Washington's Engineer
Page 27
20,160 four-pound cannonballs
9,000 grenades
24,000 pounds of lead balls
2,900 spades
239 iron shovels
2,900 pickaxe mattocks
500 rock picks
484 pick heads
1,000 mattocks
300 hatchets
1,500 bill hooks
5 miner’s drills
12 iron pincers
10 pistols
4 scoops (surgical instruments)
6 priming wires
2 iron wedges
4 pickaxes (sage-leaved)
15 crescent-shaped axes
5 shears
4 punches
2 rammers
6,132 muskets
255,000 gun flints
5,000 worms (tools for removing debris from the barrels of firearms)
12,648 iron balls for cartridges
345 grapeshot
1,000 pounds of tinder
200 levers
37 bales of tent covers
12,000 pounds of gunpowder
5 bales of blankets
925 tents
clothing for 12,000 men
5,700 stands of arms
MERCURE
Sailed from Nantes on February 4, 1777
11,987 stands of arms
1,000 barrels (50 tons) of gunpowder
11,000 flints
57 bales, 4 cases, and 2 boxes of cloth
48 bales of woolens and linens
9 bales of handkerchiefs
thread, cotton, and printed linens
2 cases of shoes
1 box of buttons and buckles
1 case of sherry, oil, etc.
1 box lawn
1 case of needles and silk neckcloths
caps, stockings, blankets, and other necessary articles for clothing the troops
APPENDIX B: CHIEFS OF THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS, 1774–1893
Note that in this document, Duportail’s name is spelled Lewis instead of Louis.
Name Rank Title Date of Appointed Where Appointment From
Richard Gridley
Colonel
Chief Engineer
June, 1775
Mass.
Rufus Putnam
“
“
Aug. 5, 1776
“
Lewis du Portail
“
“
July 22, 1777
France
Lewis du Portail
Brig. Gen.
“
Nov. 17, 1777
“
Lewis du Portail
Maj. Gen.
“
Nov. 16, 1781
“
Stephen Rochefontaine
Lt.-Col.
Comdr. Corps of Artillerists and Engineers
Feb. 26, 1795
——
Henry Burbeck
“
Comdr. 1st Regt. Corps Artillerists and Engineers
May 7, 1798
Mass.
Jonathan Williams
“
Principal Engineer
July 8, 1802
Penn.
Jonathan Williams
“
Chief Engineer
April 19, 1805
“
Jonathan Williams
Colonel
“
Feb. 23, 1808
“
Joseph G. Swift
“
“
July 31, 1812
Mass.
Walker K. Armistead
“
“
Nov. 12, 1818
Va.
Alexander Macomb
“
“
June 1, 1821
New York
Charles Gratiot
“
“
May 28, 1828
Mo. Ter.
Joseph G. Totten
“
“
Dec. 7, 1838
Conn.
J. J. Abert
“
Chief Top. Engineer
July 7, 1838
D.C.
Stephen H. Long
“
“
Sept. 9, 1861
New Hamp.
Joseph G. Totten
Brig. Gen.
Chief Engineer
Mar. 3, 1863
Conn.
Richard Delafield
“
“
April 22, 1864
New York
Richard Delafield
“
Chief of Engineers
July 13, 1866
“
Andrew A. Humphreys
“
“
Aug. 8, 1866
Penn.
Horatio G. Wright
“
“
June 30, 1879
Conn.
John Newton
“
“
Mar. 6, 1884
Va.
James C. Duane
“
“
Oct. 11, 1886
New York
Thomas L. Casey
“
“
July 6, 1888
R.I.
Source: Henry L. Abbot, “The Corps of Engineers,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 15, no. 68 (March 1894): 413–27.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Henri Doniol, Histoire de la participation de la France à l’établissement des États-Unis d’Amérique. Correspondance diplomatique et documents (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1886–1892), 1:402–19; Elizabeth Sarah Kite, Brigadier-General Louis Lebègue Duportail, Commandant of Engineers in the Continental Army, 1777–1783 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1933), 57–61.
2. Letter from London to Count de Vergennes, April 26, 1776, in Doniol, Histoire, 1:413–14. A letter from Arthur Lee dated June 21, 1776, stated that the British Army in America consisted of 40,000 men and a fleet of 100 ships, that they were well supplied with artillery and stores, and that they had good officers and engineers. He also emphasized the difficulty of resisting such forces without assistance from France, with officers, engineers, and large ships of war. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, For the Good of Mankind: Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais Political Correspondence Relative to the American Revolution, comp., ed., and trans. Antoinette Shewmake (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987), 136; Silas Deane, The Deane Papers . . . 1774–[1790], ed. Charles Isham (New York: Printed for the Society, 1887–1890), 3:297; Record Group 76, Records Relating to French Spoliation Claims, 1791–1821.
3. Deane, Deane Papers, 1:119.
4. Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Correspondance [de] Beaumarchais, ed. Brian N. Morton and Donald C. Spinelli (Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1969– ), 2:241–44; Beaumarchais, Good of Mankind, 157; Etienne Dennery, ed., Beaumarchais (Catalog of the 1966 Exposition) (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale, 1966), MS 327; H.R. Res. 220, 20th Cong., 1st Sess. (April 1828), 24–25; Francis Wharton, ed., Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1889), 2:129.
