After some hard times Washington had met his first military successes at Trenton and Princeton, the previous winter of 1776. General John Sullivan from New Hampshire had been with Washington and had fought well and hard at these triumphant moments.
True, Sullivan's military career had not gone uncriticized. Retreats rarely draw glory, and Sullivan's leadership of the agonizing American retreat from Canada in the summer of 1776, if conducted with bravery and toughness, was a retreat nonetheless. More seriously, Sullivan's forces had been soundly defeated at Long Island in August of 1776, and Sullivan had been captured.
Prior to his exchange and resumption of command under Washington, he had conveyed peace offers from Lord Howe to Congress, which had led to suspicions about his loyalties among some radicals and among others who didn't like him.
Like many men George Washington wisely sought association with others who balanced his own qualities. At his worst Washington could be dour and overcautious and perhaps on that basis found the presence of the vain, mercurial, and sometimes reckless General John Sullivan of New Hampshire a contrast. But there were limits, and when in early March 1777 after passing on various promotions of his senior commanders Washington received a testy letter from Sullivan saying that "thought I never wish to complain I can't help the Disagreeable feeling So common to mankind when they find themselves slighted and Neglected" and begging Washington to tell him his faults so that he might quit the army and "Rid the Continent of an officer who is unworthy to Trust with command." Washington was annoyed. Sullivan's letter was whining in tone. It amounted to blackmail. Washington's reply is perhaps one of history's most memorable, stern and paternal reprimands:
"Morristown 15, March, 1777.
"Do not, my dear General Sullivan, torment yourself any longer with imaginary slights, and involve others in the perplexities you feel on that score. No other officer of rank in the whole army has so often conceived himself neglected, slighted, and ill treated as you have done, and none I am sure has had less cause than yourself to entertain such ideas. Mere accidents, things which have occurred in the common course of service, have been considered by you as designed affronts. But pray, Sir, in what respect did General Greene's late command at Fort Lee differ from his present command at Baskenridge, or from yours at Chatham? And what kind of separate command had General Putnam at New York? I never heard of any except his commanding there ten days before my arrival from Boston, and one day after I had left it for Haerlem Heights, as senior officer. In like manner at Philadelphia, how did his command there differ from the one he has at Princeton, and wherein does either vary from yours at Chatham? Are thee any peculiar emoluments or honors to be reaped in the one case and not in the other? No. Why, then, these unreasonable, these unjustifiable suspicions? Suspicions which can answer no other end than to poison your own happiness and add vexation to that of others. General Health, it is true, was ordered to Peekskill, so was General Spencer, by the mere chapter of accidents (being almost in the country), to Providence, to watch the motions of the fleet then hovering in the Sound. What followed after to either or both was more the effect of chance than design.
"Your ideas and mine respecting separate commands have but little analogy. I know of but one separate command, properly so called, and that is in the Northern Department, and General sullivan, General St. Clair, or any other general officer at Ticonderoga will be considered in no other light, whilst there is a superior officer in the department, than if they were placed at Chatham, Baskenridge, or Princeton. But I have not time to dwell upon subjects of this kind. In quitting it I shall do it with an earnest exhortation that you will not suffer yourself to be teased with evils that only exist in the imagination, and with slights that have no existence at all, keeping in mind, at the same time, that if distant armies are to be formed there are several gentlemen before you in point of rank who have a right to claim a preference."
Could Washington continue to depend on Sullivan as one of his highest commanders? True, Sullivan had shown initiative; the first battle of the war had been Sullivan's raid on Fort William and Mary near Portsmouth. In Boston in 1776 Sullivan had served well during the siege. Sullivan's dislike of the English was perhaps typical of the Irish and Washington might capitalize on that and did by appointing Sullivan to lead a celebration of Saint Patrick's Day.
Sullivan in Boston; Gates, treat to resign.
But then there had been the debacle at Trenton. Congress had been angrily seeking someone to blame for that. Sullivan had been captured and had returned with messages from the British commander Harve. Susceptible to flattery, mercurial in temper, Sullivan's persistence and loyalty could be questioned. So Washington was in a quandary. He might cut Sullivan off, throw him to the dogs. Sullivan was not a brilliant commander; most of his military learning came from reading books. In that sense he was probably replaceable. But on the other hand Sullivan, better at beginnings than endings, overly sensitive, quick to pout and quit and feel sorry for himself when other men might continue with the task. But the man was spirited, and spirit was in short supply with winter. And if Sullivan himself was short in combat experience, he certainly came from a fighting tradition. Washington knew he needed Sullivan.
