Commander of this most difficult expedition. Washington wrote of him
at this time—and I love to quote of this man who has always been my
historical ideal the words of the greatest mind in war and peace this
country has ever known—Washington wrote of him at this time: ‘He is
active, spirited and zealously attached to the cause. His wants are
common to us all. He wants experience to move upon a grand scale, for
the limited and contracted knowledge which any of us have in military
matters stands in very little stead.’
“But Washington’s most competent biographer, Washington Irving,
declares with emphasis and truth: ‘This want was overbalanced on the
part of General Sullivan by sound judgment, some acquaintance with men
and books, and an enterprising genius.’
“It is a source of profound regret to the thoughtful student of
American history that General Sullivan was not left in charge to work
out the problem of the Canadian expedition. True, he was only
thirty-six years of age and had had but limited experience, but his
successful combinations of a few years later leave it more than
possible that, with him as a leader, the whole of Canada might have
been added to the United States even at that early day, and the
Revolution there terminated in half the time it finally lasted.
“This was not destined so to be, for Congress somewhat hastily decided
to commit the command of the Northern army to the much older but, as
many of us now believe, far less competent hands of General Gates. I
should not do justice to General Sullivan’s character if I did not
concede that this replacement caused him some hurt, and I might say
grief, but his magnanimous and instant efforts in the very moment of
his return from Canada to serve his country by taking up as temporary
Commander the perilous work on Long Island which General Greene had
been compelled by illness to lay down, showed the soldier, the
gentleman and patriot as no less trying circumstances could.
“In the midst of the carnage of the disastrous battle of Long Island,
Sullivan was taken prisoner. At once paroled and soon after exchanged,
we find him in December, 1776, hastening to join General Washington.
“Let me now turn from the track of this all too historical resumé to
call your attention to the fact that, when Lord Howe paroled General
Sullivan, desirous then of accelerating and possibly terminating the
Rebellion without severance with the colonies, he selected John
Sullivan as the honored representative of the British Government to
convey his message to George Washington, and General Sullivan, under
his own parole, brought from Lord Howe to George Washington the
propositions which Lord Howe felt he could entrust to no more worthy
hands than those of this man who was the absolute and the untiring
enemy of Great Britain. That is a testimonial to General Sullivan
whose place no monument can take.
“In December, 1776, he hastened to join General Washington. On the
morning of the attack of Trenton, after a night of storm and cold so
bitter that some of his men were frozen to death and many of his guns
were rendered wet and useless, he reported to Washington the defective
condition of his muskets, as was his duty, but was ordered to advance
and charge, which he did with so much effect that his regiment was
really the first in action at the lower end of the town.
“Next we find him, September 11th, 1777, on the disastrous but
glorious field of Brandywine, every duty discharged with promptness,
cool courage and sound discretion and judgment, and even in the
closing hours of that struggle his was the foremost figure in the
desperate center of the fray.
“Brandywine and its disappointing finish was scarcely over before the
conflict at Germantown involved him with his division in another
desperate struggle, where an unfortunate and needless delay by General
Knox and the sudden rising of a dense and impenetrable fog snatched
from his hands a victory earned and well earned by every exhibition of
soldierly quality a commander could give. And even in the hour of
keenest personal disappointment, balked of a victory he had richly
earned, a victory which would have set his name ringing around the
world as its chief author and cause, his thoughts were not of himself,
but of the personal danger to Washington to whom he gave the lifelong
devotion which only lives in the breasts of noble men.
“Without a pang or plaint of his own peril and disappointment, he
writes: ‘I saw with great concern our brave Commander-inChief exposing
himself to the hottest fire of the enemy in such a manner that regard
for my country obliged me to ride to him and beg him to retire.’ And
in the longer account of which these words are a part, my friends, not
a suggestion can be found or guessed of the added peril which the
writer himself freely braved in the efforts to remove his Chief from
danger.
“This hasty and inadequate resumé of his service in the first two
years of the Revolution brings us to the great military operation of
which he was the chief and on which will always rest much of his
fame—the investment of Rhode Island and the series of movements of
which the State and coast of Rhode Island formed the picturesque
theater.
“The enterprise was a favorite one with Washington, who hoped, indeed,
that it would emphasize the French alliance at the outset by an
overwhelming and successful effect of an attack on the British army
almost within the sound of our voices. Its success was very dear to
Washington’s heart, and for it he chose three officers perhaps more
closely in his confidence and affection than any others in the
Revolutionary Army. Sullivan was in chief command, with Greene and
Lafayette as equal subordinate assistants, each having a division
comprising as nearly as possible half of the army.
“The plan of operations had been agreed upon between Washington and
the French Commander, and the conflict was laid out to be, as it
should have been, the first great effort of the allied French and
American forces against the British army of invasion.
