New York was too much
even for the combined Franco-American army. News of the departure
of Admiral de Grasse's fleet for the Chesapeake caused a change in
plans. On August 18, the armies began their march for Virginia. By
August 30, the legionnaires rested at Somerset Court House, New Jersey,
by September 8, they had reached Head of Elk in Maryland. Here Lauzun
and his infantry, some 270 men, embarked on boats for the journey
to the Chesapeake. The hussars under Colonel vicomte René Marie
de D'Arrot, some 250 men strong, forded the Susquehanna at Bald Friar's
Ferry, Maryland, and rode south via Baltimore and Georgetown, Maryland,
to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and Williamsburg. There they received
orders to re-enforce some 1,200 militia under Brigadier George Weedon
encamped at Gloucester Court House on the other side of the York River.
They arrived on the 24th and were joined by two companies of hussars
from the First Legion of the volontaires étrangers de la
marine which had sailed with the troops under the marquis de
St. Simon from the Caribbean on the fleet of de Grasse[[164].
Barely a month later,
on October 21, 1781, the combined Franco-America army forced Lord
Cornwallis' surrender. Just as Cornwallis was about to be defeated,
the two fusilier companies of the legion that had been left behind
in 1780, some 332 men, embarked for the New World. They formed part
of an expeditionary force under the comte de Kersaint. In February
1782, this force captured the fortifications at Demerary, Essequibo
in French Guyana, and Berbice. In March 1784, these two companies
were suppressed as well. Of the 332 men who had left France in October
1781, 177 had died, 24 had deserted. The remainder was incorporated
into the regiments Martinique and Guadeloupe.[[165]
Lauzun, whose legion
had fought bravely at Gloucester Point, was selected to bring the
news of the victory to Versailles, leaving Count Dillon in command[[166].
Washington and his army did not tarry at Yorktown and returned north,
but the French spent the winter of 1781/82 in and around Williamsburg.
Ten months after their arrival, on July 1, 1782, Rochambeau's forces
broke camp and headed back to New England.
Dillon marched his
men to Delaware in the summer of 1782, where Lauzun, back from France,
once again assumed command. On Christmas Eve 1782, the bulk of the
French army sailed out of Boston Harbor for the Caribbean. Since no
cavalry was needed in the Caribbean, the Legion wintered in Wilmington,
Delaware. A final review on American soil on May 7, 1783, showed 47
officers, 482 men, and 268 horses present. Four days later, on May
11, 1783, the legion departed for France, where it sailed into Brest
on June 1[167]1. The war was over, America had won her independence
in a campaign characterized by flexibility, resourcefulness, and a
healthy dose of good luck. In the Preliminaries of Peace, signed on
November 30, 1782, "His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said
United States … to be free Sovereign and independent States."
The march to Yorktown
had not been at planned at Hartford in September 1780, and neither
had it been planned at Wethersfield. Success in eighteenth-century
warfare, especially if it was waged over long distances and involving
combined land-sea operations, depended on a large number of pieces
falling into place at the right time, on wind and currents, rain and
sunshine. In 1781, fortune smiled on America and France. Washington
and Rochambeau seized the opportunities as they arose and won. At
Yorktown Lauzun and his légion with its natives of
fifteen European countries from Ireland to Russia and from Denmark
to Hungary wrote its name into the history books.
On September 14,
1783, the Volontaires étrangers de Lauzun ceased to
exist. A royal ordonnance of the same date created (mostly
out of the cavalry portion of the légion) the Lauzun
Hussards as the 6th regiment of hussars in the French army of
the ancien régime. Some cavalry was reassigned to
chasseur units, the infantry was integrated into infantry regiments.[168]
The de facto re-constitution of Lauzun's new regiment took
place on October 10, 1783, at Hennebont. In December, the regiment
moved into its new quarters Lauterburg in the Alsace. In the summer
of 1791, the Lauzun Hussars became the 6th Hussars and Lauzun lost
his proprietorship.
A year later, the
revolutionary government in Paris had declared war on Austria and
the 6th Hussars had fallen completely apart. The majority of its officers
had deserted, and when its chief administrative officer, American
War veteran quartier-maitre Henri Sirjacques, handed the
regiment's funds, supplies, and records over to the enemy in August
1792, the unit had to be completely re-constituted. In the fall of
1792, the 6th became the 5th Hussars. As the
war went from bad to worse, the revolution turned on itself. Among
the victims was Lauzun, who ascended the scaffold on December 31,
1793. Flamboyant to the end he shared his last meal with his executioner.
Encouraging him to drink, he told the man: "You must need courage
in your profession."
His regiment, Rochambeau's
most colorful, and difficult unit, survived in the French army for
well over 200 years well into the mid-1990s.
[164]Massoni, Détails intéressants, p. 16. When St.
Simon returned to Santo Domingo a number of these hussars were incorporated
into Lauzun's legion.
[165]Massoni in Sabretache, p. 12.
[166]On the legion's role in the siege of Yorktown see my "The
duc de Lauzun and his Légion, Rochambeau's most troublesome,
colorful soldiers" Colonial Williamsburg. The Journal of the
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation vol. 21, No. 6 (December/ January
2000), pp. 56-63.
[167]For further details on the history of the unit see the thesis
by Massoni cited in note 4 above.
[168]Most of the fusiliers were sent to Martinique, the grenadiers,
chasseurs, and gunners joined the Bataillon d'Afrique stationed in
Senegal. Rigondaud, "Lauzun," p. 4.