Comte d'Estaing Archives - Journal of the American Revolution

Posted on April 17, 2025April 16, 2025

America’s Forgotten Founder: Comte Charles Gravier de Vergennes

Historians generally agree on who were America’s principal Founders, but the roll call invariably omits the name of one individual without whose steadfast assistance the United States would have been unlikely to have gained independence. Comte Charles Gravier de Vergennes, France’s foreign minister throughout the long, desperate war, was a crucial player in America’s victory […]

by John Ferling

Posted on April 25, 2023April 23, 2023

Signals and Pilots: Cooperating with the French Fleet, 1778

France officially joined the American colonies in their struggle for independence on February 6, 1778. On this day two treaties were signed: the first was the Treaty of Alliance and the second was the Treaty of Amity and Commerce.[1] The American Commissioners who signed the treaties were Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee. There was […]

by Bob Ruppert

Posted on August 17, 2021August 15, 2021

Silas Talbot, Continental Army Mariner

Silas Talbot was a remarkable Revolutionary War notable who was astute and tactically flexible. He was at various times an artisan, entrepreneur, privateer, Rhode Island Militia officer, Continental Army officer, Continental Navy officer, United States Navy captain and United States Congressman. Talbot’s multifarious vocations, extraordinary exploits and changing fortunes reflect the intrepidity of one unusual […]

by Louis Arthur Norton

Posted on April 27, 2021April 26, 2021

Sir Henry Clinton’s Generalship

“My fate is hard,” Sir Henry Clinton remarked after learning that he had been named commander of the British army in May 1778, adding that he expected to someday bear “a considerable portion of the blame” for Britain’s “inevitable” lack of success.[1] There were good reasons for Clinton’s pessimism. Not only was France entering the […]

by John Ferling

Posted on April 12, 2021April 8, 2021

Key to Victory: Foreign Assistance to America’s Revolutionary War

Historians have long appreciated that the colonies could not have won the American Revolutionary War against the most powerful nation in the world without significant foreign aid. What is not coherently presented in the historical record or documented in any meaningful depth is the quantification of that aide by France and her allies, primarily Spain. […]

by William V. Wenger

Posted on February 22, 2021June 17, 2022

Black Haitian Soldiers at the Siege of Savannah

The story of the Black Haitian soldiers serving in the French army in the battles to wrest Savannah, Georgia, from the British in September–October 1779 went largely ignored until the 1950s and remains incompletely explained.[1] They have become better known, however, than the overall role of the peoples of the Caribbean in the era of […]

by Robert Scott Davis

Posted on February 3, 2021January 31, 2021

Comte d’Estaing’s Georgia Land Grants

On the morning of October 9, 1779, one of the bloodiest and most forgotten battles of the American Revolution took place during the Siege of Savannah, Georgia. Two columns of American and three of French troops stormed British entrenchments that defended the town. The attacking allies suffered bayonet charges and a rain of bullets and […]

by Robert Scott Davis

Posted on January 2, 2020

Why Newport, Rhode Island, Scorned the French

One would expect that a country that had been at war for five years would welcome its first ally with open arms. We might have mental images of civic officials leading throngs of eager citizens to greet the allies or of platoons of soldiers firing salutes. It didn’t happen. No government officials, no military officers […]

by Norman Desmarais

Tag: Comte d’Estaing