In a 1999, interview with the historical magazine American Heritage, renowned author David McCullough claimed that "When you're working on the Revolutionary War, as I'm doing now, you realize what the French did for us. We wouldn't have a country if it weren't for them." [1] Few historians of the war on either side of the Atlantic would dispute that there is at least a grain of truth in McCullough's statement. Still, the notion of Frenchmen fighting side by side with Continental soldiers for American independence comes as a surprise to most Americans: 220 years after Yorktown few Americans are aware of the critical importance of America's French allies during the Revolutionary War.

     The support provided by French King Louis XVI toward the success of that war has been largely obliterated in the collective memory of the American people. As the Revolutionary generation passed away in the 1820s and 1830s, and canals and railroads altered modes and patterns of transportation in the 1840s and 1850s, the memory of the "gallant" Frenchmen under General comte de Rochambeau, of their crucial contribution to American Independence, and of the bond forged in the crucible of war, was covered by the mantle of Revolutionary War iconography. A prime example of this development is given by Benson J. Lossing, who could write as early as 1852, that "a balance-sheet of favors connected with the alliance will show not the least preponderance of service in favor of the French, unless the result of the more vigorous action of the Americans, caused by the hopes of success from the alliance, shall be taken into the account." [2]

     The tragedy of the Civil War and the turmoil of the (Second) Industrial Revolution brought massive economic and demographic dislocation in the 1860s and 1870s. As millions of immigrants from southern and east-central Europe settled mid-western and western America in the 1880s and 1890s, interest in the French alliance was increasingly confined to professional historians and Americans living in France. The celebrations of the centennials of the American and French Revolutions in 1876 and 1889 saw the publication of Thomas Balch's Les Français en Amérique pendant la Guerre de l'Indépendance des États-Unis, 1777-1783, published in Paris and Philadelphia in 1872. [3] In 1881, Henry P. Johnston published the still useful The Yorktown Campaign and the Surrender of Cornwallis, and Edwin M. Stone followed suit with Our French Allies … in the Great War of the American Independence, published in Providence, R.I., in 1884.

     In Paris, Henri Doniol published between 1886 and 1892 his ambitious Histoire de la participation de la France à l'établissement des États-Unis d'Amérique. Correspondance diplomatique et documents in five volumes. [4] In 1903, Amblard Marie Vicomte de Noailles' Marins et Soldats Français en Amérique Pendant la Guerre de l'Indépendance des États-Unis, 1778-1783 ran off the presses in Paris. Finally, with the strong support of the Society in France, Sons of the American Revolution, founded in Paris in September 1897, the French Foreign Ministry in 1903 published the names of thousands of Frenchmen who had fought in the Revolutionary War in Les Combattants Français de la Guerre Américaine 1778-1783. [5]

     A few years later, the First World War brought the renewal of an alliance that had flourished some 140 years earlier. "Lafayette, we are here!" an American officer is said to have pronounced over the tomb of the marquis in Paris in 1917. With Armistice Day 1918, the "debt to Lafayette" was paid. But the war "over there" also brought renewed interest in the earlier military cooperation against a common foe during the Revolutionary War. When Boston banker Allan Forbes retraced the route taken by Rochambeau and his forces in the early 1920s, he concentrated on the New England states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. [6] His research ended at the New York State line; the mid-Atlantic states were covered in but a single article. [7] Not just "Out West" where no French soldier ever set foot, but in the original thirteen colonies as well it has until recently been left to town historians and private organizations such as the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Society of the Cincinnati or the Souvenir Français, to keep the memory of the Franco-American alliance alive. In the State of New York, where Rochambeau's men had marched and camped primarily in Westchester and Rockland counties, this usually meant an occasional article in the Westchester Historian or in South of the Mountain, the quarterly of the Rockland County Historical Society, often in connection with an anniversary, i.e., 1931, 1976, or 1981.

     All this changed in the fall of 1999. The Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route (W3R) of the 225^th Anniversary of the American Revolution in the State of New York will contribute to a nine-state National Historic Trail to be completed by 2006. The long-range goal of the project is to develop a plan to interpret the route that Washington’s and Rochambeau’s armies took through Westchester and Rockland counties in 1781 and 1782, in time for the 2006 anniversary, when the W3R will form an integral component of the greater Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area (HRVNHA).

