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Sullivan (JOHN action defeated)

JOHN action defeated the British left. On Aug. 29, 1778, he attacked the British at Butt's Hill, near Newport, R. I., and after a 12-hours' severe battle, in which about 6,000 men fought on each side, the Americans drove the British from the field at the point of the bayonet. Lafayette pronounced this engagement the best contested one of the whole war. In 1779 Sullivan led 4,000 troops into New York State to put a stop to Indian outrages. During the campaign he drove thousands of Indians out of the State and destroyed their crops and villages.

He resigned from the army in 1780 owing to ill health, and was a second time a delegate to the Continental Congress. He later resumed the practice of law in New Hampshire; and was United States judge of that State from 1789 till his death, in Durham, N. H., Jan. 23, 1795.