Whom should Washington select for so difficult and doubtful a task? The chosen leader must make an expedition, as into a foreign country, through the unmapped and unsurveyed wilderness of Western New York, against a foe ever ready by wiles and cunning to ambuscade the invader. It might be, as in many a dismal case before, that his men would be shot by invisible marksmen. Who would dare to try to feed an army of regular troops with no base of supplies? With the precedent of Braddock’s failure and bloody Oriskany before him, who aspired to lead? It is no wonder that when Gates was offered the command he declined it at once, much to Washington’s vexation. The commander-in-chief then summoned General Sullivan. This descendant of Irish heroes was born at Durham, in New Hampshire, and grew up to be a stalwart American, a vigorous and far-seeing patriot. Just as soon, in 1774, as Great Britain forbade the importation of military stores to America, Sullivan knew there would be war. Collecting a body of eager young men, he drilled them in military tactics. In December, 1774, he attacked Fort William and Mary, at Newcastle, at the mouth of the Piscataqua river, and took the place in daylight. In spite of the fire of the garrison, he entered without losing a man, and pulled down the British flag. This was the first hostile act of the kind in the war of the Revolution. He carried the cannon and powder to Durham, where it was stored partly in a barn and partly in the cellar of the Congregational church edifice, on the site of which the monument reared to his honor now stands. The powder reached Bunker Hill in time to fill the horns of the militia. Indeed, this was about the only supply that our men behind the breastworks and rail fence had. Sullivan commanded at Boston and on Long Island, and fought at Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown and in Rhode Island. Up to this time, 1779, the French Alliance had not amounted to anything, and there were but fifteen thousand regular Continental soldiers fit for duty. Yet so important did Washington consider this expedition to destroy the Iroquois power that he detached one-third of his whole force, or 5000 picked Continentals. In its organization the army of chastisement consisted of four brigades, a regiment of artillery and eight companies of riflemen, making about five thousand men, with about two thousand pack horses and twenty-five hundred cattle and two fleets of boats for river service, with stores and ammunition. The New Hampshire brigade, then encamped at Redding, Conn., and the New Jersey brigade at Elizabeth, N. J., with the Pennsylvania regiments, were ordered to march to Easton, and thence to move on to Wyoming, from which point the stores and cannon were to follow the army until they should reach Tioga Point, where is now Athens. Here they were to be joined by the New York brigade from Schenectady.