The French soldier and sailors. There were more Frenchmen at Yorktown under LaFayette than there were Americans. Don’t forget the Battle of the Chesapeake was won by Admiral Compte de Grasse when he defeated the British rescue fleet, bottling up Cornwallis and his troops with no possible escape.
Francois-Joseph-Paul de Grasse-Rouville, Comte de Grasse, was the French Admiral who won the Battle of the Capes, stopped the British navy from reinforcing Yorktown, and ensured Cornwallis’ surrender and the end of the American War for Independence. His defeat at the Battle of the Saintes in 1782, however, allowed the British to hold onto the West Indies.
Born on September 13, 1722, to an aristocratic family near Grasse, France, he entered the French navy in 1733 at the age of 11. By 1743, Grasse had been promoted to Ensign and served in a number of major naval conflicts against British fleets during the War of Austrian Succession. He was seriously wounded and then captured in battle off Finisterre, remaining in England for three months before his exchange. He was promoted to Lieutenant in 1754 and received his own ship, the Zephyr, in 1757. Promoted to Captain in 1762, his commands took him to India, the West Indies, and the Mediterranean. When the alliance between France and the United States was signed in 1778, he commanded a squadron in the indecisive Battle of Ushant off the Breton coast in late July (which generated a major British political controversy between two naval officers, Admiral Augustus Keppel and Sir Hugh Palliser). Grasse then served in the West Indies, where he performed with particular distinction in engagements against Admiral George Rodney.
During the French Revolution, Grasse’s four daughters escaped to America and settled with their brother in Charleston, South Carolina. After an initial grant of $1,000 to each of them, in 1798 Congress awarded them a pension of $400 per year for five years. Two daughters died of yellow fever in 1799, but the other two survived and remained in the United States.
yes, in PHUSA we make the point that it’s ironic: the French Navy really only wins one major victory over the Brits-—in our Revolution!
I’d nominate my Virginia militia ancestor who commanded a blocking force across the York river at the Siege of Yorktown. His great contribution of preparing and waiting for the escape attempt that never came gets obscured by those glory hounds Washington, Lafayette, etc. Totally unfair.
Other than that I’ll have to go with the always overlooked Admiral de Grasse at the Battle of the Chesapeake, without whom Cornwallis would have escaped the trap at Yorktown and the British wouldn’t have given up.