1777 had not been an easy year for John Sullivan.. He had been captured at Long Island, seduced by Howe to carrying peace overtures to Congress. Released, he resumed command. The victories at Trenton and Princeton should have gone a long way toward cleaning up any suspicions of his loyalty, competence, and bravery. But it was not that easy.
Days in winter camp made Sullivan restless; he thought too much. Sullivan's stomach had been bothering him. On February 22 John Adams wrote to him complaining that though his constituents were paying for a great army, they were not receiving their money's worth in good news. They didn't even know where the army was. Adams addressed Sullivan: "In truth, my old friend, I wish to hear, more than I do, of the vigilance, activity, enterprise and valor of some of our New England generals." The eighteenth century was well tuned to the subtle insult.
Sullivan could sense Adams' true attitude toward him. To Benjamin Rush, who hated Washington and his generals, whom he considered a band of drunkards, Adams had the previous fall been more blunt on the subject of Sullivan -- he wished that Sullivan had taken the first bullet at Long Island.
Meanwhile there were complaints from various southern gentlemen about the performance of the northern armies. To these, Sullivan responded:
"I have always had an aversion to fighting on paper for I have never yet found a man well versed in that kind of fighting that would practice any other." To Sullivan,
"Southern valor appears to be a composition of boasting and conceit." As for the fighting spirit of Yankees,
"No men fight better or write worse than the Yankees of which this letter will be good evidence."
Arriving back in New Hampshire on a short leave (3/20) to take care of pressing business at home Sullivan found soldiers ordered to Ticonderoga by Washington unequipped with either clothing or arms. His complaints about the condition of arms supplied were answered by accusations that the soldiers and officers were failing to care for what was supplied to them. Meanwhile news from Connecticut that Howe's army, aided by the "neutral gentry" was achieving early successes against the American militia, caused Sullivan to fume against the tory traitors, "ungenerous animals" now "rearing their heads in every part of the continent." Sullivan angrily urged the NH Committee of Safety to rid the country of them..
In early June, (6/2) the British made another attempt to win Sullivan over to the king's cause: "You will be one of the first sacrifices to the resentment and justice of government, your family will be ruined, and you must die with ignominy; or if you should be so happy as to escape, you will drag along a tedious life of poverty, misery, and continual apprehensions in a foreign land," an old Tory friend wrote to him, suggesting that it was not too late for Sullivan to tread back the steps he had already taken and bring New Hampshire back to king and country.
In early June Sullivan received a letter from the gadfly Benjamin Rush complaining that a Major Sullivan under General Sullivan's command had beaten one of Rush's servants, and that Sullivan was clearly delinquent in not effecting proper punishment. The same day he received a letter from his brother Ebenezer, a British prisoner of war, begging that the use his influence to arrange for his redemption.
On the military front it was a harrowing time for Washington's generals. Howe's forces outnumbered their own, and they continually expected an attack. Many days passed when Sullivan expected that the next day would be the one when he would fall in battle -- gloriously he hoped. But Howe's movements were des__tory and apparently indecisive. It was an atmosphere of continuing tension, in which slight disputes were liable to be magnified.
Meanwhile the generals were tracking the movements of the British General Howe, who was expected to attack the outnumbered Americans at any time. Some time in June, Sullivan, Nathaniel Greene, and Henry Knox discovered that a Frenchman, Philippe du Coudray, had been appointed major general by Congress -- a foreigner given a superior position to them, who had been carrying the burnt of the resistance. The three generals wrote an angry and to some, disrespectful, letter to Congress complaining of the appointment.
On July 1, Sullivan wrote to Hancock about the rumor of du Coudray's appointment: "If this report be true I shall be under the disagreeable necessity of quitting the service." The next day found him begging Washington's influence to relieve his brother Ebenezer of the "amazing difficulties" attendant on his role as a paroled prisoner of the British.
On July 5 he again threatens to resign in a letter to Washington, explaining that he had been challenged to a duel by a medical officer of lower rank as a result of some argument over medical services. The officer had backed down but Sullivan then came under criticism of his fellow generals for accepting a challenge from an inferior. Sullivan is in a frenzy -- should he accept invitations to duel from everyone? ("I am by no means an enemy to duels; I most sincerely wish that Congress had encouraged instead of prohibiting them.") How should he handle such insults from majors? From sergeants?
