“It is a source of profound regret to the thoughtful student of American history that General Sullivan was not left in charge to work out the problem of the Canadian expedition. True, he was only thirty-six years of age and had had but limited experience, but his successful combinations of a few years later leave it more than possible that, with him as a leader, the whole of Canada might have been added to the United States even at that early day, and the Revolution there terminated in half the time it finally lasted. “This was not destined so to be, for Congress somewhat hastily decided to commit the command of the Northern army to the much older but, as many of us now believe, far less competent hands of General Gates. I should not do justice to General Sullivan’s character if I did not concede that this replacement caused him some hurt, and I might say grief, but his magnanimous and instant efforts in the very moment of his return from Canada to serve his country by taking up as temporary Commander the perilous work on Long Island which General Greene had been compelled by illness to lay down, showed the soldier, the gentleman and patriot as no less trying circumstances could. “In the midst of the carnage of the disastrous battle of Long Island, Sullivan was taken prisoner. At once paroled and soon after exchanged, we find him in December, 1776, hastening to join General Washington. “Let me now turn from the track of this all too historical resumé to call your attention to the fact that, when Lord Howe paroled General Sullivan, desirous then of accelerating and possibly terminating the Rebellion without severance with the colonies, he selected John Sullivan as the honored representative of the British Government to convey his message to George Washington, and General Sullivan, under his own parole, brought from Lord Howe to George Washington the propositions which Lord Howe felt he could entrust to no more worthy hands than those of this man who was the absolute and the untiring enemy of Great Britain. That is a testimonial to General Sullivan whose place no monument can take. “In December, 1776, he hastened to join General Washington. On the morning of the attack of Trenton, after a night of storm and cold so bitter that some of his men were frozen to death and many of his guns were rendered wet and useless, he reported to Washington the defective condition of his muskets, as was his duty, but was ordered to advance and charge, which he did with so much effect that his regiment was really the first in action at the lower end of the town. “Next we find him, September 11th, 1777, on the disastrous but glorious field of Brandywine, every duty discharged with promptness, cool courage and sound discretion and judgment, and even in the closing hours of that struggle his was the foremost figure in the desperate center of the fray.