“I am speaking to an audience whose youngest members should and
probably do know more of the details of these military movements than
I can ever hope to know.
“From first to last, down to the finest particular of necessary
prevision, General Sullivan was more than ready. All that a commander
could do to insure success, he had accomplished so well that the only
criticism made of his actions was that he had seized the British works
opposite the north end of the island one day ahead of time. At this,
the French General who had expected a joint attack to be made the next
day professed to believe his notions of military etiquette had been
shocked, but, as no harm resulted and a distinct gain in time had been
effected, he had small foundation for his complaint, which was soon
practically abandoned.
“There had been an excellent opportunity to make the joint undertaking
a magnificent success. If, as is now apparent, the attack had been
made in the latter part of July as it might easily have been in view
of Sullivan’s perfect preparations and the presence of the French
fleet, it is probable that the war would have reached a complete and
glorious close almost within sight of the ground upon which we stand
today. Postponed as it was from day to day until August 10th, the
British were given time to reinforce their fleet, hasten it to
Newport, and there engage the French fleet in dilatory manœuvering
which used up days of precious time and completely dissipated all hope
of substantial assistance from the French warships. The expected, or
that which should have been expected by the naval commanders, soon
happened; many of us who have spent much time around here would have
expected it to happen.
“About the twentieth of August, one of those storms for which the
region of Point Judith is famous, set in with almost unexampled fury.
Land and water forces were alike put out of condition for offensive or
defensive operations. The French fleet limped away to Boston to refit,
and Sullivan, deeply chagrined at the utter failure of his naval
auxiliaries to render any assistance, set to work to protect his army
and extricate it from a position made perilous by the departure of its
entire marine support and the consequent desertion of most of his
militia.
“The story of his great achievement in retiring his entire force in
the face of a vastly superior English army, of the masterly retreat
covered by his most skilfully selected position at Butts Hill, as I
believe it is called—as to its proper name, I shall not attempt to
correct a Rhode Island audience—a retreat effected finally so
completely that not a man was left behind and not a single article
lost, while, in the course of that retreat, signal and marked
punishment was inflicted upon the British army, will ever read like a
romance of model leadership, and, if General John Sullivan had no
other memory, my friends, than of what he did within a radius of sixty
miles of this Capitol, his fame could be no less great and no less
enduring than it is, and, what is more, would be richly deserved.
“Thus briefly, as becomes my scanty time, I have sketched the work of
John Sullivan to the close of 1778. I have not made the motive of my
story clear if it has not already appeared that this man was greater
in the hour of undeserved disappointment than most men in the
exaltation of victory. Again and again, the fruits of deserved and
brilliant success were held to his lips, only to be dashed away by the
folly of the foibles of some weaker spirit necessarily entangled in
his plans. Yet never for an instant did he yield to the despair and
mortification which would have sunk less noble souls. Each
disappointment seemed to but nerve him to stronger and more brilliant
efforts. And herein, my friends, to my mind, is illustrated and should
be made prominent one grand characteristic which we have taken from
the noble Irish race. The patience under disappointment which Major
General John Sullivan illustrates, the patience under disappointment
which again and again was manifestly the fault of men to whom he never
gave a word of rebuke or complaint, the steadfast iron determination
with which he set to work instantly to repair the ruin that some,
associated in common with him, had wrought, is the brightest leaf in
the chaplet which America has put upon his grave.
“It is an honor to belong to that grand old race, aye, even to hold
one drop of Irish blood in your veins, but, good friends all, with or
without it, I am proud to testify to what Irish friendship, Irish
loyalty and the matchless Irish courage can do. No man ever knew as I
have known what Irish friendship is, no man ever knew as I have known
what Irish hospitality is, no man ever knew as I have known what Irish
loyalty and patience is, without bowing in humble respect to it,
whether he drew his blood from France or from Russia, from America or
from England, each one of which owes Ireland a measureless debt. And
all who love truth in history and gratitude for priceless gifts
received, will urge your Society onward every day and hour you labor
in the work you have so well begun till every heroic son of this great
line who has helped to build the fabric of American liberty shall have
his rightful place in history and the laurels he has fairly won.
“I have now come to that which, in justice to Major General John
Sullivan, I think should be related. I shall ask you to turn from the
beautiful State in which you live to that far off region of beauty in
which I have the honor to hold my home. In 1778 occurred in Wyoming
that awful massacre whose horrors yet ring in the history of our
country and in the hearts of the descendants of those who lost part of
their families, who lost limb, who lost health, who were maimed, in
that most horrible of savage invasions. Early in 1779 Congress,
representing a country which had been shocked to the limit by those
terrible outrages, passed a resolution of unlimited vigor, calling
upon Washington to arrange for their punishment. It was suggested at
first to Washington that General Gates should have the command, but
Washington, whose knowledge of Indian warfare was complete, wanted
General Sullivan, and to that officer was entrusted the conduct of
that great fight.
