The Destroyers: A Historical Novel

250 pp. A dramatization of the Clinton-Sullivan Expedition. "The Sullivan Expedition, also known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition, was a campaign led by Major General John Sullivan and General James Clinton against Loyalists ("Tories") and the four nations of the Iroquois who had sided with the British in the American Revolutionary War. The expedition occurred during the summer of 1779 and only had one major battle, at Newtown along the Chemung River in western New York, in which about 700 (mostly) Iroquois and Tories were decisively defeated by an army of nearly 4000 Continental soldiers. Sullivan's army then carried out a scorched earth campaign, methodically destroying at least forty Iroquois villages throughout what is now upstate New York, in retaliation for Iroquois and Tory attacks against American settlements earlier in the war. The devastation created great hardships for the thousands of Iroquois refugees outside Fort Niagara that winter, and many starved or froze to death. The survivors fled to British regions in Canada and the Niagara Falls and Buffalo areas. Generals Clinton and Sullivan met in Tioga, NY, and Waverly, NY (Tioga County) and set up camp in Tioga and Waverly. There was a large Iroquois village in Waverly." -- Wikipedia