2.2 Scope of the Project

     The current report completes the first part of the HRVNHA project for 2000/01, i.e., an historic and architectural survey of the W3R in Rockland and Westchester counties. It forms the basis of the archeological survey of the campsites, routes, and other features of the American and French armies in their march to Yorktown. Concurrently, Impact LLC, designed, using the Geographic Information System, a map of the complete nine-state W3R and a detailed map of its course through Westchester and Rockland counties.  This dual approach will adhere to the template developed and followed by Connecticut. [8]   By 2002, New York will have the basis for joining the W3R National Historic Trail and nominating sites to the National Register of Historic Places. [9]

2.3 Goals of the Project

     The project sets itself three goals. 1) to collect, interpret, and evaluate American, French, British, and German primary and secondary sources for information concerning Franco-American cooperation in the American Revolutionary War with a view toward explaining the reasons, goals, and results for and of that involvement. 2) to review these same sources for information about the presence of French and American troops in the State of New York in the summer of 1781 and the fall of 1782 and their interaction with the inhabitants of the state, and 3) to identify historic buildings and sites such as campsites as well as modern monuments and markers associated with the march of American and French forces under the command of Generals Washington and Rochambeau from Newburgh and Ridgefield resp. in July of 1781 to Philipsburg on their way to Yorktown, and of the French return march and the second meeting of the two armies in the fall of 1782. This identification of above-ground resources and especially of the campsites (as archeological sites) is to result (where possible or feasible) in the nomination of these resources for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

     Goals 1) and 2) were achieved by in-depth research in American and European libraries and archives. Local historical research was done in the libraries of the Westchester County and Rockland County Historical Societies and other public libraries during fieldwork in the fall of 2000. As work progressed it became obvious that a number of sub-goals would have to be met within the general framework of the study. In the context of goal 1) the need for an in-depth analysis of Franco-American strategy in the months of July and August 1781 became obvious. It showed that Washington and Rochambeau did not always think and plan along the same lines and that the relationship between the two was more complex than it has heretofore been portrayed in the literature.

     Within the context of goal 2), the McDonald Papers held by the Westchester County Historical Society turned out to contain a wealth of largely untapped, though not always laudatory, information about Rochambeau's troops. For goal 3), the pre-requisite tracing and identification of the routes taken by the two armies in 1781 and 1782 across Rockland and Westchester counties, turned out a challenging but rewarding assignment. The reader is cautioned to remember that the routes described here are determined by aboveground sites and resources and by the current road system, which often follows that of 225 years ago only in approximation.

2.4 Sources

     A few published and manuscript sources were particularly helpful in the preparation of this report. Among the published materials, Otto Hufeland's Westchester County during the American Revolution 1775-1783 (Westchester County Historical Society, 1926) proved particularly helpful for the general context in which the war was fought. Of equal value was once again, despite its primary focus on New England, the three-volume set by Forbes and Cadman, France and New England esp. volume 1.

     But wherever possible I have based my report on primary source material, in particular unpublished materials from European archives relating to the French involvement in the American Revolutionary War. Among primary source materials for local history, the McDonald Papers located in the Westchester County Historical Society in Elmsford take first place. John McLeod McDonald (1790-1863) had been trained as a lawyer. After a stroke in 1835, he could no longer practice law and became interested in the history of the Revolutionary War. Accompanied by Andrew Corsa, Washington's and Rochambeau's guide during the Grand Reconnaissance of July 21-23, 1781, he traveled through Westchester County in the 1840s interviewing eyewitnesses and veterans in preparation for a history of the Revolutionary War. His interviews with 241 men and women, white and black, free and slave, fill more than 1,100 pages. McDonald never wrote his history, but these interviews form a unique oral history resource for events in the "neutral ground" between British and American lines. [10]

     The other indispensable collection of primary source materials is the compilation of maps, routes, and journals published by Howard C. Rice, Jr. and Anne S. K. Brown, The American Campaigns of Rochambeau's Army 1780, 1781, 1782, 1782, 2 volumes, (Providence and New Haven, 1972). Volume 2 contains orders and arrangements for the march as well as maps of routes and campsites that are indispensable for anyone interested in the march of Rochambeau and his troops across the State of New York.