“In the history of Indian warfare in this country there is nothing
more successful, more thoroughly creditable to the commanding officer,
than the history of what General John Sullivan and his command did in
the then wilderness reaching from Wyoming to the Genesee; and today,
think of him what you may, build to him tablets as beautiful as this,
recall his manifestly skilful work in the State where you stand, and
you cannot accord to him one half the veneration and the love which
the citizens of the counties around me, now a million in number, feel
towards General John Sullivan for the work which opened up that
magnificent line of valleys unequalled in their fertility, and whose
line of bordering hills to this day, one hundred and thirty years
after, is resounding with thanksgiving and praise for what General
John Sullivan did there.
“Every morning when I look out of my window in the far distance I can
see in the battlefield which decided the ownership of that region a
tall and stately monument built by private subscription to General
Sullivan, to commemorate his work on that bloody day, and just below
it stands a magnificent marker of granite, placed there by the Sons of
the American Revolution to mark the very center of the conflict which
took those valleys away from the possession of the Indians and turned
them over to civilization and happy and peaceful occupation; and those
who know the iron will and determined character of John Sullivan know,
as we do, that when he got through with the Indians and their
worthless white associates they had no more thirst for blood. Sullivan
served notice on them and carried it out that if there was any more
blood shed in that part of the country the Indians would furnish the
blood.
“So perhaps, in an humble way, I have alluded to that feature of
Sullivans’ life—his closing campaign, which identifies him with
Northern Pennsylvania and Central New York.
“With the close of the campaign of 1779, which may be said to have
terminated his military career, General Sullivan resigned his
commission and retired from the army. The constant strain of five
years almost constantly in active and perilous service had wrecked a
constitution never of the strongest, and he felt he had given all of
his life and strength to the cause of Independence.
“His resignation was accepted with profound regret, although it was
universally felt that the reasons for his retirement were imperative.
Although he lived for fifteen years after his resignation, his health
was not robust and he died in 1795 at the early age of fifty-four,
universally admired and lamented. He had, however, no sooner left the
army than his brilliant legal and forensic talent was seized upon, for
such services to the country as his health would permit, in the
legislative halls of the nation, the executive chair of his own State,
and later upon the Federal Bench.
“In 1780–1781 he was a delegate to Congress. In 1782 he was appointed
the Attorney-General of New Hampshire and was re-appointed to that
office on the adoption of the new constitution of that State in 1784.
“In 1786–1787 he was President and Chief Magistrate of the State of
New Hampshire, an office equivalent to that of Governor at the present
time.
“In 1788 he was speaker of the House of Representatives of New
Hampshire and President of the Convention that ratified the
Constitution of the United States.
“In 1789 he was a presidential elector and voted for General
Washington for President of the United States, and in March of the
same year he was elected Chief Magistrate of the State for the third
time.
“Later in 1789 he was appointed by Washington, his affectionate friend
and admirer during his whole life, as Judge of the United States
District Court of New Hampshire, an office which he held with honor to
himself and the Judiciary until his death in January, 1795.
“I have thus briefly sketched the outline of a life which deserves an
autobiography perfect in every detail and of the highest grade.
History shows this man in more varied and brilliant lines than almost
any character in Revolutionary annals. Consider him, my friends, as a
young lawyer, prompt, keen, resourceful and competent, and you have a
model of early professional life. Mark him as an active officer of the
line, reckless of danger, ready to dare all that could be dared,
willing to do all that he had dared. Mark him again as a commanding
general, reliable, faithful, prudent and dauntless, unswerved by
passion, unstained by chagrin, unmarred by envy and uninfluenced by
clamor, steady and well-poised in the hour of peril or in a moment of
undeserved injustice. Consider him again, my friends, when after years
of fierce combat he is chosen for the command of such an expedition as
I have indicated, which needs great skill in combination and with such
resources in provision for the needs of a frontier army that his
success seems impossible.
[Illustration:
HON. THOMAS H. CARTER.
United States Senator from Montana.
One of the Founders of the Society.
]
“And here let me digest for a moment words which, in my own hearing,
fell from the lips of the distinguished General Slocum, speaking of
General Sullivan’s great Indian campaign in the presence of General
Sherman thirty years ago on the one hundreth anniversary of the same.
General Slocum said:
“‘As I have sat listening to the speeches today, I have drawn a
parallel between those two expeditions. Sherman’s march was the longer
of the two, but, in many respects, he had greater advantages. While he
had a great distance to travel he had roads made for him by the enemy;
he had his produce brought by mule trains; while General Sullivan made
his march through trackless woods and carried his provisions upon the
backs of his soldiers. Sherman had good arms; General Sullivan had the
old flintlock musket. But after all, the spirit which prompted both
expeditions was the same. It was bold and daring, and, although there
was no great loss of life in either, yet the results of both were far
greater than many battles in which lives by the thousand and tens of
thousands were lost.’
