Washington’s Gamble – The Sullivan–Clinton Campaign

Washington’s Gamble began when frontier war threatened the survival of the Revolution itself. The growing violence on the western frontiers of Pennsylvania and New York left him little choice. It was one he had hoped to avoid. But it was the response demanded by Congress. The steady stream of reports from the frontier forced them to act.

Zebulon Butler, who led the defense (and retreat) during the Wyoming Massacre, attested to continued incursions. In a letter to General Hand on March 23, 1779, the Pennsylvanian wrote, “…after severe skirmishing for two hours and a half, the enemy carried off sixty head of horned cattle, 20 horses, and shot my riding horse, which they could not catch, and burnt five barns that were partly full of grain and hay, and 10 houses, which the inhabitants had deserted. They shot a number of hogs and sheep, that they left lying.” He asked that the information be relayed to General Washington.¹

Even before Butler’s letter to Hand, Congress had received letters from the governors of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York. On February 25, 1779, they appointed their Commander-in-Chief to raise five companies of rangers. The resolution directed Washington to deploy these units “on the said western frontiers, to protect the same and annoy the enemy.”²

This marked a shift in the previous policy, which prioritized defense, to one of offensive action. As far back as the French and Indian War, Washington understood that the “chain of forts” defensive posture would ultimately fail on the frontier.³ Rather, he maintained a more aggressive stance. He once wrote, “As defensive measures are evidently insufficient for the security and safety of the country; I hope no arguments are requisite to convince of the necessity of altering them to a vigorous offensive war, in order to remove the cause.”⁴

Congress had now granted Washington the go-ahead to act on his strategy. The events of 1778, with the destruction of settlements along the Mohawk and Susquehanna Valleys—the granary of the Continental Army—presented an urgency. The British threat must be ended directly. And soon.

But how?

Every soldier sent to defend the frontier was one less soldier available to oppose British operations centered on New York City and the Hudson corridor. The British strategy wasn’t merely to destroy the grain stores meant to feed Washington’s army. The primary purpose of the frontier raids was to draw the American army away from the main battlefields on the coast.⁵ As much as Washington wanted to defend the interior, he recognized the risk was far greater if he were to lose in the other theaters.⁶

That was Washington’s gamble. Yet, in calling upon him to raise five companies of rangers, Congress allowed Washington to increase his troop count. With this added strength, he could plan for a rapid strike into the heart of the Iroquois homeland. The operation, if successful, would reduce the threat of a major British ally without dangerously weakening Continental forces in the war’s decisive theaters.

Washington’s French and Indian War experience taught him that what appeared neatly drawn on the chalkboard of European military tactics did not translate well on frontier battlefields. Defeating the enemy in the European sense—forcing a decisive surrender in open battle—was not a reasonable goal on the frontier.

Therein lies Washington’s greater gamble. In executing a calculated strategy to destroy the enemy’s ability to wage war, he hoped to simply restore stability to the frontier. The risk, however, was two-fold—even if he achieved his objective.

First, there was no doubt the enemy could regroup and begin attacking again. What mattered was whether they could attack with the same intense ferocity. They might be able to terrorize individual homesteads or very small settlements, but the hope was that there would never be a repeat of the wholesale massacre at Cherry Valley.

Second, armchair generals (think politicians in the Continental Congress) might measure Washington against the theory drawn up on the chalkboard, not the reality demanded on the frontier. They would have expected Washington to eliminate the enemy, not merely push him off the playing field. This political peril was the greatest risk of Washington’s gamble.

After months of planning, Washington sent formal orders to Major General John Sullivan, the man chosen to lead the campaign. Sent May 31, 1779, the orders stated:

“The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the six nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more… that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed… After you have very thoroughly completed the destruction of their settlements; if the Indians should show a disposition for peace, I would have you to encourage it, on condition that they will give some decisive evidence of their sincerity by delivering up some of the principal instigators of their past hostility into our hands—Butler, Brandt, the most mischievous of the tories that have joined them or any other they may have in their power that we are interested to get into ours—They may possibly be engaged, by address, secrecy and stratagem, to surprise the Garrison of Niagara and the shipping on the lakes and put them into our possession…. But you will not by any means listen to ⟨any⟩ overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected…”⁷

Note the nuance of Washington’s orders. He wants prisoners, not scalps. He wants to “reduce their ability to make war,” not utter annihilation. More importantly, “total ruin” is the primary objective. Peace is secondary, but only after the primary objective is achieved, and only on the condition that Butler, Brandt (sic), etc, are turned over, and maybe if they also help the Americans capture Fort Niagara.

Here’s the real clever thing Washington did in early March, well before he issued these orders. He told Sullivan to “drop hints” the Americans intended to invade Canada and that the French fleet might sail up the St. Lawrence River.⁸ These were strategic locations held by the British. Just as Washington didn’t want to divert troops from New York City, the British were likely to leave troops at these important places.