     In an appendix to Volume 1, Rice and Brown provide a list of journals available at the time of publication of their book. [11] Since then, more than a dozen unknown primary sources have appeared in European and American archives. To the 45 primary sources, i.e., accounts of events in America written by officers in Rochambeau's army listed by Rice and Brown, can now be added a letter by Jean-François de Thuillière, a captain in the Royal Deux-Ponts preserved in the Archives Nationales. [12] Also added must be two letters by Louis Eberhard von Esebeck, lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Deux-Ponts, dated Jamestown Island, December 12, and 16, 1781. [13] Among the new sources are also the correspondence of Captain Charles Malo François comte de Lameth, aide-de-camp to Rochambeau (March 1781) and aide-maréchal général des logis (also in May 1781), and of his brother Captain Alexandre Théodor Victor chevalier de Lameth, who replaced Charles Malo François in the summer of 1782. [14] For Lauzun's Legion a manuscript kept by its Lieutenant Colonel Etienne Hugau entitled Détails intéressants sur les événements arrivés dans la guerre d'Amérique. Hyver 1781 à 1782. Hampton, Charlotte et suitte located in Bibliothèque municipale in Evreux, France, has come to light. [15] Other new sources (that I have not yet seen) are the journal kept by Dupleix de Cadignan of the Agenois, [16] and the journal kept by Xavier de Bertrand, a lieutenant in the Royal Deux-Ponts. [17] Papers and letter by Christian de Deux Ponts have been in part deposited in and in part acquired by German archives, [18] and through the good offices of Ms Nancy Bayer I have also gained access to four letters written by her ancestor Wilhelm de Deux-Ponts from America. [19] Also unavailable to Rice and Brown was the Journal de l'Armée aux ordres de Monsieur de Comte de Rochambeau pendant les campagnes de 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783 dans l'Amérique septentrionale kept by Rochambeau's 21-year-old nephew Louis François Bertrand Dupont d'Aubevoye, comte de Lauberdière, a captain in the Saintonge infantry and one of his aides-de-camp. [20] A different source not available to me for the Connecticut reports is the Livre d'ordre, the "Book of Orders" of Rochambeau's little army in America which allows a minute reconstruction of daily life of the soldiers in America. [21] The potentially most valuable new source are the papers of Antoine Charles Baron du Houx baron de Vioménil, Rochambeau's second in command. Some 300 items and almost 1,000 pages long, they promise to shed new light on the war in America. [22]

     Equally surprising is the fact that three journals/diaries/memoirs of enlisted men have also come to light since 1972. The most important of these three is the journal of Georg Daniel Flohr, an enlisted man in the Royal Deux-Ponts, preserved in the Bibliothèque Municipale of Strasbourg, France. [23] Among the Milton S. Latham Papers in the Library of Congress was found the Journal Militaire kept by an anonymous grenadier in the Bourbonnais regiment. [24] Finally there is the Histoire des campagnes de l'Armée de Rochambaud (sic) en Amérique written by André Amblard of the Soissonnais infantry. [25]

     These discoveries bring the total of known French sources to about 60, but their value for our project varies greatly. For one, the location of the journals by Ollonne, Saint-Cyr, Menonville or Rosel listed in Rice and Brown is unknown. Three items are collections of maps drawn by engineers for the march and/or for the siege of Yorktown. Other primary sources are but collections of letters written during different stages of the campaign, i.e. those of Axel von Fersen, Esebeck, Graf Schwerin, Montesquieu, du Plessis, Charlus, or Crublier d'Opterre and contain little or no information on the march through New York. Berthier's extremely valuable account ends on 26 August 1781, many more end with the siege of Yorktown, e.g., the accounts by Cromot du Bourg or William de Deux-Ponts. Others, i.e., those of Ségur or Broglie begin only in 1782 when their authors arrived in America. Of those who participated in the marches, some, such as Blanchard, either marched ahead of the main army to check on campsites or, as in the case of Lauberdière, followed behind the main army. Others again, such as Brisout de Barneville simply give a list of miles (his journal also ends December 5, 1781), just like the grenadier from the Bourbonnais. The marquis de Chastellux did not write a word about the march; the duc de Lauzun's Mémoirs say precious little about the weeks outside New York, while the Détails interéssants of Hugau do not begin until after the siege of Yorktown. Desandrouins had the misfortune of losing his journal in the wreck of the Duc de Bourgogne in the spring of 1783, and his surviving description of the march to Yorktown consists of 10 lines; those of the return march are somewhat longer at four printed pages.

     The usefulness of the majority of journals is further reduced by the fact that virtually all officers who made the march to Yorktown kept their comments on the return march very short: Clermont-Crèvecœur's journal for example, an excellent source for 1781, devotes all of 20 lines to the return march a year later. Fortunately Verger, who had sailed with the siege artillery to Yorktown in August 1780, fills some of that void.

     Finally, a word of caution. While letters and diaries written from or in America reflect the state of knowledge and interpretation of events at the time and are usually reliable, many journals were written decades later and are in some cases heavily colored by the (usually negative) experiences of the authors during the French Revolution. This is even more true for memoirs, which are always written from hindsight and often with a goal (no one wants to look bad in his own memoirs) or purpose (a last chance to grind an axe), and frequently (though not always intentionally) with a selective memory. This makes them as much a source for the life and times of the author as a reflection of the personality and of the time in the life of the author when they were written. The reader needs to be wary -- even if these memoirs were written by Rochambeau himself!