Blog

A Conversation with J. Michael Phelps on the Battle of Brooklyn

Posted / From Our Collections, Research Library

The Battle of Brooklyn, fought on August 27, 1776, was the first full-scale land battle of the Revolutionary War. It was also a disaster that nearly destroyed George Washington’s army only weeks after the Declaration of Independence. Yet J. Michael Phelps argues that the battle has not simply been misunderstood. It has been only half covered.

In his new book, Squandered Valor: The Untold Story of Battle Hill and the Battle of Brooklyn, Phelps reexamines one of the most important and neglected episodes of the battle: the fighting on what is now known as Battle Hill, the highest point in Brooklyn. There, a force of about 300 men under General Samuel H. Parsons, primarily soldiers of the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment, captured and held the summit against repeated British counterattacks. Providing specifics of the casualties from the reports of the British themselves, Phelps demonstrates that the fighting on Battle Hill produced more British deaths than any other location on the battlefield. Yet for nearly 250 years, the bravery of Parsons and the 17th Connecticut Regiment has been mostly ignored, overshadowed by the better-known story of Lord Stirling and the Maryland troops near the Old Stone House.

Phelps brings a personal as well as scholarly connection to this subject. A member of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Connecticut, he represents 2nd Lt. Solomon Makepeace, who was wounded on Battle Hill and later died of his wounds while in captivity. The Institute’s library supports research like this by preserving sources on the Revolutionary War and helping researchers investigate the people, places, and events that shaped the American Revolution. Thomas Lannon, library director of the American Revolution Institute, spoke with Phelps about why Battle Hill matters, why the role of the 17th Connecticut Regiment never appeared in most contemporaneous accounts of the battle, and why recovering “the other half” of the Battle of Brooklyn matters as the 250th anniversary approaches.

Map of the Battle of Brooklyn, August 27, 1776. Cropped and annotated detail from Henry R. Stiles, The Civil, Political, Professional and Ecclesiastical History and Commercial and Industrial Record of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn, N.Y., vol. 1, New York, 1884. The map shows the battlefield geography of Brooklyn, Gowanus, Flatbush, Bedford, and Jamaica Pass, the setting for the fighting on Battle Hill discussed by J. Michael Phelps. Cropping, contrast enhancement, and annotation by the American Revolution Institute.

Your article argues that the Battle of Brooklyn has been “only half covered” by most historians. What do you mean by that, and what part of the story has been missing?

For the first 100 years after the battle, historians focused solely on the brave stand by Gen. William Alexander (Lord Stirling) and the Maryland 400 against the British which started about noon at the Vechte-Cortelyou House (“Old Stone House”). During that period, there was not a single mention by historians of the fighting on Battle Hill involving Continental Army General Samuel H. Parsons and his force, comprised primarily of the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment. It was not until 1878, when Henry Phelps Johnston published his Campaign of 1776 Around New York and Brooklyn, that details of “the other half” of the battle started to emerge. Johnston unequivocally declared “That little party composed of Atlee’s and Huntington’s battalions under General Parsons… must not be forgotten. Our published accounts heretofore fail to particularize the service it did; but it was of no small account.”

However, most subsequent historians describing the battle ignored Johnston’s praise of Parsons and the 17th Regiment and continued to focus solely on the Maryland 400. For the past 250 years, with a few notable exceptions such as Charles S. Hall’s Life and Letters of Samuel Holden Parsons (1905), Eric Manders’s well-researched Battle of Long Island (1978) and Charles H. Lewis’s Cut Off (2009), historians have, for the most part, overlooked, or barely mentioned, the fierce fighting which took place on Battle Hill, which started around 8:30 AM and lasted until a few hours after noon. The number of troops from both sides who were engaged on Battle Hill was at least as large as the number at the Old Stone House. The fighting on Battle Hill also lasted for a longer period of time than the action involving the Maryland 400. Moreover, as discussed below, the British suffered far more casualties on Battle Hill than any other location over the entire battlefield. Alas, despite the clear significance of Battle Hill, the firefights there by Parsons and the 17th Regiment have remained mostly ignored by most historians, even today. Although the Maryland 400 continues to fully deserve all of the praise it has received for its bravery and sacrifice, the commensurate valor by Parsons and the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment deserves equal attention.

