ASSEMBLING FOR THE GREAT MARCH
Whom should Washington select for so difficult and doubtful a task? The
chosen leader must make an expedition, as into a foreign country,
through the unmapped and unsurveyed wilderness of Western New York,
against a foe ever ready by wiles and cunning to ambuscade the invader.
It might be, as in many a dismal case before, that his men would be shot
by invisible marksmen. Who would dare to try to feed an army of regular
troops with no base of supplies? With the precedent of Braddock’s
failure and bloody Oriskany before him, who aspired to lead? It is no
wonder that when Gates was offered the command he declined it at once,
much to Washington’s vexation. The commander-in-chief then summoned
General Sullivan. This descendant of Irish heroes was born at Durham, in
New Hampshire, and grew up to be a stalwart American, a vigorous and
far-seeing patriot. Just as soon, in 1774, as Great Britain forbade the
importation of military stores to America, Sullivan knew there would be
war.
Collecting a body of eager young men, he drilled them in military
tactics. In December, 1774, he attacked Fort William and Mary, at
Newcastle, at the mouth of the Piscataqua river, and took the place in
daylight. In spite of the fire of the garrison, he entered without
losing a man, and pulled down the British flag. This was the first
hostile act of the kind in the war of the Revolution. He carried the
cannon and powder to Durham, where it was stored partly in a barn and
partly in the cellar of the Congregational church edifice, on the site
of which the monument reared to his honor now stands. The powder reached
Bunker Hill in time to fill the horns of the militia. Indeed, this was
about the only supply that our men behind the breastworks and rail fence
had. Sullivan commanded at Boston and on Long Island, and fought at
Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown and in Rhode Island.
Up to this time, 1779, the French Alliance had not amounted to anything,
and there were but fifteen thousand regular Continental soldiers fit for
duty. Yet so important did Washington consider this expedition to
destroy the Iroquois power that he detached one-third of his whole
force, or 5000 picked Continentals. In its organization the army of
chastisement consisted of four brigades, a regiment of artillery and
eight companies of riflemen, making about five thousand men, with about
two thousand pack horses and twenty-five hundred cattle and two fleets
of boats for river service, with stores and ammunition. The New
Hampshire brigade, then encamped at Redding, Conn., and the New Jersey
brigade at Elizabeth, N. J., with the Pennsylvania regiments, were
ordered to march to Easton, and thence to move on to Wyoming, from which
point the stores and cannon were to follow the army until they should
reach Tioga Point, where is now Athens. Here they were to be joined by
the New York brigade from Schenectady.
The Chemung and the Susquehanna, flowing from the east and the west out
of the heart of the Indian country, approach very near to each other at
Tioga Point, enclosing a pretty peninsula shaped like an arrow head.
Further down they meet and unite in one stream, the lordly Susquehanna,
on which canoes could reach the cities on the Chesapeake Bay or any of
the rivers flowing into it. Tioga Point was the Southern Door of the
Long House of the Iroquois confederacy, and here, as a base of supplies,
a diamond-shaped fort with a block house at each corner, with hospital
and barracks, was to be built. Upon this the army could fall back in
case of defeat, and here be re-victualed on their return march.
In the rivers, nature provided the only highways, though the Iroquois
during centuries of war, trade and travel had made many trails. From
Tioga Point the Continentals were to march up the Chemung Valley and
thence into the wonderfully fertile lake country of Central New York.
Along the ridge overlooking Seneca Lake they would pass, in order to
strike the Tory headquarters and center of supplies at the lake’s
northern end, where then stood a big Indian village, and now not far
away is the city of Geneva. Thence westwardly they were to move to
Canandaigua and along the great trail at the southern end of the smaller
lakes, Canadice, Hemlock and Conesus, into the valley of the Genesee.
Possibly they might be able to reach the British fort at Niagara.
Indeed, in the great virgin wilderness of Central and Western New York
there was no other way of advance, save through the river valleys and
along Indian trails. When leaving the former and advancing through the
forests, it would be necessary for the axemen to chop their way. In miry
places the pioneers must cut down trees, lay the logs and make corduroy
roads. Swamps must be filled and the smaller streams bridged. In many
parts of the country to be traversed there were indeed large open spaces
where the cornfields of the Indians furnished stores of food, while
their gardens yielded, as our men discovered, twelve kinds of
vegetables. Yet in the main, the army would have to march through a
country covered with timber and brush wood.
