend their homes. On August 29 600 Iroquois warriors tried to stop the invasion at Newtown, but they were unprepared to face a modern, heavily equipped army. […] For the remainder of the “Sullivan expedition,” as it was called, the Iroquois harassed the invaders with sniper fire but offered no organized resistance.3
The focus of the campaign was on destroying housing and crops. This only made the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Mohawks more dependent on the British. But it also made them angry and did not solve the problem that the Continental Congress and Gen. Washington had been trying to solve: it just further gave them a reason to fight against the newly forming country.4
The National Park Service provides a pretty robust rundown of the full campaign on their website, linked to Fort Stanwix National Monument.5
While this is wholly new information for me, it has always been clear to me how problematic my ancestor’s account of encounters with native peoples was. His involvement in this campaign even more so. I’ll be continuing research into this campaign to better understand it, and looking into what we have for educational resources regarding it. This piece of the Revolutionary War is very rarely talked about, and that should change.
“Clipping from a Haverhill, N. H. paper: For Zion’s Herald”. Found in the personal papers of Elizabeth Stewart Bloxsom Barber. Appears to be the obituary, dated 28 Feb 1836.
Newtown Battle Facts and Summary | American Battlefield Trust (battlefields.org) https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/newtown
Ray Raphael, A People’s History of the American Revolution: How Common People Shaped the Fight for Independence. (New York: The New Press, 2016), 254-55.
Raphael, 257.
The Clinton-Sullivan Campaign of 1779 (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/the-clinton-sullivan-campaign-of-1779.htm
Housekeeping Notes:
Thank you for taking the time to read my historical inquiries each month! While I love writing up each of these and spending time researching each topic, I’m also curious what you are interested in. Let me know if there is a topic that you are interested in or have a question about!
On that note: There is even more writing available on my website, www.foxtrotfirefly.com! There I share educational resources related to history and civics, parenting adventures, museum thoughts, book reviews, and links to some of my favorite books. Cheers!