Aboard La Bourgogne, the journey from Santo Domingo had been plagued with the usual scourges of ocean faring, which claimed a sailor and an officer. Desbordes had no casualty to report among his troops but aboard the other ships a few soldiers had died such as Jean Deniché of Touraine and formerly part of the detachment from Condé. He died aboard the ship Le Caton on August 18. Yet for the most part the army was in a good shape, its morale was high and it was now ready for action. Like so many of his comrades, Hansen was about to meet his destiny in the Land of America. On the evening of August 30, an American officer posted on Cape Henry by General Lafayette informed de Grasse that the Marquis[1] was waiting for the French reinforcements on the northern bank of the James River, not far from Jamestown. This old English settlement was located on James Island, about 35 miles up the river. De Grasse ordered to signal all ships to prepare for the landing operations. On August 31 Saint-Simon had some of his troops board small transports and launches while three warships entered the Bay to secure the mouth of the river. Unfortunately in late afternoon, a storm interrupted the operation. That night, confined below deck, crammed in the dark among his companions, Hansen was thinking of all the previous occasions where action had been imminent and never came. He knew however, than this time would be different and would make up for all other deceptions. In a few hours he would land on American soil, on the noble mission to boot the British out of America. It was to be the beginning of the end of the English domination of the New World. His hands clenched on his riffle, Hansen looked at the small opening at the top of the short ladder from where the signal of departure was to come, but the dark shape of the hatch remained quiet. By midnight, on what was now the first day of September everything was quiet and Hansen dozed off, cradled by the soft rustle of the waves. Then suddenly around two o’clock in the morning, everything around him woke up at once with bells and whistles. All troops under the Marquis de Saint-Simon were ordered to board the launches en route to the American shore. Simon Pouzoulet described these moments in the following terms: “At two o’clock in the morning, all vessels were ordered to arm their launches and life boats to bring the remaining of the troops on shore. The launch of the commanding general [Saint-Simon] was recognizable by a white square flag at its mast. They left at six o’clock in the morning.”[2]

 

            The launches full of troops were escorted up the river by one ship of 54 guns, one frigate and several corvettes. De Grasse had also provided 1,800 of his marines and 90 officers to help in the landing operations. Navy officer Aved de Magnac was commanding one of the launches and he recalled in a letter the surrounding desolation as the convoy fared up the river. “We were in amount of 40 to 50 launches. Mr. de Lafayette was chasing Lord Cornwallis commanding 6,500 disciplined troops who had already devastated a great part of Virginia. His troops had inflicted the greatest horrors on the inhabitants and destroyed the greatest part of families. All along the James River where we passed to go to Williamsburg[3] we saw nothing but the greatest disasters and burnt houses. Nobody left in the houses.”[4]

 

It took them more than a day to sight the shore of James Island, a swampy patch of land on the James River two miles long and one mile wide. It was mostly desert if it wasn’t for the Jamestown settlement located further up, on the northeastern tip of the island. Saint-Simon had decided to land his forces at Jamestown hoping to meet there the army of Lafayette and he was now close to his goal.  However, Lafayette and his Light Infantry were still encamped further up the northern bank of the river, on the other side of the thin channel separating the James Island from the continent, in a place called Holt’s Forge. The Marquis had left a few units (Pennsylvania and Virginia Lines) under General Wayne on the Southern bank of the James, right across Jamestown, to provide support in case that a sudden attack from the British would force him to retreat across the River. As Saint-Simon came up the river, Wayne’s troops witnessed with great pleasure their French allies landing in Jamestown. An unidentified American soldier probably serving with the Pennsylvania Line described this moment in his diary:

“Sunday 2nd September – [We] Marched at Daylight to Cobhams Ferry and Encamped 5 Miles [away.] This place is situated on the Bank of James River where we had the pleasure of seeing two French Frigates and a Number of Boats with 3000 Troops on Board which they Landed at James Town opposite to where we lay and Encamped.”[5]

 

As Saint-Simon’s men jumped out of the launches and took position to secure the landing site, their first sight of the American continent was that of a desert inhospitable marshland scattered with what looked like a few abandoned houses. Still, in spite of the relative inconspicuous quality of the moment, this morning of September 2, 1781[6] marks an important pinnacle for many French families such as mine, and a significant milestone for the Franco-American bond of Friendship. For me it would be forever the day that Hans Stiegel of Kertzfeld, Alsace, France waded on the American shore among his comrades of Touraine to free the thirteen colonies of America.

