Beschreibung:

AMERICAN REVOLUTION – Manuscript, "Suite De La Campagne 1777 et 1778," n.p., c. 1780. In French, 25 pages 356 x 239mm, stabbed and sewn with deckled edges, with numerous manuscript emendations and corrections in ink and in pencil, blindstamped "ARCHIVES DE CHASTELLUX" at top right. From Philadelphia to Rhode Island: a manuscript history of the campaigns of 1777 and 1778. A continuation of a larger work, this portion detailing the British attacks on Delaware River forts guarding Philadelphia (October 1777) through the eve of the Battle of Rhode Island (August 1778). In between, the manuscript discusses at length the British campaign against Philadelphia and the winter at Valley Forge, with several digressions referencing earlier campaigns. Likely drafted during the winter of 1780, as the French army spent the cold months in Newport, Rhode Island, it contains some especially harsh words directed at Benedict Arnold, who had just turned coat in September 1780. In particular, the manuscript goes to great lengths to belittle the traitorous General, regarded by many historians today as one of Washington's most talented and able commanders. In discussing Arnold's expedition to Quebec, the journalist notes that most of his march through the woods of Maine was made "during fine weather”, and dismissing it as "merely audacious". But his subsequent expedition that resulted in the naval battle at Valcour Island, in which Arnold attempted in October 1776 "to cross the icy Lake Champlain and snowy chasms was merely insane. A young general, seduced by the vainglory of commanding a Great Expedition, deceived by his hopes and desires, might have sacrificed the public good to his vanity; setting off from Albany with no resources, he and his army might have perished in the wilderness in sheer agony and misery." Lafayette by contrast, in the next paragraph, was the paragon of wise leadership: "La Fayette joins to the ardor of his youth all the circumspection of an old officer; he measured his forces and resources against the innumerable obstacles facing him, considered the possibilities from every side, and convinced that attempting such an ill-advised adventure would spell certain doom, he had the courage to renounce. Congress and the Army applauded this wise counsel." Several pages are devoted to describing the Battle of Monmouth including a lengthy discussion of Charles Lee's ill-advised retreat of his advance guard and Washington's rebuke of his general and the subsequent court-martial. Of particular interest is a comment on how the battle, the first in which American troops held their own against the enemy in an open-field battle, ended. "Although the number of dead was modest on both sides, a new circumstance in the wars of North American made it exceptional: many English soldiers and many more German ones, suffocated in the heat; a few American soldiers perished too despite being more accustomed to the intensity of the climate." In essence, the battle ceased due to heat exhaustion. Provenance : François-Jean-de Beauvoir, Marquis de Chastellux (1734-1788) – by descent to the consignor.