Читать книгу Proceedings of the New York Historical Association [1906] - New York State Historical Association. Meeting - Страница 7

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How the mists do gather. With the exception of Greene and Benedict Arnold, George Washington trusted Sullivan beyond any other general of the Continental army. Sullivan acquitted himself well on diverse battlefields and, though defeated, the real worth of the man shows in this, that defeat added as much prestige to his reputation as his victories. His greatness like that of Washington throve on defeat, for it can be fairly said that Washington never won a battle. And yet if you ask even those who have given time to our history as to General Sullivan, they will convey to you but the most vague impression of some minor general who sometime in the revolution made a foray on some Indians somewhere in this State.

The last scene of a drama is best remembered. The picture as the curtain falls is stamped most clearly on the memory. Sullivan was not to be an actor in the war's closing scenes, and the valor that gleams the name of Marion, the splendor of Greene's military intelligence, and the glory that is linked with the name of Washington at Yorktown were not his. Neither had he the methodical madness of Wayne, the pusillanimity of the self-seeking Gates, the recklessness of Putnam, nor the aestheistic fatalism of Ethan Allan; none of these things had Sullivan to carve his picture on men's memory.

It may not be out of place here to give a short chronology of this man's life.

He was born in Summerworth, N. H., in 1740. His parents were well-to-do emigrants from Ireland. He studied law and was a member of the first Congress, 1774. Was made Brigadier General 1775. In 1776 he superseded Arnold in Canada. Then he succeeded General Greene and was taken prisoner. He was exchanged in November. In 1777 he took part in the battle of Brandywine, Germantown, and 1778 he commanded in Rhode Island. In 1779 he led the expedition against the Indians. He then resigned from the army and took up again the practice of law. He was a member of the State constitutional convention, then he was elected a member of Congress, and in '86, '87, '89 was president of his State. Later, in 1789, he was appointed District Judge, and died in 1795 at the age of 54 years.

His personal characteristics are said to be that he was a dignified, genial and amiable man. He displayed a fine courtesy to those about him, both to his soldiers and compatriot generals.

I quote the following paragraph from A. Tiffany Norton, who I believe to be the one who has written the best account of the Indian campaign, and it is a wonder to me that one who shows so broad a grasp of history and its essential principles and the elements that make for historical research, has never written more than he has.

Norton, in his general description of Sullivan, says: "His eyes were keen and dark, his hair curly black, his form erect, his movements full of energy and grace. His height was five feet nine inches, and a slight corpulency when in his prime gave but an added grace. General Sullivan was a man of undoubted courage, warmth of temperament and independent spirit equaled only by his patriotic devotion to his country's cause and his zeal in all public affairs." Doubtless he was too impatient and outspoken and may have been deserving of some measure of blame, still his faults should not have detracted from that meed of praise to which he was justly entitled. Neither should the jealousies of his brothers in arms, which prompted them to ridicule his achievements, question his reports and detract from his hard-earned laurels, have weight with the historian. Yet such has been, in great degree, the case, and the name of Sullivan occupies a lesser space in the history of the Revolutionary struggle, than those of many others whose achievements fell far short of his in magnitude and importance. Sullivan has been made the victim of the intrigues and petty jealousies of his times, and while for this his own indiscretions may justly be blamed, the duty is none the less incumbent on the present generation to render due homage to one who is a brave soldier and a devoted, disinterested, self-sacrificing patriot. As Amory has justly said: "A friend of Washington, Greene, Lafayette, and all the noblest statesmen and generals of the war, whose esteem for him was universally known, to whom his own attachment never wavered, he will be valued for his high integrity and steadfast faith, his loyal and generous character, his enterprise and vigor in command, his readiness to assume responsibility, his courage and coolness in emergencies, his foresight for providing for all possible contingencies of campaign or battle-field, and his calmness when the results became adverse."

Could the character of Sullivan be fairly said to be that of a great man? Does he measure up to "bigness?" Remember a little man seldom does big things. Briefly, what did he do in this Indian campaign? At the beginning of the Revolution there was a democracy of six confederate states within the present boundaries of our own municipality. So strong had this democracy grown that it dominated the inhabitants of a territory of more than a million square miles. Their battle-cry was heard from the Kennebec to Lake Superior, and under the very fortifications of Quebec they annihilated the Huron.

Their orators were fit to rank with any that we have to-day. Their legends are the legends of a people whose souls were filled with poetry. Their military tactics were those of a people trained for war—successful war. Man to man, they were what no other barbarians have been, a match for the white man. They held the gateway to the West and their position made them umpires between the mighty nations of the Old World who were struggling for the possession of the New. Civilized in a sense they were, but they were barbarians too, and savages to their very heart of hearts. Rapacious, treacherous, cruel beyond belief—they were dreaded alike by friend and foe. Their home was a terra incognita. No colonist had trodden it. From no peak had trapper looked across the profile of their land. Their numbers were unknown and could only be guessed at by their achievements—and these were terrible.

How silly of Gordon to criticize Sullivan for over-manning his expedition. Darkest Africa is better known to-day than was then the land of the Iroquois. They were re-enforced by British regulars, by fanatical Tories; they were led by white men, and one of their leaders was a thorough Indian and thoroughly educated in the white man's lore.

Among this people and into this terra incognita came Sullivan and smote them hip and thigh. He conquered them to the uttermost. He broke down the gateway to the mighty West. With a miserable commissariat, he invaded an unknown country and forever destroyed a democracy that had ruled for five hundred years.

The Indians conquered by Wayne were but a frazzle of the Six Nations united with Indians farther West.

