Under my arm I brought my old friend, Rochambeau!
He’s dressed up and I’m dressed down ~
Portrait of General Rochambeau by Rachel LePine
I carried him under my arm into the classroom of a middle school in CT. I revealed him bit by bit over five days to a classroom of hungry students, students eager to learn about the man who helped George Washington win our independence from Britain in 1781.
What I carried under my arm was my biography/military history of this hidden hero of America and France. Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau. His story is ever on my mind, ever ready to be proclaimed to eager student of history.
My students in this pilot course came through with flying colors! They asked intelligent questions; they learned of the sacrifice made by 18th century women to the war effort in America; they wrote letters back home to France through the eyes and ears of a French soldier who marched across CT with Rochambeau; they wrote editorials to the Hartford Courant of 1781 after witnessing the Battle of Yorktown! I rejoiced!
Tagged Battle of Yorktown, George Washington, Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau, Rochambeau's biography and military history, Who was Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur de Rochambeau?
King George III of England is cow-towed! And hog-tied!!
Here are a few things you may not know that happened after the Surrender of Yorktown, VA, October 19th 1781
Later that afternoon the Duc de Lauzun, French cavalry officer, faced his opposite on the battlefield of Gloucester Peninsula, Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton, British cavalry, as the latter surrendered to him.
That night Rochambeau invited the vanquished Cornwallis for supper, but was turned down. He had pled ill and skipped the Surrender Ceremonies as well.
French Commissary-in-Chief, Claude Blanchard finally took time away from the busy hospital in Williamsburg. “I went to see the City of York.”
The Duc de Lauzun was dispatched to Paris to tell King Louis XVI the good news!
Comte Guillaume de Deux Ponts was dispatched to Paris to tell the King the Good News too! (on a separate ship)
Not long after – no date given: British King George III penned a letter saying, “America is lost. Must we fall beneath the blow?”
And so it went that glorious month of October 1781!!!
Tagged British King George III, Claude Blanchard, Comte Guillaume de Deux Ponts, Cornwallis, Duc de Lauzun, Gloucester Peninsula, King George III of England, King Louis XVI, Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton, October 1781, October 19th 1781, Rochambeau, Surrender Ceremonies, Surrender of Yorktown VA, Williamsburg
Did you know that Rochambeau met Washington in Hartford, CT for the very first time?