The expedition planned by Washington for chastising the Indians who had committed such atrocities last year on the frontier and particularly at Wyoming, was the most important of this campaign. Washington entrusted the command of it to General Sullivan. The largest division of the army employed on that service assembled at Wyoming. Another division, which had wintered on the Mohawk, marched under the orders of Gen. James Clinton and joined the main body at the confluence of the two great sources of the Susquehanna. On the 22d. of August (1779), the united force, amounting to nearly 5,000 men, under the command of General Sullivan, proceeded up the Cayuga or western branch of the last-named river which led directly into the Indian country. The preparations for this expedition did not escape the notice of those against whom it was directed, and the Indians seem fully to have penetrated Sullivan's plan of operation. Formidable as his force was they determined to meet him and try the fortune of a battle. They were about 1,000 strong, commanded by the two Butlers, Guy Johnson, M'Donald, and Brandt. They chose their ground with judgment and fortified their camp at some distance above Chemung and within a mile of Newtown. There Sullivan attacked them and, after a short but spirited resistance, they retreated with precipitation. The Americans had thirty men killed or wounded; the Indians left only eleven dead bodies on the field, but they were so discouraged by this defeat that they abandoned their villages and fields to the unresisted ravages of the victor, who laid waste their towns and orchards, so that they might have no inducement again to settle so near the settlements of the whites. The severity of this proceeding has been censured by some writers, but it requires no apology. Nothing could convince the savages of the injustice and inhumanity of their usual system of warfare on the frontier so effectually as to give them a specimen of it, even in a milder form, in their own country. Sullivan desolated their villages and farms, but we do not learn that he took any scalps or murdered any women or children, or tortured any of his prisoners. The measure of retaliation which he dealt to the miscreants who sacked Wyoming was gentleness and humanity when compared with their proceedings. It is only to be regretted that his retaliation could not have been applied to the homes of the British and Tories who assisted the Indians at Wyoming. Sullivan and his army received a vote of thanks from Congress, but the general's health failing, he soon resigned his commission and retired from the service.