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Subject Area: War and Peace
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE COUNT DE ROCHAMBEAU. - George Washington, The Writings of George Washington, vol. IX (1780-1782) [1891]

Edition used:

The Writings of George Washington, collected and edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford (New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890). Vol. IX (1780-1782).

Part of: The Writings of George Washington, 14 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THE COUNT DE ROCHAMBEAU.

Sir,

I have been honored with your Excellency’s favor of the 12th and 22d ultimo, the last, enclosing copies of General Greene’s letter to you and your answer. After informing you that I concur with you in opinion, that it would not be politic at this moment to move a detachment from your main body to the southward, permit me to assure you, that I very sensibly feel your goodness in determining to advance the legion as soon as possible to the frontiers of North Carolina. I have only to request, that the commanding officer may have orders to proceed further or not as circumstances may require. The move of the legion will be perplexing to the enemy; and, as it has been heretofore the advance corps of your Excellency’s army, you may, I think, give out, (and it will carry with it strong marks of probability,) that your whole army is to follow, as soon as the weather will admit of the march. Supposing the enemy should receive the reinforcement from Ireland, I do not imagine that he will, after the many severe blows he has felt from plunging himself into the country, march to any great distance from Charleston; especially if he consider, that, while France has a naval superiority in the West Indian or American seas, a body of troops might be easily thrown in between him and the town, whereby his ruin would be inevitable.

It would certainly be our true interest, if it could be done, to give General Greene such a force, that he should be able, under all circumstances, to keep the enemy confined to their posts upon the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia; but, should your excellent and valuable body of men be made use of for that purpose, it might possibly interfere with the plan of campaign, which we may shortly expect from your court. Those States, whose troops compose the southern army, will be pressed to send forward reinforcements to General Greene as early and as expeditiously as possible.

I am apprehensive your Excellency will think me unmindful of a most agreeable piece of duty, which I have been directed to perform by Congress. It is the presentation of two of the field-pieces taken at York, with an inscription engraved on them expressive of the occasion. I find a difficulty in getting the engraving properly executed. When it will be finished, I shall with peculiar pleasure put the cannon into your possession.

In an address, which I have lately received from the Senate of the State of Virginia, on account of the surrender of York and Gloucester, I am desired to make their most grateful acknowledgments to your Excellency and to the officers and men under your command, for your eminent services upon that occasion, and to assure you, that they see with pleasure the harmony, which subsists between the inhabitants of the State and their generous allies. I take the first opportunity of making this agreeable communication.

In my letter of the 14th of January, I requested that Lord Rawdon might be exchanged for Brigadier-General Moultrie of South Carolina, in preference to any of the colonels mentioned by Sir Henry Clinton; it being more conformable to our practice than to make exchanges by composition. I now take the liberty of confirming that request.1 I am, &c.

[1 ]Lord Rawdon was later exchanged for General Scott.