Why was Battle Hill so important on August 27, 1776, and what happened there during the fighting?

Battle Hill was crucial because it was the highest point in Brooklyn and had a commanding view of the entire battlefield. Continental Army General Samuel H. Parsons (leading a force primarily comprised of the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment) had been ordered to capture the summit. This was the first actual combat in which Parsons’s men ever had been engaged. After an initial unsuccessful attempt, they captured Battle Hill with their second attack. Then, over a period of about three hours, they drove back three ferocious British counterattacks. The British suffered more casualties on Battle Hill than any other place on the entire battlefield, more than 40% of their killed in action. In contrast, very few British were killed at the Vechte-Cortelyou House. After holding the Battle Hill summit for the entire morning, around noon Parsons’s men became surrounded through no fault of their own after the British marched 10,000 men around the distant Jamaica Pass. Despite battling desperately, escape was nearly impossible, and more than 80% of Parsons’s men were captured.

In his Campaign of 1776, Henry Phelps Johnston recognized the key contribution by Parsons and the 17th Regiment as follows: “Thus bravely and effectively had this small body of Americans protected Stirling’s flank and dealt the enemy the severest blows they had suffered at any one point during the day” He also noted: “The four regiments alone which at different times encountered Parsons—the Seventeenth, Twenty-Third, Forty-fourth, and Forty-Second—lost in the aggregate eighty-six officers and men killed and wounded.”

As the Maryland 400 later did at the Old Stone House, Parsons and the 17th Regiment helped protect Stirling’s flank from British attacks, thereby helping to save the lives of the many Patriots who were able to escape to the safety of the Brooklyn fortifications. In doing so, the troops on Battle Hill inflicted heavier losses on the British than anywhere else during the entire battle.

Your work restores attention to General Samuel H. Parsons and the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment. Why have they been so easy to overlook, and what evidence convinced you that their role was central?

One factor causing Parsons and the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment to be ignored was that they literally were out of sight, out of mind, because the action on Battle Hill was at such an elevation and distance that it was not visible from the Patriot fortifications in downtown Brooklyn. In contrast, Stirling and the Maryland 400 were fighting near the Vechte-Cortelyou House, which was much closer and readily visible to Gen. Washington and the officers behind the American works. Within a short time, various newspapers carried descriptions of the fighting at the Old Stone House, and the story of the Maryland 400 was widely disseminated throughout the fledgling country.

Another factor why Parsons and his men were never discussed is that more than 80% of the officers and men from the 17th Regiment were captured so none of them were available to describe the furious fighting on Battle Hill. Furthermore, with the exception of Jabez Fitch (whose New York Diary was not published until 1954 and only described the battle in very sparse detail), none of the officers from the 17th Regiment ever wrote about what happened on Battle Hill. In contrast, not long after the battle Maryland Regiment Colonel William Smallwood wrote a lengthy letter in which he described how Lord Stirling led the Marylanders against the British Generals Cornwallis and Grant. Likewise, several other Maryland officers wrote letters immediately after the battle describing the bravery of the troops under Stirling at the Vechte-Cortelyou House. Thus, the bravery of the Marylanders was extolled while the valor of Parsons and the 17th Regiment was almost universally overlooked.

