By Donald A. Windsor
Deputy Historian, Chenango County
Answering that question reminds me of a more famous question. Did William Shakespeare write all those plays and poems? The wisecrack response is, “No. Someone else with the same name did.”
The short answer to the title question is no. I can find no evidence that Major General John Sullivan ever personally set foot in what is now Chenango County. However, ample evidence shows that his soldiers did. A follow up question asks whether the Revolutionary War was ever fought here. The answer is elusive, because it hinges on the meaning of “fought.” The Revolutionary War was fought against the Iroquois because they were allies of the British. Although Revolutionary soldiers burned Indian villages here, no records indicate that they engaged in actual battles here, defining a battle as one side fighting the other. There is no evidence that any Indians or soldiers were killed or wounded here. However, when one side burns buildings and destroys provisions of the other side, it seems like an act of war. This was a declared war, so it was not terrorism. I conclude that the Revolutionary War was indeed fought here, albeit in a relatively minor way.
On March 6, 1779, Major General John Sullivan (1740-1795) was assigned by General George Washington (1732-1799) to defeat the Indians so that they could not assist the British in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783). On May 24, 1779, Washington assigned Brigadier General James Clinton (1733-1812) to join Sullivan. A Major General outranks a Brigadier General, so Clinton’s troops were Sullivan’s. A General (one word, no modifiers) outranks them both and General Washington, on May 31, 1779, ordered Sullivan to cooperate with Clinton’s forces. James Clinton’s younger brother, George (1739-1812), was a seven term Governor of New York. James’s son, DeWitt (1769-1828), was a two term Governor.
Major General Sullivan’s campaign is documented in “Journals of the Military Expedition of Major General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians in 1779”. Reading the “Journals” is very distressing, painful even. Sullivan pursued what Adolf Hitler, almost two centuries later, would call the “final solution” and today we call “ethnic cleansing”. Genocide by any other name is still as atrocious. Nevertheless, the study of history is a never ending horror story of humanity’s morbid urge to annihilate itself. History is not for the faint of heart nor the squeamish advocates of peace. Enduring this stuff comes with the turf.
Fortunately, Thomas E. Byrne and Lawrence E. Eyres edited a chronology of the “Sullivan-Clinton Campaign of 1779”, published by the Chemung County Historical Society in 1979, reprinted in 1999. This chronology enables the course of events to be followed without suffering through all the gory details. Unfortunately, they cover only major episodes. So, reading the “Journals” is still required.
I recently pored through every page of the “Journals” looking for possible Chenango County connections, but did it backwards so as to avoid getting too swept up in the story lines. The first time I read this horrible thing, a few years ago, I went from front to back and did get caught up. Never again, to use an appropriate slogan.
I found only two incidents where Revolutionary soldiers came through what is today Chenango County. One is described on page 289 in the letter of Captain William Gray. On August 9, 1778, troops under Colonel William Butler burned the Indian village of Cunahunta and its cornfields. Cunahunta was on the north side of the Susquehanna River about two and a half miles south of the center of the Village of Afton. Later a big island south of Cunahunta was to be Stowell’s Island, as described in my May 31 article on the Vermont Sufferers. Butler’s troops were marching up (northerly) along the Susquehanna River after having burnt the Indian habitations at Ononaughquag, present day Ouaquaga in Broome County. Gray’s 1778 map indicates that his soldiers did travel in Chenango County for at least 12 miles. They were burning every Indian settlement they could find up to and including Scotch Settlement, a peninsula at the confluence of the Susquehanna and Ouleout rivers, east of the present day Village of Unadilla in Otsego County.
I have not yet been able to figure out Colonel William Butler’s position in the Revolutionary army. Major General Sullivan was appointed a half year after Butler’s burnings, so Butler could not have reported to Sullivan in August 1778. Regardless, Butler and his troops were in the Revolutionary army.
The second incursion into Chenango County occurred a year later and is described in the Journal of Lieutenant Erkuries Beatty on page 23. The forces of Brigadier General James Clinton, on their way to join Major General Sullivan’s army at Tioga, camped at Cunahunta on Friday August 13, 1779. Clinton’s forces were traveling down the Susquehanna River from Otsego Lake. To raise the water level of the river high enough to float their boats, they dammed the outflow of the lake and then breached it, riding the wave of water.
I tried to figure out where Colonel Butler could have crossed the Susquehanna on his way north. I took the relative proportions of his trail from Captain Gray’s 1778 map and transposed them to our current (2001) county map. To my astonishment it was close to where the Delaware & Hudson Railroad crosses today. The photo shows a view north (upstream) from the eastern abutment of the railroad bridge. When I looked north I was surprised to see two stone/cement piers and two abutments. They are visible in the photo.
Inspection of my collection of old maps revealed no other bridge there. Fortunately, an aerial photograph snapped on June 12, 1937, shows that the current bridge was being built and the older one north of it was already dismantled. The rail bed is clearly visible extending both east and west from the older bridge to the tracks where it once was connected. The overpass on what is now State Route 7 was under construction. This stretch of the Susquehanna is wide and shallow and apparently a good place to cross.
In conclusion, the answer to the title question is that Sullivan’s soldiers did indeed travel through Chenango County in August 1779, but he did not. A year earlier, Colonel Butler’s soldiers passed through. So, at least two incursions of Revolutionary War soldiers were in Chenango County.