British military correspondence suggests this deception worked, at least in early 1779.⁹ By early July, however, intelligence reports tipped off the British that the Americans were massing in Pennsylvania with designs on marching through the Seneca’s land enroute to capturing Fort Niagara.¹⁰

Equipped with this report, Colonel John Butler had his men prepare a trap for the oncoming Americans near Newtown (present-day Elmira).¹¹ His plan went awry when, after a small group of Indians appeared, a suspicious rifleman discovered the British works.¹² The trap turned into a lopsided American triumph. Sullivan outflanked Butler. Realizing this, the British and their Indian allies quickly fled.¹³

Brief as it was, the decisive Battle of Newtown, which took place on August 29, 1779, became the only sustained confrontation during the Sullivan Expedition. No more than a handful of Sullivan’s troops died there,¹⁴ and Butler suffered similar losses among his rangers, while the British Indian allies saw nearly two dozen of their members killed.¹⁵ With the enemy in near constant retreat toward Fort Niagara, Sullivan’s campaign became less a conventional war than a systematic march of destruction through the Iroquois homeland.

As the soldiers marched out of Newtown, their eyes took in the lush green sprouting from the fertile soil beneath their feet and stretching across the broad plain before them. They trudged through swamps, passed through narrow defiles, then emerged beneath towering white oaks. Every so often, they came upon a healthy cornfield. They burned it. Then an orchard appeared, thick with old apple trees. They hewed them to stumps. That was their job. That was Washington’s order.

Sullivan reported he had destroyed forty villages, 160,000 bushels of corn, and “a vast quantity of vegetables of every kind.”¹⁶ In his official report to Congress dated September 30, 1779, he states, “I am well persuaded that, except one town situated near the Allegana, about 50 miles from Chinesee there is not a single town left in the country of the Five nations.“¹⁷

In total, Sullivan’s expedition suffered minimal losses, with the greatest single loss of life occurring when Thomas Boyd’s party fell into an ambush. In his Congressional report, Sullivan wrote of “the unparalleled tortures they inflicted upon the brave and unfortunate Boid (sic), whose body, with that of the equally unfortunate companion, we found at Chmesee. It appeared that they had whipped them in the most cruel manner, pulled out Mr. Boid’s nails, cut of his nose, plucked out one of his eyes, cut out his tongue, stabbed him with spears in sundry places, and inflicted other tortures which decency will not permit me to mention; lastly, cut off his head, and left his body on the ground with that of his unfortunate companion, who appeared to have experienced nearly the same savage barbarity.”¹⁸

Sullivan’s expedition was deemed an immediate success. George Washington sent the following General Orders from his More’s House Headquarters at West Point on October 17, 1779:

“The Commander-in-chief has now the pleasure of congratulating the army on the complete and full success of Maj. Gen. Sullivan, and the troops under his command, against the Seneca and other tribes of the Six Nations, as a just and necessary punishment for their wanton depredations, their unparalleled and innumerable cruelties, their deafness to all remonstrances and entreaty, and their perseverance in the most horrid acts of barbarity. Forty of their towns have been reduced to ashes, some of them large and commodious; that of the Genesee alone containing one hundred and twenty-eight houses. Their crops of corn have been entirely destroyed, which, by estimation, it is said, would have provided 160,000 bushels, besides large quantities of vegetables of various kinds. Their whole country has been overrun and laid waste, and they themselves compelled to place their security in a precipitate flight to the British fortress at Niagara. And the whole of this has been done with the loss of less than forty men on our part, including the killed, wounded, captured, and those who died natural deaths. The troops employed in this expedition, both officers and men, throughout the whole of it, and in the action they had with the enemy, manifested a patience, perseverance and valor that do them the highest honor. In the course of it, when there still remained a large extent of the enemy’s country to be prostrated, it became necessary to lessen the issues of provisions to half the usual allowance. In this the troops acquiesced with a most general and cheerful concurrence, being fully determined to surmount every obstacle, and to prosecute the enterprise to a complete and successful issue. Maj. Gen. Sullivan, for his great perseverance and activity, for his order of march and attack, and the whole of his dispositions; the Brigadiers and officers of all ranks, and the whole of the soldiers engaged in the expedition, merit and have the Commander-in-chief’s warmest acknowledgements for their important services upon this occasion.”¹⁹

Congress chimed in by designating a national day of thanksgiving to celebrate Sullivan’s successful expedition against the frontier tribes.²⁰

With the frontier quiet, at least for the moment, and American morale boosted, Washington was able to concentrate his forces in the south. Ultimately, the Revolutionary War was won in the south, with the British surrender at Yorktown. It’s not too much of a stretch to say that Sullivan’s sweeping victory through the frontiers of Greater Western New York played a big part in America’s success.