The first evidence of the significant role played by Parsons and the 17th Regiment did not appear until 1848, when Peter Force published his monumental American Archives series containing transcripts of numerous letters from 1776 where the action on Battle Hill was described. Among the most important new pieces of evidence about Battle Hill which was published in American Archives was the Journal written by Col. Samuel J. Atlee, the head of the Pennsylvania Musketry Regiment. (Actually, the first version of Atlee’s Journal had been published in 1847 in The Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed, but it received very little notice.) Atlee provided a detailed description of the fighting on Battle Hill, including the initial unsuccessful assault, the capture of the summit by the Americans, and the defeat of three British counterattacks. Regrettably, Atlee’s Journal was written in a manner which was strongly biased in favor of his own Pennsylvania troops and minimizing the role played by Parsons and the 17th Regiment. In fact, Atlee’s Journal falsely implied that he, not the higher-ranking General Parsons, was in command of all the troops on Battle Hill. It was not until Johnston’s Campaign of 1776 published in 1878 that the August 29, 1776, and October 8, 1776, letters from Gen. Parsons to John Adams became publicly available. Those letters clearly showed that Parsons was in command on Battle Hill, giving orders to Atlee, not vice versa. With the 1978 publication of Manders’s Battle of Long Island all of the details of the fighting on Battle Hill, including the crucial role played by Parsons and the 17th became crystal clear. Unfortunately, even after the publication of Manders’s book, most historians continued to focus only on the Maryland 400 at the Old Stone House and to ignore Parsons and the 17th Regiment. Thus, in an effort to finally tell the full story of the Battle of Brooklyn, I published Squandered Valor to try to set the record straight once and for all.

The title Squandered Valor is powerful. What does that phrase mean to you, and why is it important to tell this story now, as the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn approaches?

It is beyond question that the officers and men of the 17th Regiment fought with exemplary valor on   August 27, 1776, despite the fact that was the first time any of them had engaged in active combat and the fact that they were outnumbered by a force of seasoned British regulars. Parsons’s troops were ordered to capture the summit, and did so. They were ordered to retain possession of that vital high ground until ordered to retreat, and they did that as well. In the ferocious firefights that took place on Battle Hill, they drove back three counterattacks and inflicted more casualties on the British than anywhere else on the entire battlefield. In fact, despite their lack of prior battlefield experience, they bravely held their ground against the Redcoats for nearly three hours. The fact that they became surrounded by an overwhelming enemy force, through the fault of others that left the distant Jamaica Pass essentially unguarded, does not diminish their accomplishments. Although their valor was squandered due to the negligence of others, we owe it to them to spread their story far and wide and raise the level of attention to their role to the same level as the Maryland 400. As we near the 250th anniversary of the battle, it is especially important for us to do so. We owe it to all of the officers and men from both Maryland and Connecticut to remember their bravery and sacrifice.

We thank J. Michael Phelps for discussing Squandered Valor and for helping bring renewed attention to Battle Hill, General Samuel H. Parsons, and the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment in the Battle of Brooklyn. Readers interested in learning more about Battle Hill, General Samuel H. Parsons, the 17th Connecticut Continental Regiment, and the fuller story of the Battle of Brooklyn can find J. Michael Phelps’s book, Squandered Valor: The Untold Story of Battle Hill and the Battle of Brooklyn, available for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Squandered-Valor-Untold-Battle-Brooklyn/dp/B0H575NF5P

 

About the Library

The research library of the American Revolution Institute houses more than fifty thousand rare books, manuscripts, prints, broadsides, maps and modern reference sources, and is one of the most important resources in the world for advanced study on the Revolution. The library welcomes researchers to use the collections by appointment and supports scholarship by offering several research fellowships each year to graduate students and advanced scholars. To learn more, and make an appointment click here.

A New French View of the Chesapeake, 1781

Posted / Digital Collections, From Our Collections, Research Library

A rare French eyewitness account of the Battle of the Chesapeake is now available as a digital surrogate on The Field, the digital archive of the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati.

View the Auguste Journal

The unpublished 185-page naval journal was kept aboard the ship Auguste, an eighty-gun ship of the line serving in the fleet of Admiral François Joseph Paul, comte de Grasse, during the Yorktown campaign. Its digitization advances one of the central purposes of the Institute’s library: to preserve and make accessible rare printed and manuscript materials relating to the art of war in the Revolutionary era, documenting the conduct of the war and the achievement of American forces and their French allies in securing the independence of the United States. Written in French by Charles Martin Le Baigue, who served as cuisinier (cook) aboard the French ship, the manuscript offers a rare eyewitness account of the Battle of the Chesapeake from within the French line of battle itself.

