Rochambeau

On July 10, 1780, the Comte de Rochambeau and his French force of 7,000 landed at Newport, Rhode Island to join the American Revolutionary War. An excerpt from the article:

"Rochambeau’s expeditionary force arrived at Newport, Rhode Island in July of 1780. Under the impression France would be sending additional troops and because the Continental Congress could not fund any offensive campaign in 1780, Rochambeau’s army remained in Newport for nearly a year. Rochambeau and Continental Army commander George Washington held a series of meetings throughout that winter discussing their plans for a major operation in 1781.

Rochambeau’s previous experience with toxic army politics made him uniquely suited to command a military force in an auxiliary role to an ally. By order of Louis XVI, Rochambeau was to serve as a subordinate to Washington, who while a capable general had significantly fewer years in uniform than Rochambeau. Prior Franco-American operations at Savannah, Georgia and Newport, Rhode Island in 1779 had gone poorly because the French and American commanders could not get along. With Washington and Rochambeau however, that friction never developed. Even when the two vigorously debated whether to attack New York City directly or striking at the British elsewhere, they worked through their differences admirably and respectfully.


Bataille de Yorktown by Auguste Couder, 1836. Courtesy the Palace of Versailles.
By mid-summer of 1781, it became increasingly apparent to both Washington and Rochambeau that an attack New York City was impractical. By August, their soldiers were marching south to attempt the capture of a British force under the command of Charles Cornwallis near Yorktown, Virginia. Washington hosted Rochambeau at Mount Vernon on their way south, and the two armies assembled in Virginia by late September. The siege of Yorktown began on September 29 and ended on October 19.

Following the siege, Rochambeau kept his army in Virginia able to aid either Washington, who had returned north, or Nathanael Greene’s American forces operating in South Carolina. By the summer of 1782, French officials decided Rochambeau’s force was no longer needed on the North American continent. Rochambeau returned home to France, while the French government sent his former soldiers to the Caribbean in preparation for an invasion of British Jamaica.

After the American Revolution, Louis XVI appointed Rochambeau a Maréchal de France. That promotion proved problematic for Rochambeau when the monarchy fell during the French Revolution. Despite years of loyal service to the Republic, he was imprisoned and investigated by the revolutionaries. Unlike many, Rochambeau managed to avoid the guillotine and was eventually freed. He lived out his retirement in his beloved Vendôme, never returning to active military service."