JOHN

See also:

• JOHN SULLIVAN (1740–1795)
• SULLIVAN, SIR ARTHUR SEYMOUR (1842—1900)
• SULLIVAN, THOMAS BARRY (1824-1891)

SULLIVAN (1740–1795)  , American soldier and political leader, was born in Somersworth, New Hampshire, on the 18th of February 1740 . He studied law in Portsmouth, N.H., and practised at Berwick, Maine, and at Durham, N.H . He was a member of the New Hampshire Provincial Assembly in 1774, and in 1774–1775 was a delegate to the Continental Congress . In 1772 he had been commissioned a major of New Hampshire militia, and on the 15th of December 1774 he and John Langdon led an expedition which captured Fort William and Mary at New Castle . Sullivan was appointed a brigadier-general in the Continental army in June 1775 and a major-general in August 1776 . He commanded a brigade in the siege of Boston . In June 1776 he took command of the American army in Canada and after an unsuccessful skirmish with the British at Three Rivers (June 8) retreated to Crown Point . Rejoining Washing-ton's army, he served under General Israel Putnam in the battle of Long Island (August 27) and was taken prisoner . Released on parole, he bore a verbal message from Lord Howe to the Continental Congress, which led to the fruitless conference on Staten Island . In December he was exchanged, succeeded General Charles Lee in command of the right wing of Washington's army, in the battle of Trenton led an attack on the Hessians, and led a night attack against British and Loyalists on Staten Island, on the 22nd of August 1777 . In the battle of Brandywine (Sept . 1777) he again commanded the American right; he took part in the battle of Germantown (Oct .

4, 1777); in

March 1778 he was placed in command in Rhode Island, and in the following summer plans were made for his co-operation with the French fleet under Count d'Estaing in an attack on Newport, which came to nothing . Sullivan after a brief engagement (Aug . 29) at Quaker Hill, at the N. end of the island of Rhode Island, was obliged to retreat . In 1779 Sullivan, with about 4000 men, defeated the Iroquois and their Loyalist allies at New-town (now Elmira), New York, on the 29th of August, burned their villages, and destroyed their orchards and crops . Although severely criticised for his conduct of the expedition, he received, in October 1779, the thanks of Congress . In November he resigned from the army . Sullivan was again a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1780–1781 and, having accepted a loan from the French minister, Chevalier de la Luzerne, he was charged with being influenced by the French in voting not to make the right to the north-east fisheries a condition of peace . From 1782 to 1785 he was attorney-general of New Hampshire . He was president of the state in 1786–1787 and in 1789, and in 1786 suppressed an insurrection at Exeter immediately pre-ceding the Shays Rebellion in Massachusetts . He presided over the New Hampshire convention which ratified the Federal constitution in June 1788 . From 1789 until his death at Durham, on the 23rd of January 1795, he was United States District Judge for New Hampshire . See O .

W . B .

Peabody " Life of John Sullivan " in Jared Sparks's Library of American Biography, vol. iii . (Boston, 1844) ; T . C . Amory, General John Sullivan, A Vindication of his Character as a Soldier and a Patriot (Morrisania, N.Y., 1867); John Scales, " Master John Sullivan of Somersworth and Berwick and his Famity," in the Proceedings of the New Hampshire Historical Society, vol. iv . (Concord, 1906) ; and Journals of the Military Expedition of Major-General John Sullivan against the Six Nations of Indians (Auburn, N . Y., 1887) .