The journal’s value lies partly in the way it restores the maritime character of Yorktown. Cornwallis’s army could be defeated only if the Chesapeake was closed to British reinforcement or evacuation. On September 5, 1781, as the French fleet lay at anchor in the bay, the Auguste first ran aground on a sandbar before being freed by the rising tide. Soon afterward, French frigates reported sails to the east. What officers first believed might be the expected convoy carrying siege artillery from Newport proved instead to be the British fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves, standing toward the Capes to contest control of the bay. Le Baigue recorded the moment of recognition: “Monsieur de Bougainville immediately identified the man on lookout who reported that he indeed saw several sails.”

De Grasse’s response was decisive and risky. Rather than preserve the fleet’s ordinary sailing order, he ordered his ships to form the line of battle according to speed, allowing the fastest ships to clear the bay and engage. The Auguste served in the French van, or lead division, under the command of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, a veteran of the Seven Years’ War, celebrated circumnavigator and original member of the Society of the Cincinnati in France. The Auguste was among the first ships into action. Le Baigue’s account captures the tension of a crew preparing to fight: “Each one was at his post and impatiently awaited the order to fire.” As the fleet maneuvered under pressure, he observed that “good order was beginning to reign in our fleet,” a striking phrase for the restoration of tactical coherence in the opening phase of battle.

The fighting continued until sunset. The manuscript records not only the movement of fleets but the physical cost of combat aboard an eighteenth-century ship of the line. “We had the misfortune of having a dozen men killed in combat,” Le Baigue wrote, including an officer struck by a cannonball near Bougainville himself. The damage to the Auguste was extensive: “Our sails were completely riddled and a large part of the ropes cut.” These translated passages give the journal its force. They reveal naval warfare as an experience of discipline, noise, splintering material, severed rigging, and men holding their stations inside a vast tactical machine.

The translated passages shared here are only a glimpse of what the Auguste journal may reveal. As part of our ongoing work with the manuscript, we are also exploring how AI-assisted tools can help staff move more efficiently from digitized image to provisional reading, translation, and interpretation. We are not publishing a full transcription or translation at this stage, and any such work requires careful human review. Even so, this experiment points toward the next phase of access: using new tools to help identify significant passages, support internal research, and make rare manuscript sources more discoverable for future scholarship.

The British fleet failed to force the Chesapeake and withdrew toward New York, leaving Cornwallis isolated at Yorktown. French command of the bay allowed the Franco-American siege to proceed, ending in Cornwallis’s surrender on October 19, 1781. Now available through The Field, this remarkable manuscript invites readers to reconsider Yorktown as a victory made possible by sea power. From the deck of the Auguste, Le Baigue witnessed the moment when French naval control transformed a campaign in Virginia into the decisive allied victory of the American Revolution. We look forward to sharing more from the Auguste journal as we continue to explore how AI-assisted transcription and translation, combined with careful human review, can help make rare manuscript sources more accessible to researchers and the public.

About the Library

The research library of the American Revolution Institute houses more than fifty thousand rare books, manuscripts, prints, broadsides, maps and modern reference sources, and is one of the most important resources in the world for advanced study on the Revolution. The library welcomes researchers to use the collections by appointment and supports scholarship by offering several research fellowships each year to graduate students and advanced scholars. To learn more, and make an appointment click here.

Have You Seen the First Declaration?

Posted / Exhibitions, History Education, Research Fellows / American Revolution Institute Exhibitions,

This essay by Michael Auslin explores the history of the Dunlap Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, printed on July 4-5, 1776, and features the copy of the broadside displayed in our exhibition Voices of Revolution, on loan from the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire. This essay first appeared on The Patowmack Packet. You can read the original version here.

 

For most Americans, the Declaration of Independence is the one on permanent display in the rotunda of the National Archives. That faded scroll has drawn tens of millions of Americans to view it since its first enshrinement, in the Library of Congress in 1924 and subsequently in the National Archives after its move there in 1952. It was a fascination with the physical survival of the parchment that inspired me to write National Treasure: How the Declaration of Independence Made America (available for pre-order now!).

