Sullivan Expedition

The Sullivan Expedition, also known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition, was an American campaign led by Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton against Loyalists ("Tories") and the four nations of the Iroquois who had sided with the British in the American Revolutionary War.

The expedition occurred during the summer of 1779, beginning June 18 when the army marched from Easton, Pennsylvania, to October 3 when it abandoned Fort Sullivan, built at Tioga, to return to New Jersey, and only had one major battle, at Newtown along the Chemung River in western New York, in which about 1,000 Iroquois and Loyalists were decisively defeated by an army of 3,200 Continental soldiers.

Sullivan's army then carried out a scorched earth campaign, methodically destroying at least forty Iroquois villages throughout the Finger Lakes region of western New York, to put an end to Iroquois and Loyalist attacks against American settlements as had occurred the previous year. The devastation created great hardships for the thousands of Iroquois refugees outside Fort Niagara that winter, and many starved or froze to death. The survivors fled to British regions in Canada and the Niagara Falls and Buffalo areas.

The Sullivan Expedition devastated the Iroquois crops and towns and left them at the mercy of the British for the harsh winter of 1779-80. Major Jeremiah Fogg of the 2nd New Hampshire Regiment noted in his journal: "The nests are destroyed, but the birds are still on the wing." The expedition objective of ending the frontier war was, however, not realized, as British and Indian attacks continued in the following years.