A large force of axemen, pioneers, surveyors and road-makers would be
necessary, especially as the artillery must be carried along, for
Washington, being himself a backwoodsman and an Indian fighter, knew the
persuasive power of cannon with the Indians. Brave as the painted
warriors undoubtedly were, they preferred fighting behind logs and trees
under cover. They objected, most decidedly, to stand up in ranks and
coolly keep their places in the presence of howitzers that could tear
them to pieces, not only by a frontal attack, but by sending shells to
burst among and behind them. The Indian had physical stamina, but he
lacked moral courage. Washington knowing this, ordered Colonel Proctor
to take nine pieces of artillery and his regiment of three hundred
artillerists.
Of the guns, two were howitzers of five and a half inch caliber that
could throw bombs, two were six, and four were three pounders. Then
there was a Coehorn mortar, so light that it could be borne by four men.
This diminutive implement of war proved to be very effective, being
usually posted in the advance and easily carried over hill and valley.
Mounted on an iron frame, with hickory legs, it could easily be “laid”
or aimed at any angle. After a discharge it always kicked itself over,
and, because of its long spindle-like limbs, the soldiers called it “the
grasshopper.” Along with Proctor’s (now the Second United States)
Artillery went “a band of music,” that is, a fife and drum corps. In
all, there were about two hundred musicians with their drum and fife
majors. The lively tunes, such as “The White Cockade,” “The Tall
Grenadier,” and “Derry Down,” greatly inspirited our men, while at the
solemn burials in the forest, “Roslin Castle” was the usual dirge.
Each regiment had its chaplain, and until the advance from Tioga Point
in battle array there were frequent services for worship and preaching
at the camps.
Washington’s plan was to have a right and a left wing to the main body.
While Sullivan advanced through the Susquehanna country, Clinton’s New
Yorkers, with part of the Sixth Massachusetts, were to move up the
Mohawk river and valley with two field pieces and a fleet of two hundred
boats. At Canajoharie he was to load his stores and boats on wagons,
each drawn by eight horses, and march over the hills to Otsego Lake,
thence to descend the outlet and enter the Susquehanna at Chenango Point
where Binghamton now stands. Floating past Owego, he was to join
Sullivan at Tioga Point, where the Chemung and Susquehanna unite. This
programme was very successfully carried out.
The left wing, at Pittsburg, was led by Colonel Daniel Brodhead, a
Continental veteran, afterwards Surveyor-General of Pennsylvania. He had
assembled about six hundred men, including some friendly Delawares and
Cherokees, with one month’s provisions, and started August 11,
transporting his cattle and pack horses to Mahoning. Entering the
country of the Mingoes and the Muncey tribes in Western Pennsylvania,
and the Seneca towns in Southwestern New York, he desolated their houses
and corn fields.
“The parings of scalps and the hair of our countrymen at every warrior’s
camp on the path,” wrote Colonel Brodhead to Washington, “are new
inducements to revenge.” Although his men on their return, September 14,
were bare-footed and in rags, and had had no pay for nine months, he
offered to lead an expedition to Detroit. Of two soldiers whom he sent
to General Sullivan, he heard nothing. “I apprehend,” he wrote, “they
have fallen into the enemy’s hands.” Dressing many of his men like
Indians, he sent out various parties that devastated the region, and
made it for a time uninhabitable by the savages. Very few men on our
side were lost, and not a soldier but these two fell into the enemy’s
hands.
Although Brodhead’s “Allegheny expedition,” or “Diversion in favor of
General Sullivan’s expedition,” failed to make direct communication with
the main body of Continentals, yet his was a vital part of the great
expedition of 1779. It aided powerfully in that series of blows which
shattered the Iroquois confederacy. By keeping probably five hundred
Senecas from Sullivan’s front, Brodhead helped to toll the death knell
of savagery on the North American continent.