In the following year, 1778, the Loyalists and Indians mounted a number of vengeance raids on the frontier. In July, the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania (present day Wilkes-Barre) was destroyed. In September, the German Flats area was burned, and in November, the settlement of Cherry Valley was devastated. The killing of women and children at Cherry Valley caused an outcry that reached Congress and General Washington. Congress pressured Washington to do something about these border raids and in 1779 he mounted a campaign to “punish” the Iroquois. The Rebels had had some success against the Cherokee in the south and forced that tribe to sue for peace. Washington hoped to achieve the same with the Iroquois.
In July 1779, Major General John Sullivan led an expedition into the Iroquois lands. Sullivan’s force numbered over 5,000 men and succeeded in destroying some 40 Indian villages along with all their crops and orchards. The force had only one small battle with the Indians at Newtown (near present-day Elmira, New York). At the end of the campaign, the expedition could account for only 16 warriors killed and a handful of prisoners.15 Major Jeremiah Fogg who participated in the campaign wrote a very prophetic line in his journal: “The nests have been destroyed, but the birds are still on the wing.”16 The Indian nations that sided with the British never sued for peace. Most modern historians consider the campaign to have been a waste of time and money.
via What Happened to 7,000 People.
