Note 1392 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

In a note, vol. iii. p. 312, he says: "Sullivan in his account says forty: but if a few old houses which had been deserted for years were met with and burnt, they were put down for a town. Stables and wood hovels and lodges in the field, when the Indians were called to work, these were all reckoned as houses." He charges that Sullivan was importunate in absurd demands for supplies, and amongst other things called for eggs to take upon his Indian campaign. This statement of Gordon undoubtedly rests upon something which he had seen in print. Is it not probable that his prejudice prevented him from seeing the humor in a newspaper squib inserted by some wag, in which Sullivan's slow movements and pertinacious demands for supplies are thus ridiculed? Cf. Eben Hazard in Belknap Papers, i. 23. The writers of "Allen's History" follow the same lead. "He lived during the march in every species of extravagance, was constantly complaining to Congress that he was not half supplied, and daily amused himself in unwarrantable remarks to his young officers respecting the imbecility of Congress and the board of war" (Allen's Amer. Rev., ii. 277). Bancroft (x. 231) speaks of Sullivan as "wasting his time writing strange theological essays", and gives him credit for destroying only "eighteen towns."