"General Washington was at Chester in Pennsylvania on September 5, 1781 moving ahead of his southward marching Allied army when the great news he had been longing to hear reached him. Admiral Francois Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse, commanding the French Navy in America, had arrived in Chesapeake Bay six days earlier with a powerful fleet of 28 ships-of-the-line and 3000 troops embarked.
The usually taciturn Washington embraced Rochambeau and waved his hat furiously in unrestrained joy. At last the naval superiority for which the American commander in chief had pleaded unceasingly, and which he termed "the pivot upon which everything turned," was a reality.
Since the opening months of the Revolution in 1775, while Washington watched the steady flow of supply ships and the King's men-of-war into Boston harbor, the patriotic cause had been hamstrung by Britain's absolute control of the seas. Naval power enabled the British to occupy New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston, and to strike at will anywhere along the coast. At the same time, Washington's ragged men were obliged to endure long forced marches and one dismal defensive campaign after another to keep the flame of resistance flickering…"
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Armand
returns to Flintloque to paint an Ogre.