As for the Iroquois, they became refugees. Huddled in tents around Fort Niagara, the harsh winter took more lives than Sullivan’s invasion.²¹ Ironically, as the British had hoped their raids on the western frontier would drain American resources, it was the British who found their resources taxed to the limit in trying to provide for their now homeless allies.²²

Eventually, the Seneca regrouped at Buffalo Creek, with some returning to the Genesee River.²³ The Seneca—long regarded as the most feared and aggressive Nation within the Confederacy—and the Confederacy itself never recovered their pre-war strength. There were several notable raids in the years following Sullivan’s Expedition, but none rose to the horror of Cherry Valley. Indeed, by the end of 1779, it was clear the Western New York frontier had lost the strategic importance it previously held.

Sullivan’s Expedition echoed earlier frontier campaigns in Western New York, yet it differed in vital aspects. Unlike Denonville, Sullivan was thorough in his destruction of the Seneca landscape. All but one village was burned to the ground. Sullivan left nothing for the Seneca to return to. Since neighboring Nations were also targeted by the American attack, the Iroquois could not simply escape to their nearest ally. They had to make the long march to Fort Niagara. Finally, since their enemy remained nearby, there was no assurance that another Sullivan-like expedition wouldn’t take place.

Unlike the Iroquois Confederacy’s campaign against the Erie, warriors and civilians were not targeted. Washington wanted to capture them as prisoners. He didn’t want to kill them. Neither did he expect to assimilate them, as the Seneca did with the Erie.

In meeting the objectives set out by Washington, Sullivan’s actions fell between the tepid results of the Denonville Expedition and the Iroquois’ unforgiving annihilation of the Erie. Yet, in playing the same retreat strategy that worked so well against Denonville, the Iroquois found the outcome against Sullivan differed significantly.

This was most poignantly true for the Seneca, as it could leave them in a weakened position in any future negotiations. Was Washington counting on that? Did he have something in mind regarding post-war diplomacy? Could this have been another one of Washington’s gambles?

For all the military significance of the Sullivan Expedition, its true significance lay not in what the troops did on the battlefield, but in the fields through which the troops marched.

And they knew it from the moment they first set their eyes on it.

¹ Butler, Zebulon. “Letter to Brigadier General Edward Hand, March 23, 1779.” Garrison, Wyoming. Reprinted in Horace Edwin Hayden, The Massacre of Wyoming, 67–68. Wilkes-Barré, PA: Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, 1895, pp. 67-68.
² Journals of the Continental Congress 1174-1789, Volume XIII. 1779 January 1 – April 21, Washington, 1909, p. 252.
³ “George Washington to John Campbell, Earl of Loudoun, 10 January 1757,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-04-02-0045. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 4, 9 November 1756 – 24 October 1757, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984, pp. 79–93.] Retrieved May 17, 2026.
⁴ “George Washington to Robert Dinwiddie, 9 November 1756,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/02-04-02-0001-0001. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, vol. 4, 9 November 1756 – 24 October 1757, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984, pp. 1–10.] Retrieved May 17, 2026.
⁵ “Colonel Guy Johnson to Lord George Germain, June 8, 1777,” Broadhead, John Romeyn, Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York Volume VIII, E.B. O’Callaghan, ed, Weed, Parsons & Co, pp. 711-712.
⁶ “George Washington to the Board of War, 3 August 1778,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-16-02-0247. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 16, 1 July–14 September 1778, ed. David R. Hoth. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2006, pp. 226–230. Retrieved May 17, 2026.
⁷ “George Washington to Major General John Sullivan, 31 May 1779,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-20-02-0661. [Original source: The Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, vol. 20, 8 April–31 May 1779, ed. Edward G. Lengel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, pp. 716–719.] Retrieved May 17, 2026.
⁸ Cook, Frederick, ed., Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan Against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779, Knapp, Peck & Thomson, Auburn, NY, p. 341.
⁹ Broadhead, p. 758.
¹⁰ Cruikshank, Ernest, The Story of Butler’s Rangers and the Settlement of Niagara, Tribune Printers House, Welland, Ont., 1893, p. 64.
¹¹ Ibid., p. 70.
¹² Ibid., p. 71.
¹³ Cook, p. 416.
¹⁴ Ibid., p. 128.
¹⁵ Stone, William L., Life of Joseph Brant – Thayendenegea Including the Border Wars of the American Revolution, H.&E. Phinney, Cooperstown, 1838, p. 21.
¹⁶ Cook, p. 303.
¹⁷ Ibid.
¹⁸ Ibid, p. 301.
¹⁹ Norton, A. Tiffany, History of Sullivan’s Campaign, Lima, NY, 1879, pp. 180-181.
²⁰ Cook, p. 379.
²¹ Cruikshank, p. 78.
²² Sessional Papers Volume 5, Dominion of Canada, 1888, p. 118.
²³ Shaw, Timothy T., “Refugees of Niagara 1779-1780: The Winter of Hunger,” Sullivan-Clinton Campaign, April 16, 2004  https://sullivanclinton.com/texts/articles/archives/refugees-niagara/ Retrieved May 18, 2026.