Yet as I discuss in detail in the book, that scroll was not signed on July 4. Not until August 2 did members of the Continental Congress begin putting their signatures on the document, a process that took months to complete. So how did the colonists learn that they were now citizens of a new nation?

Broadside of the Declaration of Independence, printed by John Dunlap, Philadelphia, Pa., July 4-5, 1776. Collection of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire.

The answer, as many but not all Americans today know, was the Dunlap Broadside. Once Congress adopted the Declaration on the morning of the Fourth, someone, maybe Thomas Jefferson, walked the official text a few blocks towards the Delaware River, to the printing shop of John Dunlap, a young Irish immigrant. There, Dunlap hurriedly printed up several hundred single-sheet “broadsides” on cotton-fiber paper, some bearing the watermark of King George III. These were sent back to Congress, where John Hancock, president of the Congress, and Charles Thomson, its secretary, dispatched them around the colonies by mounted messenger.

Amazingly, today there is no official marker at the site of Dunlap’s printing shop, on the corner of Second and Market Streets in Philadelphia. I recently wrote a piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer on the urgent need to put up a sign at the spot of the most important printing job in American history (it’s paywalled, unfortunately, but if you have an Inquirer subscription, enjoy). There is an old, tarnished plaque on a building on the site, put up for the Bicentennial by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Site of John Dunlap’s printing shop in Philadelphia, now an abandoned cafe and semi-occupied building. Image courtesy, Michael Auslin.

134 Market St, Philadelphia PA 19106. Marked by the Society of Professional Journalists, July 8, 1976. Image courtesy, Michael Auslin.

Dunlap’s broadsides reached all thirteen colonies, sometimes taking weeks to arrive, and were used by local presses to print their own broadsides to further spread the news. Yet, of the maybe two hundred broadsides Dunlap printed on July 4-5, today only twenty-six are known to exist.

Because of their age and fragility, Dunlap Broadsides are not often on public display. There is one on permanent exhibit at the Albert H. Small Declaration of Independence Collection at the University of Virginia Special Collections Library, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

If you are in Washington, D.C., however, you now have a chance to see an original Dunlap at the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati. This particular Dunlap is the property of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire and has a particularly interesting history. It arrived in Exeter, New Hampshire, by July 16, where it was read to the public by twenty-two-year-old John Taylor Gilman. The Gilman family kept the broadside in their house, which was eventually purchased by the New Hampshire Cincinnati, but by then, the existence of the broadside was either forgotten or known only to a few. During a major restoration of the house in 1985, the broadside was found in the attic, making national news.

It is this copy, read in public in July 1776, that is on display at the American Revolution Institute as part of the Voices of the Revolution exhibition. The New Hampshire Dunlap will be exhibited through early May at the Society’s headquarters. While other Dunlap Broadsides are being pulled out of storage around the country for the 250th, this is a rare opportunity to see one in the national capital, and to get a sense of what newly minted Americans saw and heard in the thrilling and uncertain days after independence.

Michael Auslin is the American Heritage Partners Research Fellow of the American Revolution Institute. (Photo credit: Hoover Institution.)

Buy the book

 

See the exhibition

About the ARI

The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati ensures that the history and legacy of the American Revolution are understood and appreciated. The American Revolution gave our nation and the world a new set of ideals—liberty, equality and self-government for all people. These ideals and the history of the Revolution are more relevant than ever. You can help us ensure that the stories of all those who forged our nation can continue to inspire new generations by following and supporting our work.

Introducing Our New Digital Archives and Library Catalog

Posted / Research Library, The Legacy of the Revolution

In February, we reached a major milestone: the American Revolution Institute’s new digital archive and library collections platform is now live.

This launch matters because the Institute’s headquarters is home to one of the world’s greatest collections of books and manuscripts on the history of the Revolutionary War, as well as a research library on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century military and naval history. The new platform brings together digitized materials from across our archival and library holdings and makes them accessible in a modern, research-ready environment for researchers, educators, students, and lifelong learners.