5. Otis Grant Hammond, ed., Letters and Papers of Major-General John Sullivan, Continental Army (Concord: New Hampshire Historical Society, 1930), 1:407; US Continental Congress et al., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1904), vol. 8, 528, 537.
6. US Continental Congress et al., Journals, 8:537.
7. US Continental Congress et al., Journals, 8:553.
8. US Continental Congress et al., Journals, 8:569.
9. Duportail has been universally ignored by American historians. This seems curious when one considers that the names of de Kalb, Pulaski, von Steuben, and Kosciuszko, not to mention Lafayette and Rochambeau, are known to everyo
ne. Perhaps Duportail was somewhat to blame for this neglect. Cold and reserved toward the other officers, he was too highly trained and his judgment too much valued by Washington for him ever to be popular. Though he avoided disparaging remarks regarding his brother officers, one senses in his memorials that he was secretly amazed at their shortcomings. He must have spoken openly of these things in his letters to the minister of war, the Comte de Saint-Germain, but these letters have not been preserved.
In writing to his successor, the Prince de Montbarey, on August 10, 1778, Duportail says,
I have reason to fear that neither you, Monseigneur, nor your predecessor, M. de St. Germain, have seen the letters or memorials and plans of battles I have had the honor of addressing to both of you, conformably to the orders given me by M. de St. Germain to relate to him all that took place under my observation and add thereto my remarks. Probably the vessels which carried my despatches have been captured, or if not, as I always required the word of honor of those to whom I entrusted them to throw them into the sea in the event of an untoward encounter, perhaps as soon as they perceived a vessel, whether hostile or friendly, they may have begun by getting rid of my packet.
Copy in the hand of M. de La Radière, Archives des Affaires Étrangères, États-Unis 4, no. 37, folio 2r; Benjamin Franklin Stevens, B. F. Stevens’s Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773–1783: With Descriptions, Editorial Notes, Collations, References and Translations (Wilmington, DE: Mellifont Press, 1970), vol. 22, no. 1936.
CHAPTER 1
1. Duportail is the form of the name Louis chose to sign his letters and documents. He was registered as “Le Bègue du Portail” when he entered engineering school at Mézières, but a registrar transformed it into “Le Bègue duPortail,” and school documents noted him simply as “Duportail.” Also, his title of chevalier does not appear on any of his civil or notarized documents. The title appears in his nomination papers for the school but was not used after the death of his father.
2. On Rue du Bouloy, now Rue de Sèvres.
3. Archives des Affaires Étrangères, États-Unis 4, no. 73, folio 211; Benjamin Franklin Stevens, B. F. Stevens’s Facsimiles of Manuscripts in European Archives Relating to America, 1773–1783: With Descriptions, Editorial Notes, Collations, References and Translations (Wilmington, DE: Mellifont Press, 1970), vol. 22, no. 1936.
4. US Department of State, The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution: Being the Letters of Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, John Adams, John Jay, Arthur Lee, William Lee, Ralph Izard, Francis Dana, William Carmichael, Henry Laurens, John Laurens, M. Dumas, and Others, Concerning the Foreign Relations of the United States during the Whole Revolution: Together with the Letters in Reply from the Secret Committee of Congress, and the Secretary of Foreign Affairs: Also the Entire Correspondence of the French Ministers, Gérard and Luzerne, with Congress: Published under the Direction of the President of the United States, from the Original Manuscripts in the Department of State, Conformably to a Resolution of Congress, of March 27th, 1818, edited by Jared Sparks (Boston: N. Hale and Gray & Bowen, 1829), 1:265–66.
5. Agreement between the American Commissioners and Duportail, Laumoy, and Gouvion, copy: National Archives; draft: American Philosophical Society; transcript: National Archives. See Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree and Whitfield J. Bell Jr. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), http://franklinpapers.org, 23:315.
6. Archives des Affaires Étrangères, États-Unis 2, no. 66, folio 9r; Stevens, Facsimiles, 7:652. The engineers had hoped to sail on one of Beaumarchais’s ships, but four of the ships sailed before February 15, and none was ready after that date until the end of April. The Seine, the third of Beaumarchais’s ships to sail and the last to attempt to land its cargo on the shores of North America, was the only one lost, captured by the British and part of its cargo confiscated. Most of it had landed at Martinique.
7. Lovell to Washington, July 24, 1777, in US Continental Congress et al., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1904), 8:539, 558–59, 571, 760; George Washington, The Papers of George Washington, ed. Philander D. Chase, Revolutionary War Series (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985), 10:389.
