"Maj. Gen. John Sullivan and the Occupaton of..." Topic

… EASTON, PENNSYLVANIA, MAY 7–JUNE 18, 1779

"For a brief seven weeks, the Pennsylvania frontier village of Easton became the second largest community within the state. With an estimated 25,000 inhabitants, Philadelphia was the largest city in Pennsylvania (and North America); under normal circumstances, Lancaster was second with between 3,000-3,500 inhabitants followed by York with under 2,000.[1] In 1752 it was estimated that Easton had only eleven families.[2] Under the "friendly" military occupation by Maj. Gen. John Sullivan's command in 1779, Easton grew ten-fold from a mere four hundred inhabitants (plus a number of invalid troops, militia, and prisoners of war) to more than 4,000 occupants. This increase had a tremendous impact on the resident population and strained their limited resources.

Easton's brief occupation occurred because the Continental Congress's Board of War concluded that a major Indian war was in the near future.[3] They decided that a defensive war would be insufficient to stem the numerous devastating Indian/Loyalist raids along the New York and Pennsylvania frontiers. They instead allocated approximately 3,000 troops in 1778 for an offensive action, but that effort did not immediately materialize. It was gradually determined that more soldiers were required. In the meantime, British-sanctioned violent incursions by Iroquois warriors into Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley and New York's Cherry Valley regions caused an unquenchable thirst to totally eradicate the Iroquois menace with a "scorched earth" policy of retribution…"
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