Little men do little things, big men do big things, and great men do great things. Before Sullivan vanished

"that savage senate at the Lake, By the salt marshes, yonder in the north, Dull-visaged butchers, coarsely blanketed Squatted in a ring by their dark Council House And with strange mumery of pipes and belts Decreeing, coldly, death—forever death."

The strongest are the gentlest. It is related that having found an Indian woman too old and feeble to retreat with her people, that Sullivan left her with a plentiful supply of provisions, though, as one of the party writes, "we only had half a ration every other day ourselves."

It is not my province to put forth a brief for General Sullivan, yet that one incident cast a side-light on his character that impressed me more as to the true lovely heartiness of the man than anything I have found. Constancy to a friend is an attribute to those who approach greatness. After the Indian war Sullivan was reviled unmercifully for the devastation wrought by him in the Indian country. Out of his love for General Washington he suffered in silence, while he had in his possession General Washington's written instructions to do exactly as he had done.

Perchance for a good man some would even dare to die. But what of a man whose friendship holds so strong that he may see that which is dearer to him than life—his character—filched from him, and lest he should harm a friend, allow his enemies to do with that character as they wished.

Probably no historian ever lived who could write more wrong history than Benjamin Lossing, who accuses Sullivan of carelessness and want of vigilance as a commanding officer and mentions Bedford and Brandywine. Nothing could be farther from the truth. At Bedford he withdrew his forces because the French Navy would not support him, and it was out of the question to remain in the position he had taken up. We have John Fiske's word for it that Brandywine was a drawn battle.

Of energy he had a plenty. It is on record that after he and General Clinton united (and Clinton was no sluggard) his Division time and again out-marched that of Clinton. At one time he broke road across nine miles of swamp while Clinton following him had to camp in the middle of the morass. So difficult was the morass that the Indian spies who had been watching his advance never dreamed that he would attempt the passage of the swamp, and withdrew to their camps. So confident were the Tories and Indians, that when he emerged from the swamp their campfires were still burning.

Right here is a place to say a word about General Sullivan's veracity. After his return from conquering the Six Nations he reported that he had destroyed forty villages, and his detractors could not find but eighteen. It at last developed that when his subordinates had reported destroying a group of buildings he most naturally supposed that it was an Indian village, and so put it down in his report.

It has been said of him that he resigned from the army out of spite. Well, if he did, he was perhaps blamable. But we should remember that he was dealing with a Continental Congress of the latter years of the war, and if you search history for a thousand years you will not be able to find an aggregation of political castros equal to this same Continental Congress. The men who had made the primal congresses great had set themselves to serve the nation in other ways, and Congress had fallen to those who had some money without brains or brains without principle, or lacking both, were like our modern ones in that they loved "graft" and knew how to get it.

Sullivan was not a liar, and he himself says that his health was failing. If we care to plow through the many diaries kept by officers under him we can well believe that he told the truth, for with the spoiling of the provisions sent to the expedition most of the soldiers did suffer from chronic intestinal troubles, and it would be strange if the commander who takes the same fare as his subordinates should not suffer in the same manner.

And to back up this we must remember that even after he retired he never lost the confidence or the love of the greatest of them all, General Washington. Much has been written of General Sullivan's fallibilities, and fallibilities the greatest have.

We should remember that Sullivan was a Kelt. And through the centuries the Kelts have given us the lordliest orators and golden artists, but for tenacity of purpose no one has celebrated them.

General Sullivan when he was taken prisoner and fell under the influence of the British military power, and contrasting them with the meagerness that he had been accustomed to, for once his heart failed him and his soul sank within him, and it is no sorrow to his name to say that for the moment he thought the liberty of mankind in the Western continent was doomed.

He came from the British to us seeking peace, but after he was exchanged and in his old environment his true native Keltic courage returned and his after life was the life of an ardent patriot.

I do not think we give enough credit to the perceptions of the ignorant.

Suppose to ten thousand ignorant people this entirely hypothetical question should be stated: Around the globe is a people who for three hundred years had been fighting a tyrannical power and well nigh achieved success. Would it be right for a republic to step in and take them away from the power they were in rebellion against, and then this republic by force of arms prevent them from becoming an independent republic? State to ten thousand ignorant people this question, and they will shout with one voice "that it is not right." State this question to ten thousand college professors, and they will back and fill, debate and re-debate, and finally be fogged by their very knowledge and at last come to no conclusion at all.

It has never been sufficiently made clear that the classes fought the Revolutionary war. The educated, the elegant, the conservative, the well-to-do, in short the "better elements," were practically all with the British. While the broken, the ignorant, the discouraged, "the rabble," were the ones that won our liberty. Every single Tory that was expatriated could read and write, while I believe if the muster rolls of my own county, inhabited at that time by the educated Dutch, not one-third of those who enlisted could sign their names. So coldly did the wealthy Dutchman look upon the war that it was a common trick for him to send a slave to serve in the ranks instead of himself.

Sullivan by birth and position belonged among the former class, and yet in spite of position, broke with his own class and gladly took up the sword with the ignorant because he saw clearly that all social progress must from very necessity spring from the discontent of the Hoi Polloi. He was a true patriot for he lost his all by giving his attention to public rather than private affairs, and though respected by all and honored by his State, his last years were the years of gloom and the gathering clouds, for his life was beset by heartless creditors. The last scene is the saddest of all, for at his funeral his creditors tried to seize his body and would have done so, except that an old army general drew his pistols and drove off the bailiffs of the law. So was buried one of America's greatest patriots, a constant friend, a brave and good soldier, and a man who, take him ail in all, it is not an exaggeration to call "Great."