“And on the same occasion—it is my excuse for quotations, my friends,
that I want you to hear these words from two of the greatest Generals
we have ever known—on the same occasion, remembering then, as we
remember today, how unjustly General Sullivan was at one time
criticised for the harshness of his treatment of the Indians on the
Susquehanna expedition, remembering, too, that he suffered these
criticisms in silence rather than to lay the blame upon his beloved
Chief, Washington, who had given him the orders which were condemned,
I quote from the words of General Sherman, spoken also in my hearing
on the same occasion:
“‘Our fathers, when they first landed upon this continent, came to
found an empire, based upon new principles, and all opposition to it
had to pass away, whether it were English or French on the north, or
Indians on the west; and no one knew it better than our father,
Washington. He gave General Sullivan orders to come here and punish
the Six Nations for their cruel massacre in the valley of Wyoming,
and to make it so severe that it would not occur again. And he did
so. General Sullivan obeyed his orders like a man and like a
soldier, and the result was from that time forward your people
settled up these beautiful valleys around here, and look at their
descendants here, a million almost. If it had not been for General
Sullivan and the men who followed him from Easton, and Clinton’s
forces that came across from Albany, probably some of you would not
have been here today.’
“I still read: ‘Battles are not measured by their death roll, but by
their results, and it makes no difference whether one man was killed
or five hundred if the same result follows. This valley was opened
to civilization. It came on the heels of General Sullivan’s army,
and has gone on and gone on until today. The same battle is raging
upon the Yellow Stone. The same men endowed by the same feelings
that General Sullivan’s army had today are contending with the same
causes and the same races two thousand miles west of here, not for
the purpose of killing, not for the purpose of shedding blood, not
for the purpose of doing wrong at all, but to prepare the way for
that civilization which must go along wherever yonder flag floats.’
“It might be thought perhaps, my friends, that this rehearsal of the
opinions of General Sherman and General Slocum, two of the greatest
military leaders of our country, might have been more properly used
here than on the dedication of a tablet somewhat, in its scope as a
memorial, limited to your own State, but it has been my purpose, my
friends, to illustrate General Sullivan as one of the most admirable
representatives of his race; and when I have set before you a parallel
drawn in the presence of General Sherman himself between the
difficulties and the success of Sullivan’s march from Wyoming to the
Genesee and Sherman’s own march to the sea, and have given you the
opinions of both General Sherman and General Slocum, I have
illustrated my proposition that of all the debts which America owes to
Ireland, God bless her, General John Sullivan, in his varied talents,
in that which he accomplished, in every spot and place in which we put
him, is entitled to rank with the noblest and purest contribution
which we, in America, have from the grand old Irish race.
“My friends, my words are in substance ended. I have detained you
longer than I meant to, but they who live around me could have told
you that you have only to mention the name and memory of Major-General
John Sullivan to set going any thoughtful student of American history
who lives in the magnificent valleys of the Susquehanna, the Wyoming,
and the Genesee. What we owe to this man we can never repay.
“I am proud and happy to have been allowed to participate in the
unveiling of such a tribute as this. As I said at the outset, I hope
the day will come when every State House in this land will have one,
and yet, when I think of what he was and what we owe him, I feel that
no monument can make him greater than he is in the affections of our
people a hundred and thirty years after his death. And yet I am proud
for our own sake, for the uplifting of our own people, that we have
thus recognized that which we know of his worth. I might have spoken
in his behalf with truth the words of the great Roman: ‘_Exegi
monumentum aere perennius_’—‘I have builded a monument more enduring
than brass.’”
Former Governor Lippitt was the next speaker, introduced by the
Chairman as follows: “One of our invited guests, representing the
Society of the Cincinnati, is obliged to go to a neighboring city
within the next hour to deliver an address, and we will not have the
pleasure of his company at our luncheon or the benefit of any words
from him afterwards. I will therefore introduce him at once.
“As General Sullivan was one of the original members of the Society of
the Cincinnati, it is singularly fitting that we call on an honored
Rhode Islander, whose father as well as himself has served the state
as Governor, and whose devotion to the history and affairs of the
commonwealth has given him a well deserved position as an authority on
his subject.
“It gives me great pleasure to introduce Hon. Charles Warren Lippitt,
ex-Governor of Rhode Island.”
“Mr. Chairman, Members of the American Irish Historical Society,
Ladies and Gentlemen: I feel surprised at finding myself somewhat
unexpectedly in this position, but will try to aid in honoring this
occasion.