 

The island and the settlement had been named in honor of King James I of England when the first British settlers landed here in 1607. Despite a surrounding abundance of fowl, game, and fish, many of these early settlers died here shortly after their arrival of hunger, dysentery, malaria and yellow fever likely carried by the abundance of mosquitoes and flies infesting the area. The French dearly hoped not to meet a similar fate, but they knew from their experience in the West Indies that their harsh living conditions typically made soldiers the prime victims of fevers and diseases. Jamestown had been the first permanent establishment of the British settlers in America and soon after its foundation it became the capital of Virginia. It prospered for a while but toward the end of the 17^th century, after two devastating fires in 1676 and 1698, the town fell into decline and in 1699 the capital of Virginia was transferred to Williamsburg. The final blow was administered by the British themselves when in the spring of 1781 British Colonel Tarleton and his men looted and destroyed the very settlement that their forefathers had struggled to keep alive. In late summer 1781, as Saint Simon’s men entered the town, they found little more than death and destruction. Eberhard von Esebeck who would be stationed there in the following winter described the island as "a desert island," where the buildings had been "almost entirely destroyed by the English who left barely the four walls."[7] The Comte de Lauberdière too would be stationed there and wrote about Jamestown: “Before the British passed through one could still see there a number of pretty houses representative of the kind of houses there; they are all gone, which is to say they have been destroyed.”[8] As for Daniel Flohr who would also spend some of his winter quarters in Jamestown he described the town as “a little village and one of the oldest settlements in America. It used to be a nice trading town, but it is now completely ruined. But there are signs, still visible, that it once was a sizeable city, about six miles from Williamsburg."[9] Among the ruins the French soldiers found traces of atrocities as accounted by Aved de Magnac:

 

“Upon arrival in [Jamestown],[10] I was the witness of the horrors that [the British] had committed there. I saw quantities of dead bodies on the ground and in some houses heads of men and children locked in closets, women hanged on trees and the husband next to the children nailed on doors, and another fact more barbarous; they found a woman about to give birth that they [the British] opened and took the child that they crucified near the mother in whose mouth they put a paper on which was written: you won’t give birth to any more rebel.”[11]

 

This crude testimony was confirmed by others: “The British had spent some time in Jamestown before our arrival. We found traces of ferocious barbarity, several cadavers on the riverbanks and in the houses, including that of a pregnant woman who had been stabbed. Her breasts were slit and some one had left an inscription besides the body saying: ‘You will not give birth to a rebel.’ Five skulls were lined in a row in a cupboard. This was the sorry sight that greeted the first man who landed in the little town, where tombstones had been smashed, houses gutted, and not a single inhabitant remained.”[12]

 

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[1] Lafayette was nicknamed simply “The Marquis” by his American troops.

[2] “Journal Historique de Simon Pouzoulet” Edited by Catherine Papini. Lacour 2000 – p81.

[3] He meant Jamestown.

[4] Original letter from Jean-Charles-Francois Aved de Magnac dated 21 October 1781 and posted on the Lafayette-Genweb website by Emmanuel Aved de Magnac.

[5] The Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution: “War Diary - May 26, 1781 - July 4, 1782”. http://www.ctssar.org/articles/diary.htm

[6] The correspondence between Wayne and Lafayette shows that the French landed in Jamestown in the morning of September 2. “From Dandridge’s to Victory” under Anthony Wayne.

[7] “Georg Daniel Flohr's Journal: A New Perspective” by Robert A. Selig. Americanrevolution.org.

[8] Robert Selig “Lauberdière’s Journal” in “Colonial Williamsburg” Autumn 1995, p35.

[9] “Georg Daniel Flohr's Journal: A New Perspective” by Robert A. Selig. Americanrevolution.org.

[10] De Magnac Mistakenly calls the landing site Williamsburg.

[11] Original letter from Jean-Charles-Francois Aved de Magnac dated 21 October 1781.

[12] “Journal of the 1781, 1782 and 1783 campaigns on the Royal ship Hercule” Edited by Constance Sherman – p33-4. The different published accounts of the story of the slain  pregnant woman were reported by non-eye witnesses and were therefore often considered with suspicion. The not-yet-published letter of Aved de Magnac who was part of the landing at Jamestown seems to confirm the story.