John Sullivan (general) in the context of Anne-César de La Luzerne

The Battle of Germantown was a major engagement in the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolutionary War. It was fought on October 4, 1777, at Germantown, Pennsylvania, between the British Army led by Sir William Howe, and the American Continental Army under George Washington.

After defeating the Continental Army at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, and the Battle of Paoli on September 20, Howe outmaneuvered Washington, seizing Philadelphia, the capital of the United States, on September 26. Howe left a garrison of some 3,000 troops in Philadelphia, while moving the bulk of his force to Germantown, then an outlying community to the city. Learning of the division, Washington determined to engage the British. His plan called for four separate columns to converge on the British position at Germantown. The two flanking columns were composed of 3,000 militia, while the center-left, under Nathanael Greene, the center-right under John Sullivan, and the reserve under Lord Stirling were made up of regular troops. The ambition behind the plan was to surprise and destroy the British force, much in the same way as Washington had surprised and decisively defeated the Hessians at Trenton. In Germantown, Howe had his light infantry and the 40th Foot spread across his front as pickets. In the main camp, Wilhelm von Knyphausen commanded the British left, while Howe himself personally led the British right.

The Battle of Rhode Island (also known as the Battle of Quaker Hill) took place on August 29, 1778. Continental Army and militia forces under the command of Major-general John Sullivan had been besieging British forces in Newport, Rhode Island on Aquidneck Island, but they had finally abandoned their siege and were withdrawing to the northern part of the island. The British then sortied, supported by recently arrived Royal Navy ships, and they attacked the retreating Americans. The battle ended inconclusively, but the Continental forces withdrew to the mainland and left Aquidneck Island in British hands.

The battle was the first attempt at cooperation between French and American forces following France's entry into the war as an American ally. Operations against Newport were planned in conjunction with a French fleet and troops, but they were frustrated in part by difficult relations between the commanders, as well as by a storm that damaged both the French and British fleets shortly before joint operations were to begin. The battle was also notable for the participation of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, a multiracial unit under the command of Colonel Christopher Greene.

The Sullivan Expedition (also known as the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition, the Sullivan Campaign, and the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign) was a United States military campaign under the command of General John Sullivan during the American Revolutionary War, lasting from June to October 1779, against the four British-allied nations of the Iroquois (also known as the Haudenosaunee). The campaign was ordered by George Washington in response to the Iroquois and Loyalist destruction of American settlements in the Wyoming Valley, and Cherry Valley. The campaign had the aim of "the total destruction and devastation of their settlements." Four Continental Army brigades carried out a scorched-earth campaign in the territory of the Iroquois Confederacy in what is now central New York.

The expedition was largely successful, with 40 Iroquois villages razed and their crops and food stores destroyed. The campaign drove just over 5,000 Iroquois to Fort Niagara seeking British protection, and depopulated the area for post-war settlement. Some scholars argue that it was an attempt to annihilate the Iroquois and describe the campaign as a genocide, although this term is disputed. Today this area is the heartland of Upstate New York, with thirty-five monoliths marking the path of Sullivan's troops and the locations of the Iroquois villages they razed dotting the region, having been erected by the New York State Education Department in 1929 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the expedition.

Sullivan County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 78,624. The county seat is Monticello. The county's name honors Major General John Sullivan, who was labeled at the time as a hero in the American Revolutionary War in part due to his successful campaign against the Iroquois (see Sullivan Expedition). The county is part of the Hudson Valley region of the state.

The county was the site of hundreds of Borscht Belt hotels and resorts, which had their heyday from the 1920s through the 1970s.