We invite readers to explore the American Revolution Institute Digital Collections Catalog, The Field, here:
https://collections.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/

We chose the name The Field deliberately. It is more than a catalog: it is a collections platform built to advance the Institute’s educational and research mission and, over time, to mature into a robust digital archive offering resources unavailable elsewhere. Our goal is for The Field to become a trusted, citable destination for authoritative work on the American Revolution.

In short, the new collections platform is a field of inquiry, a space where users can engage directly with primary sources, including rare books, maps, manuscripts, prints, and other materials that shaped the Revolutionary era. This work supports the Institute’s core mission by encouraging advanced study and publication on the American Revolution. We pursue that mission by building and stewarding a leading special collections library, supporting scholars and expanding digital access to rare printed and manuscript materials.

The new catalog is powered by TIND, which provides a durable foundation for discovery, long-term preservation, and sustainable scholarly use. This is the first phase of a larger, ongoing project. Right now, the catalog reflects the Institute’s digitized collections. We are actively migrating the full library catalog, including more than forty thousand records, into The Field. That larger library collection will come online over the course of 2026 as the migration continues. We are especially pleased that the launch of the new catalog will coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Built-in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) allows for full-text search of manuscript material.

The Field will also create new opportunities for how we share and study the Revolution. Visitors can already explore digitized manuscripts, rare prints and visual materials from the Institute’s holdings. As the platform develops, it will support new forms of digital publication, including online exhibitions, short essays and video content. It will also open the door to new kinds of digital scholarship, including improved discovery tools and, increasingly, responsible approaches to transcription and enhanced access that will incorporate emerging technologies, including AI.

We invite readers to explore the digitized collections now and to follow along as the full library catalog comes online over the course of 2026.

Explore The Field

 

About the Library

The research library of the American Revolution Institute houses more than fifty thousand rare books, manuscripts, prints, broadsides, maps and modern reference sources, and is one of the most important resources in the world for advanced study on the Revolution. The library welcomes researchers to use the collections by appointment and supports scholarship by offering several research fellowships each year to graduate students and advanced scholars. To learn more, and make an appointment click here.

The World Would Never Be the Same: French Memories of the War for America

Posted / From Our Collections

Ken Burns’s The American Revolution presents the war for independence as a defining event with consequences that reached far beyond the thirteen colonies. At the moment of Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown, the film underscores this significance with the observation that “the world would never be the same.” Some reviews have noted that while the film suggests the Revolution reshaped the wider world, it does not explore that global impact in detail. The experiences of the French officers who served in America help fill that gap. Their letters, journals, engravings, and portraits show how the war quickly grew into an international story and how its outcome reverberated across the Atlantic. Many of these firsthand accounts survive today because they were preserved by the American Revolution Institute, which maintains a rich collection of French officers’ writings and artifacts. For these men, the American Revolution was not only an American struggle but part of a larger shift in world affairs.

Journal of Robert Guillaume Dillon, 1780-1781

Robert-Guillaume, baron de Dillon (1754–1837) left one of the most vivid French records of the American campaign. His journal describes the march toward Yorktown in 1781 and includes a striking account of his meeting with George Washington at New Windsor, where he was impressed by the general’s bearing and command. Dillon also recounts his wounding near Gloucester, Virginia, during the final operations around Yorktown. His writing blends battlefield observation with social commentary, noting both the character of prominent American leaders and the customs he encountered while traveling through the colonies. For Dillon, the Revolution was a lived experience that revealed how American and French forces worked together to bring the war to its decisive close.

Claude-Anne de Rouvroy, marquis de Saint-Simon-Montbléru (1743–1819) played a central military role in the Yorktown campaign. As commander of the French left flank, he helped seal off Cornwallis’s potential escape route toward Williamsburg. Although severely wounded during the siege, he remained at his post and later stood with the allied generals at the formal British surrender. A portrait of Saint-Simon created after the war shows him proudly wearing the insignia of the Society of the Cincinnati, evidence of the lasting bonds formed between French and American officers. His later life, which included fighting revolutionary forces in Europe and serving in the Spanish army, demonstrates how deeply the American War for Independence intersected with the broader political upheavals that swept across the continent.

