Rochambeau - Windham CT
Posted by: nomadwillie
N 41° 42.029 W 072° 08.941
18T E 737227 N 4620450
The Rochambeau marker can be found on Scotland Rd between Back Rd and Mullen Hill Rd.
Waymark Code: WM7KGD
Location: Connecticut, United States
Date Posted: 11/04/2009
Views: 14
Marker reads:
In this vicinity French Troops under
ROCHAMBEAU
enroute from Yorktown encamped during November 1782
Erected by the State and Windham Library Association
COOPERATING
In 1780, Rochambeau was appointed commander of land forces as part of the project code named Expédition Particulière. He was given the rank of Lieutenant General in command of some 6,000 French troops and sent to join the Continental army, under George Washington in the American Revolutionary War. Count Axel von Fersen the Younger served as Rochambeau's aide-de-camp and interpreter. The small size of the force at his disposal made him initially reluctant to lead the expedition.
Landing of a French auxiliary army in Newport, Rhode Island on July 11, 1780, under the command of Comte de Rochambeau.He landed at Newport, Rhode Island, on 10 July, but was held there inactive for a year, owing to his reluctance to abandon the French fleet blockaded by the British in Narragansett Bay. At last, in July 1781, Rochambeau's force finally left Rhode Island, marching across Connecticut to join Washington on the Hudson River at Dobbs Ferry, New York. There then followed the celebrated march of the combined forces, the siege of Yorktown and the Battle of the Chesapeake. On 22 September, they combined with Marquis de Lafayette's troops and forced Lord Cornwallis to surrender on 19 October. In recognition of his services, the Congress of the Confederation presented him with two cannons taken from the British. These guns, with which Rochambeau returned to Vendôme, were requisitioned in 1792.
He was an original member of The Society of the Cincinnati.
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