Yorktown Order of Battle - French Army

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:

    In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.
    Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)

    Private property is held sacred in all good governments, and particularly in our own. Yet shall the fear of invading it prevent a general from marching his army over a cornfield or burning a house which protects the enemy? A thousand other instances might be cited to show that laws must sometimes be silent when necessity speaks.
    Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)