French Army
The French forces at Yorktown came from two separate sources. The larger force, under the command of Lieutenant General the Comte de Rochambeau, landed at Newport, Rhode Island in 1780, and marched overland to join Washington's army outside New York in the summer of 1781. These troops marched with Washington's army from New York to Yorktown. More of the French troops were transported by boat on the Chesapeake than Americans, due to the French fleet commanders' preferences for transporting their own. The second source for French troops was the Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue, where Admiral de Grasse picked up more than 3,000 troops under the command of Major General the Marquis de St. Simon before departing for North America. The land forces were also supplemented by a number of marines provided by de Grasse in support of the siege.
Commander Lt. Gen. Comte de Rochambeau, commanding
Artillery
Lt. Col. Comte d'Aboville
- Auxonne Regiment
- Metz Regiment
Infantry
Maj. Gen. Baron de Viomenil's Division
- Brigade Bourbonnois
- Col. Marquis de Laval
- Bourbonnois Regiment
- Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment
Maj. Gen. Vicomte de Viomenil's Division
- Brigade Soissonois
- Col. Marquis de St. Maime
- Soissonois Regiment (2 battalions)
- Saintonge Regiment (2 battalions)
Maj. Gen. Marquis de St. Simon's Division
- Brigade Agenois
- Col. Marquis d'Audechamp
- Agenois Regiment (2 battalions)
- Gatinois Regiment
- Brigade Touraine
- Col. Vicomte de Pondeux
- Touraine Regiment (2 battalions)
Detachment at Gloucester
Brig. Gen. Marquis de Choisy
- Marines
- Lauzun's Legion
- (2 squadrons of hussars from the compagnie generale and 2 eme Legion, 4 companies of infantry and detachment of gunners, 2 eme Legion)
Read more about this topic: Yorktown Order Of Battle
Famous quotes containing the words french and/or army:
“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervishlike repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstacy, politics becomes an opiate for the masses, a proletarian eschatology; and reason veils her face.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)