On July 7 Congress resolves that the complaint of Sullivan, Greene, and Knox regarding the Frenchman's appointment constitutes "an invasion of the liberties of the people, and indicating a want of confidence in the justice of Congress" -- the generals were invited to either apologize for "so dangerous a tendency" or retire.
Meanwhile he had the day-to-day problems of a restless and half-clothed, barefoot, and inadequately armed body of troops to deal with -- regular desertions, demands for leave, incidents of misbehavior or theft of civilian goods by the soldiers, quarrels and discipline problems among the men, and the constant half-seen shifting of Howe's forces. Two of his men, Brown and Murphy, having been convicted by court martial for stealing civilian goods while drunk and ordered by Washington to be executed, Sullivan received a single pardon to be issued to a man of his choosing at the moment of execution. Sullivan, having at the urging of one of his officers, chose Murphy as the one to be saved, his pardon to be announced after Brown had been executed before the assembled troops; only, at the moment the nose was being placed around Brown's neck, another officer rode up to say that Brown had been an innocent, albeit drunken bystander to the whole incident... In early August, Sullivan is overcome with bleeding ulcers and writes to Washington:
Hanover August 7th, 1777
Dear General
I Joined my Division Three Days Since but am Exceeding weak & what is Still more afflicting I am Extremely apprehensive that I shall never perfectly Recover Doctr Jones says that my Excessive Fatigue has So much Injured The whole nervous System that nothing but a Long Continuation of the Cold Bath accompanied with a Strict Regimen can Restore me to a perfect State of Health -- all Solid Food & all Drink Except water must be abstained from. Spirits I must never again use but with the greatest Caution (if at all) as he Conceives that the free use of them has in great measure assisted in bringing on my Complaint & if continued will always have the Same Effect. This being the fourth time I have Bled he apprehends That the Bleeding has almost become habitual & will (if not prevented in the above mentioned manner) prove Fatal. I will however do all in my power to perform my Duty in the Division So Long as my new mode of Living will afford me strength sufficient for the purpose --
In August, Sullivan was troubled with insubordination from one of his officers on the one hand, Sullivan's rebuke to the officer was so severe that the officer deserted to the British and complaints from Washington's staff that he wasn't filing proper reports of his troop strength. Meanwhile Sullivan's published remarks vaguely impugned the loyalty of General St. Claire, who had withdrawn his troops from Ticonderoga in July, resulted in a demand from St. Claire for a "clarification" of the strong suggestion that satisfaction would be demanded in the absence of such an explanation -- "it is therefore left to yourself to explain, and that Explanation, whatever it is, I expect you will be good enough to send me by the Bearer. The Gentlemen is one of my Aids de Camp and will wait for it."
The August 22 raid was very much in the Sullivan style -- daring, but energetic, but not successful, with 25 American casualties and over a hundred of the raiders captured. Though Sullivan's troops killed or wounded many of the British troops and Tory sympathizers, troop discipline was poor and many were trapped on the island as a result of confusion over the timing and location of boats meant to carry them back to New Jersey.
Though Washington generally approved of the raid, he consented to Congressional demands that an inquiry into Sullivan's conduct be made, though Washington, needing Sullivan's services in the upcoming confrontation with Howe's army, which was moving toward Philadelphia.
Thursday, September 11, found Sullivan commanding the right wing of Washington's forces. Confused or faulty intelligence resulted in Howe's troops outflanking the Americans, and the collapse of Sullivan's part of the line. Sullivan, unable to rally his men, joined the adjacent division where his horse was shot out from under him and, according to one officer "his uniform bravery, coolness, and intrepidity, both in the heat of battle, rallying and forming the troops when broke from their ranks, appeared to me to be truly consistent with, or rather exceeded, any idea I had ever of the greatest soldier." Others, especially North Carolina's Thomas Burke, accused Sullivan's blundering as being the cause of the loss of the battle. The defeat occurred at a time when Congress was growing impatient with the performance of Washington's army, and sullivan was suspended from the army. For many months afterwards, he found him dealing with depositions and criticism and hearings. From all of these he was ultimately acquitted, and he continued to serve Washington subsequently in...