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IN SEARCH OF ROCHAMBEAU
STEVE GRANT |
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Tracking Revolutionary Connecticut’s French Allies
Researching the travels of the French army through Connecticut during the American Revolution, historian Mary M. Donohue assumed that, in all likelihood, any physical evidence of the exact route was exceedingly scarce, if not lost to the ages. Likewise, finding tangible evidence of the campsites and taverns where soldiers and officers spent their nights seemed unlikely.
"I think there was some feeling on our part that, well, a lot has happened in 225 years; `I can't imagine we are going to find anything that remotely resembles anything the French would have seen'," she said. But as the 225th anniversary year of the passage of the French army through Connecticut comes to a close, historians are surprised - shocked, Donohue says - at how much evidence of the old route they were able to find in recent years.
In 1781, some 6,000 French troops under Gen. Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, passed through Connecticut, east to west, on their way to join with the Continental Army. The assistance of the French proved enormously significant: It was that combined Army that defeated the British at Yorktown and brought an end to the war.
"The significance cannot be overstated, I think," said historian Robert A. Selig of Holland, Mich., an authority on the French military involvement in the war. Besides the contributions of the French soldiers, the French fleet's arrival in Chesapeake Bay was also critical, preventing the British from fleeing Yorktown by sea, Selig said.
In all, 42 sites and buildings have been added to the National Register of Historic Places as a result of the research into the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route in Connecticut, as the 120-mile-long route is known. It passes through 59 Connecticut cities and towns. In all, the route of the French army passed through nine states.
Research in Europe and the U.S. by Selig and Donohue, who is survey and grants director of the state's Historic Preservation and Museum Division, as well as archaeological research in Connecticut by Bruce Clouette and Mary Harper, led to pinpoint identification of campsites as well as scores of artifacts and long-forgotten diary and manuscript accounts.
"Unbelievably untouched resources," Donohue called them.
Researchers, for example, were able to document specific sections of road that the French troops walked, homes where French officers were taken in as guests, fields where French soldiers camped.
Among them is a remnant of the route in Andover. Just a few hundred feet from busy Route 6 is Hutchinson Road, a narrow road that once was part of Route 6, before the road was straightened early in the 20th century.
Hutchinson Road has a historical feel, with an 18th-century home, old stone walls, pastures and woodlands in the distance. It is much as it looked at the time of the American Revolution.
"You see the same curves in the road the French would have seen; you see the same farm vistas," Donohue said. "You see the same creek we went over. You see the stone walls. And you see the Researching the travels of the French army through Connecticut during the American Revolution, historian Mary M. Donohue assumed that, in all likelihood, any physical evidence of the exact route was exceedingly scarce, if not lost to the ages. Likewise, finding tangible evidence of the campsites and taverns where soldiers and officers spent their nights seemed unlikely.
"I think there was some feeling on our part that, well, a lot has happened in 225 years; `I can't imagine we are going to find anything that remotely resembles anything the French would have seen'," she said. But as the 225th anniversary year of the passage of the French army through Connecticut comes to a close, historians are surprised - shocked, Donohue says - at how much evidence of the old route they were able to find in recent years.
In 1781, some 6,000 French troops under Gen. Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, passed through Connecticut, east to west, on their way to join with the Continental Army. The assistance of the French proved enormously significant: It was that combined Army that defeated the British at Yorktown and brought an end to the war.
"The significance cannot be overstated, I think," said historian Robert A. Selig of Holland, Mich., an authority on the French military involvement in the war. Besides the contributions of the French soldiers, the French fleet's arrival in Chesapeake Bay was also critical, preventing the British from fleeing Yorktown by sea, Selig said.
In all, 42 sites and buildings have been added to the National Register of Historic Places as a result of the research into the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route in Connecticut, as the 120-mile-long route is known. It passes through 59 Connecticut cities and towns. In all, the route of the French army passed through nine states.
Research in Europe and the U.S. by Selig and Donohue, who is survey and grants director of the state's Historic Preservation and Museum Division, as well as archaeological research in Connecticut by Bruce Clouette and Mary Harper, led to pinpoint identification of campsites as well as scores of artifacts and long-forgotten diary and manuscript accounts.
"Unbelievably untouched resources," Donohue called them.
Researchers, for example, were able to document specific sections of road that the French troops walked, homes where French officers were taken in as guests, fields where French soldiers camped.
Among them is a remnant of the route in Andover. Just a few hundred feet from busy Route 6 is Hutchinson Road, a narrow road that once was part of Route 6, before the road was straightened early in the 20th century.
Hutchinson Road has a historical feel, with an 18th-century home, old stone walls, pastures and woodlands in the distance. It is much as it looked at the time of the American Revolution.
"You see the same curves in the road the French would have seen; you see the same farm vistas," Donohue said. "You see the same creek we went over. You see the stone walls. And you see the tavern where the officers stayed."
The tavern, which is now a private home, and the road and the farm field are newly designated historic sites. A massive roadside sugar maple near the tavern is thought to predate the revolution, so it, in all likelihood, is a tree the troops walked by.
In nearby Bolton, another tavern and campsite have been designated. At that campsite, French coins were found. At other campsites, button, musket balls and other artifacts were dug up.
Clouette, a historian with the Public Archaeology Survey Team Inc. in Storrs, a non-profit educational and research group, said that once campsites were identified from documents, he walked the sites with a metal detector to determine if, in fact, the site had been used by the French soldiers.
Some sites had been developed, but others, such as the sites in Andover and Bolton, have remained agricultural. Clouette said the metal objects discovered there document the presence of French soldiers. At many sites, dozens of artifacts were unearthed, some as close as 2 inches from the soil surface, others a foot deep.
The research yielded a book, "En Avant: with our French Allies," with Selig and Donohue as principal authors. A new map of the route and its highlights, including text, also has been published.
Planning and research for the 225th anniversary began a decade ago. Donohue said a goal was to ensure that the story of the march was authentic and inclusive, that it was not confined to the role of generals, but that it included people from all walks of life. Researchers insisted on documentation, such as dairies and letters. The 225th anniversary, then, turned into a fresh look at a significant piece of Connecticut's Revolutionary history.
In so doing, one popular myth is being swatted away. The story went that Washington and Rochambeau planned the Yorktown battle when they met in Wethersfield. Though the two generals did meet there, it was not until months later that the decisions were made that led to Yorktown. Scholars have for years known that the Wethersfield story was not true, but it continued to be passed along as popular history.
The anniversary celebration was carried out this year through 12 committees and included parades, encampments and school events. With the celebration essentially over, and with far more information about the route through Connecticut, Donohue said the focus now is to preserve those tangible elements of the trail, such as intact campsites, and she is working with local historical and other groups to protect them where possible.
"Public historians or preservationists don't want to just have ancient records that you can do endless scholarship with," she said. "We want to have places, places that demonstrate that history, that are tangible, that you can walk, that you can enjoy, that you can use as a teaching tool." An example is the campsite in Bolton, behind town hall, which the town has purchased as open space.
Still pending is possible designation of the nine-state route as a National Historic Trail. U.S. Rep. John B. Larson, D-1st District, sponsored legislation in 2000 calling on the National Park Service to study the Rochambeau route. Larson's office said that study is expected to be completed this fall.
Donohue said designation as a historic trail would help in getting money for common signs along the entire route, for tourism promotion, even for acquiring historic sites at risk of development.
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Steve Grant has been a staff writer for The Hartford Courant for 26 years. He writes frequently on history, nature, and outdoor recreation.
Steve Grant
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