The World Turned Upside Down by Tim Grove

Author:Tim Grove [Grove, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781419749940
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2022-04-12T00:00:00+00:00

Rochambeau and Washington were waiting, once again, to hear from a French military official. This time the official was Admiral de Grasse, the naval commander in charge of the large fleet in the West Indies. Rochambeau had been promised his aid. Finally, on August 14, a courier arrived at Rochambeau’s New York headquarters with a letter from de Grasse. The French general notified Washington, and they anxiously read the letter together. De Grasse was headed for the Chesapeake! Rochambeau was thrilled. “I shall be obliged to employ the fleet promptly and to good purpose,” de Grasse wrote, “so that the time may be spent to profit sufficiently against the enemy naval forces and their land forces; but I shall not be able to use the soldiers long.” De Grasse’s expected arrival in the Chesapeake was two weeks hence. Twenty-eight ships of the line! Combined with the various support vessels, the armada would be much larger than anything the British could organize. De Grasse was also bringing more money that Washington desperately needed to pay his troops. In addition, Admiral de Barras, commander of the French fleet still in Newport, would join in the attack with men and the heavy artillery siege guns they hadn’t bothered to transport to New York.

Admiral de Grasse had a long and distinguished naval career, beginning at age seventeen when he officially entered the French Navy. Six months after Yorktown, he suffered a humiliating defeat to the British navy in the Caribbean and was taken prisoner to London.

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