French Encampment in Newport (11 July- 1 November 1780)
French forces under General Jean-Baptiste de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, had sailed into Narragansett Bay on 11 July 1780 and over the next few days debarked in Newport. A review in the Vioménil Papers lists a total of 5,218 NCOs and enlisted men arriving. A review of 1 September 1780 shows a loss of 47 men during the seven weeks after arrival in Newport.
To this must be added around 490 officers and a number of domestics for a total of around 6,000 me. Admiral de Ternay’s fleet numbered over 6,000 sailors and marines for a total of around 12,000 arrivals.
Rochambeau Statue in Newport
Newport, run down and impoverished after years of British occupation, was overwhelmed by the new arrivals. Incapable of feeding itself, foodstuffs, firewood and other necessities of life had to be purchased and transported to the city at the expense of France.
In June 1782, there were fewer people living in Newport than troops that had disembarked with Rochambeau:
The total population of Newport in 1782 incl. free and enslaved African-Americans was 5,532.
A 1774 census showed Providence with 4,321 inhabitants in 655 families living in approx. 370 dwellings, still fewer people than there were soldiers in Rochambeau’s army. The total population of Rhode Island was a little over 60,000.
The troops had arrived too late to conduct a military campaign in 1780 and many of the men, afflicted with scurvy and other diseases, were too sick to embark on any campaign. “The camp ran from east to west from present-day Spring Street, where at the west end it overlooked a marsh and the squadron anchorage. On the east end, it overlooked Easton’s Beach.” The infantry regiments camped on the east side, the artillery “on the camp’s west end close to Spring Street. The area across Spring Street and stretching down to Thames Street was laid out as the French Army’s artillery park.” Lauzun’s Legion took up positions at Castle Hill.
Following three months in their encampment the infantry went into winter quarters 1780/81 in Newport in abandoned and/or empty houses while the hussars of Lauzun’s Legion spent in winter in Lebanon, Connecticut. On 10 June 1781, the French infantry which had spent the winter of 1780/81 in Newport received orders to embark the following day in two divisions on dozens of vessels to travel from Newport to Providence.
42: Artillery Park 43: Auxonne Artillery 44: Bourbonnois 45: Royal Deux-Ponts 46: Soissonnois 47: Saintonge 48: Lauzun’s Legion quartered at Castle Hill
Henri Crublier d’Opterre, “Amerique Septentrionale. Newport en Rhode Island 1780.” (Detail) Rochambeau Family Cartographic Archive (GEN MSS 146), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Reproduced with permission of Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Henri Crublier d’Opterre, “Amerique Septentrionale. Newport en Rhode Island 1780.” (Detail) Rochambeau Family Cartographic Archive (GEN MSS 146), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Reproduced with permission of Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Detail from “Plan de la position de l’armée françoise autour de Newport et du mouillage de l’escadre dans la rade de cette ville (1780).“ Plan de la position de l’armée françoise autour de Newport et du mouillage de l’escadre dans la rade de cette ville. 1780. Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/gm71002159/. (Accessed March 04, 2018.)
42: Artillery Park; 43: Auxonne Artillery; 44: Bourbonnois; 45: Royal Deux-Ponts; 46: Soissonnois; 47: Saintonge
Only known contemporary drawing (1780) of a hussar in Lauzun’s Legion. Courtesy Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University, Providence, RI
French encampment in Newport, 22 July – 1 November 1780. Map overlay courtesy Norman Desmarais, Prof. Emeritus, Providence College
Henri Crublier d’Opterre, “Amerique Septentrionale. Newport en Rhode Island 1780.” (Detail) Rochambeau Family Cartographic Archive (GEN MSS 146), Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Reproduced with permission of Yale University, New Haven, CT.
Hussar of Lauzun’s Legion. Courtesy Stuart Lilie, Saddler
Suggestions for further readings:
Kennett, Lee. The French Forces in America, 1780-1783 (Westport, 1977)
Rice, Howard C. Jr., and Anne S.K. Brown, eds., The American Campaigns of Rochambeau’s
Army 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783 2 vols., (Princeton and Providence, 1972)
Scott, Samuel F. From Yorktown to Valmy: The Transformation of the French Army in an
Age of Revolution (Niwot, CO, 1998)
Selig, Robert A. The Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route in the State of Rhode
Island, 1780-1783. An Architectural and Historical Site Survey and Resource Inventory
(2006/2015) available at W3R History by State
For an extensive bibliography of English-, French- and German-language titles about France and the American War of Independence click here