“Notes relatives aux mouvemens de l’armee françoise en Amerique” by François-Ignace Ervoil d’Oyré

François-Ignace Ervoil, chevalier d’Oyré (1739–1798), an officer in the royal corps of engineers, contributed essential technical expertise to the allied victory. His notebooks document the engineering work that advanced the siege trenches toward the British defenses at Yorktown, including the preparations that enabled the capture of key redoubts. He also recorded the allied march south and the memorable stop at Mount Vernon, where Rochambeau’s army reunited with Washington at his home. Oyré’s meticulous notes reveal the logistical complexity underlying the Yorktown campaign and show why success depended on careful coordination between French and American forces.

Jean-Baptiste Dupleix de Cadignan (1738–1824) preserved one of the most detailed French accounts of the war. His two-volume journal includes a day-by-day chronicle of the Yorktown siege, a full transcription of the Articles of Capitulation, and a description of the surrender ceremony in which British officers attempted to present Cornwallis’s sword. Dupleix’s writings make clear how French forces understood their role in securing American independence and how closely they observed the unfolding of events that would later become foundational moments in American history. His journal also illustrates how extensive French involvement was, extending from the Caribbean to the Chesapeake.

François-Jean de Beauvoir, marquis de Chastellux, by Jacques-Philippe Voiart, 1787

François-Jean de Beauvoir, marquis de Chastellux (1734–1788), a major general and philosopher, helped interpret the American experience for European audiences. Fluent in English and serving as the chief liaison between Rochambeau and Washington, he recorded reflections on American landscapes, society and politics during the allied march to Yorktown and in months of travel afterward. His published account of these travels introduced European readers to American culture and governance, including his observations of Virginia’s Natural Bridge, which he studied with scientific interest. Chastellux’s writings helped frame the Revolution as an event that raised questions about freedom, nature and political authority in ways that resonated across the Enlightenment world.

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834) became the most famous French participant in the American cause and a symbol of the Revolution’s international character. As a young major general in the Continental Army, he commanded troops that helped pin Cornwallis at Yorktown before Washington and Rochambeau arrived. His success in America shaped his political vision in France, where he became a leading advocate for constitutional reform and authored the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Lafayette’s lifelong commitment to liberty, along with his correspondence with Washington and his celebrated return tour of the United States in 1824, shows how deeply intertwined French and American memories of the Revolution became.

Manuscrit des memoires politique et militaires du marechal de Rochambeau, 1725-1807

The war also had profound consequences for France itself. Supporting the American cause placed heavy financial strain on the French government and contributed to the crisis that led to the French Revolution in 1789. Many officers who served in America returned to a country in turmoil. Some, like Admiral Charles Hector, comte d’Estaing (1729–1794), were executed during the Terror. Others, including Saint-Simon, fought against revolutionary forces and later served in foreign armies. Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725–1807), narrowly avoided execution and later wrote about his American experiences with Washington as he tried to understand the political upheavals around him. Their writings show that the ideals they encountered in America became part of the debates in France about liberty, loyalty and the future of the state. Burns emphasizes that revolutions can lead to unpredictable outcomes, and the experiences of these French officers demonstrate how the American Revolution helped set major changes in motion in Europe.

Together, the experiences of these officers illustrate how Burns’s line that “the world would never be the same” is grounded in historical reality. The war drew European powers into its orbit, produced new political conversations in France, created durable ties among veterans on both sides of the Atlantic, contributed to the pressures that sparked the French Revolution and showed that established political orders could be successfully challenged. Critics sometimes suggest that Burns’s film leaves the meaning of the Revolution open-ended. The French evidence helps explain why. The Revolution’s impact was not limited to America. It reshaped identities, institutions and governments across the Atlantic world. For the French officers who marched to Yorktown and later witnessed upheaval in their own country, the American Revolution marked the beginning of a broader era of political change that affected nations on both sides of the ocean.

Thomas Lannon
Library Director