8. George Washington to Major General Horatio Gates, Coryells Ferry, July 29, 1777.
9. Washington, Papers, 11:225, 11:251.
10. Washington, Papers, 10:650. George Washington wrote to John Hancock on August 17, 1777, to inform him that Colonel Duportail had made several requests for horses and servants to accomplish their tasks and that he had to loan some to them, as they expected to find these things available at the public expense. The Journals of Congress, in an entry for July 5, 1777, ordered
that another warrant be drawn by the president on the auditor general, in favour of Richard Ellis, for 700 dollars, being in full of a bill drawn by his Excellency Governor Casswell, of North Carolina in part of the expenses of horses, carriages and other necessaries furnished Colonel Derford and five other French gentlemen of his party on their journey from thence to Philadelphia, to be charged to the said Governor.
11. US Continental Congress, Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: National Archives, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1985), vol. 8, no. 4, folio 9r. English translation signed by Duportail.
12. British National Archives, Colonial Office Papers, 1777, 5:2; Paul K. Walker, Engineers of Independence: A Documentary History of the Army Engineers in the American Revolution, 1775–1783 (Washington, DC: Historical Division, Office of Administrative Services, Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1981), 175–77; Arthur P. Watts, “A Newly Discovered Letter of Brigadier-General Duportail,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 1, no. 2 (April 1934): 101–6.
13. Henry Laurens to George Washington, November 19, 1777, in US Continental Congress et al., Journals, 9:900–901, 932; Washington, Papers, 12:319.
CHAPTER 2
1. William Spohn Baker, ed., Itinerary of General Washington: From June 15, 1775, to December 23, 1783 (Lambertville, NJ: Hunterdon House, 1970), 106.
2. George Washington, letter to the president of Congress, November 16, 1778, in George Washington, The Papers of George Washington, ed. Philander D. Chase, Revolutionary War Series (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1985), 18:168.
3. Paul K. Walker, Engineers of Independence: A Documentary History of the Army Engineers in the American Revolution, 1775–1783 (Washington, DC: Historical Division, Office of Administrative Services, Office of the Chief of Engineers, 1981), 178–79; Washington, Papers, 12:387–88. Contemporary translation by John Laurens. The original in French is signed Le Chr. du Portail.
4. Baker, Itinerary, 106.
5. Nathanael Greene, The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, ed. Richard K. Showman, Margaret Cobb, Robert E. McCarthy, Joyce Boulind, Noel P. Conlon, and Nathaniel N. Shipton (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for the Rhode Island Historical Society, 1976), 2:229; Washington, Papers, 12:500.
6. Walker, Engineers of Independence, 179–82; Washington, Papers, 12:457–59. In the original French, the name is signed by the writer, Duportail. Contemporary translation by John Laurens. The omissions indicated relate to conditions that might have arisen but did not materialize.
7. Marquis de Lafayette, “Letters from the Marquis de Lafayette to Hon. Henry Laurens, 1777–1780,” South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine 7, no. 2 (April 1906): 65.
8. Washington, Papers, 12:506.
9. Walker, Engineers of Independence, 182–83; Washington, Papers, 12:515–16.
10. Baker, Itinerary, 108.
11. General orders, in Washington, Papers, 12:620–21.
12. May 16, 1778, in Benjamin Franklin, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree and Whitfield J. Bell Jr. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1959), http://f
ranklinpapers.org, 26:478.
13. Frank H. Taylor, Valley Forge: A Chronicle of American Heroism (Philadelphia: James W. Nagle, 1905); Washington, Papers, 13:243.
14. Sir William Howe, The Narrative of Lt. Gen. Sir William Howe in a Committee of the House of Commons on 29th April 1779, Relative to His Conduct during His Late Command of the King’s Troops in North America, to Which Are Added Some Observations upon a Pamphlet Entitled Letters to a Nobleman (London: H. Baldwin, 1780), 30.
15. Elizabeth S. Kite, “General Washington and the French Engineers Duportail and Companions,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 43, no. 2 (June 1932): 109.
16. Walker, Engineers of Independence, 34–36; Washington, Papers, 13:262–66.
17. US Continental Congress et al., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1904), 13:305.
18. US Continental Congress, Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (Washington, DC: National Archives, National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1985), vol. 3, no. 147, folio 147; US Continental Congress et al., Journals, 10:305–6, 14:570–71; Washington, Papers, 10:454.
19. Brigadier General Duportail to George Washington, January 18, 1778, in Washington, Papers, 13:262–64.
20. George Washington to a Continental Congress Camp Committee, Valley Forge, March 1, 1778, in Washington, Papers, 14:5.
21. Paul H. Smith, Gerard W. Gawalt, Rosemary Fry Plakas, and Eugene R. Sheridan, eds., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774–1789, vol. 9, February 1–May 31, 1778 (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1982), 13:106; US Continental Congress et al., Journals, 13:57–58.
22. US Continental Congress et al., Journals, 10:114–45.
23. Edmund Cody Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (P. Smith, 1963); Washington, Papers, 14:419–20.
24. Washington, Papers, 14:493–94.
25. Jared Sparks, The Writings of George Washington: Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages, and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts with a Life of the Author, Notes, and Illustrations (Boston: American Stationers’ Company, John B. Russell, 1834), 5:325; George Washington, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799: Prepared under the Direction of the United States George Washington Bicentennial Commission and Published by Authority of Congress, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1931), 11:288.