John Sullivan

John Sullivan (1740-95), American military officer and statesman, born in Somersworth, New Hampshire. During the American Revolution, as brigadier general and later major general in the Continental Army, he held important commands at the siege of Boston from 1775-76; the battles of Long Island and Trenton in 1776; and the battles of Princeton, Brandywine, and Germantown in 1777. In the following year he headed the American forces that besieged Newport. Sullivan is particularly noted for his leadership, together with General James Clinton, of an expedition that decisively defeated a strong combined force of British Loyalists and Iroquois warriors at Newtown (now Elmira), New York, on August 29, 1779. He resigned his commission in November of that year and served (1780-81) in the Continental Congress. He later served also as New Hampshire's attorney general (1782-86) and president (1786-87, 1789) and as U.S. district judge of New Hampshire (1789-95).