Lieutenant General Rochambeau to George Washington, 28–29 June 1781
From Lieutenant General Rochambeau
New Town [Conn.] the 28[–29] June 1781
Sir,
I have the honor to inform your Excellency of my arrival here to day with the first regiment. I shall stay three days to mend the Broken waggons and to assemble my corps into Brigades.1 I shall set off On the 2d next month with the two first regiments united, and on the 3d, the 2d Brigade consisting of the two Last regiments will follow, by which means the Last regiment will stay one day. On the 2d I shall arrive at ridgebury,2 and on the 3d at Crompon where the 2d Brigade will join me on the 4th, and there I hope I shall receive your Excellency’s orders. I have already wrote to your Excellency that I had left my Siege artillery, ready to imbark at Providence and that I only brought with me the field pieces, Eight 12. pounders and Six howitzers, I hope they will arrive safely.3
The corps of Lauzun shall be at ridgefield on the 2d which same day I shall be at ridgebury,4 and the 3d it will arrive at Pinnbridge and I at Crompon. If your Excellency chuses to change any thing to these movements, you will be so good as to give me your orders, here by the return of the huzzard.5 I am with respect and personal attachment Sir, Your Excellency’s Most obedient & humble servant
le cte de Rochambeau
29th June
P.S. in the moment that this Letter was going to be sent, Major Cobb has brought that of your Excellency of the 27th instant.6 I will stay here to day and to morrow to put every thing under proper orders, and I will endeavour to set off my self after to morrow with a small escort, to go and wait on your Excellency and receive your orders.
I beg of your Excellency to forward the inclosed packet to the ch. de La Luzerne, by a sure and Speedy way.7
LS, DLC:GW; LB, in French, DLC: Rochambeau Papers, vol. 9; LB, in French, DLC: Rochambeau Papers, vol. 12. The postscript appears only on the LS.
1. Rochambeau was marching his army from Rhode Island to New York (see his letter to GW, 15 June, and n.2 to that document).
Lieutenant Colonel Deux-Ponts of the Royal Deux-Ponts Regiment wrote in his journal: “All the different camps which we have had since leaving Newport, have been selected only for the object of making progress, and we were much too far from the enemy to take any other precautions than those which our own discipline required. Thus far the only thing that has occupied us has been our convenience, and what would spare the troops from fatigue; but after reaching Newtown we should have been guilty of neglect, if we had continued to show the same confidence in the impossibility of attacks on the part of the enemy.
“The Count de Rochambeau detached for the first time at Newtown the battalion of grenadiers and chasseurs from the brigade of Bourbonnois” (, 113–14).
2. Ridgebury, a village within the town of Ridgefield, Conn., was just under fifteen miles from Newtown.
3. See Rochambeau to GW, 15 June.
4. The village of Ridgefield in the town of Ridgefield was about six miles south of Ridgebury.
5. A hussar is a light cavalryman. In his reply to Rochambeau on 30 June, GW modified the French march.
6. See GW to Rochambeau, 27 June; see also David Cobb to GW, 29 June.
7. The contents of the packet for French minister La Luzerne have not been identified.