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Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy, the marquis de Lafayette's cartographer

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1998 by Paul E. Cohen

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Perhaps the most significant Capitaine map in the private collection is an unrecorded work showing the position of the British army at Ticonderoga, New York, on October 24, 1777 [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE I OMITTED]. Capitaine usually drew battlefield maps after he had made a first-hand reconnaissance. However, in October 1777, the British occupied Fort Ticonderoga; Capitaine was still recuperating in North Carolina; and Lafayette was at the Moravian settlement in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, nursing his musket wound. Capitaine must have compiled his map of the fort from sources now los, for his delineation is completely new - not copied from any known map, published or unpublished. Unlike most of Capitaine's other maps the legends on this one are for the most part in English.

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American forces suffered one of their most devastating defeats when Fort Ticonderoga was lost to the British general John Burgoyne (1722-1792) on July 5 and 6, 1777. From its importance in the French and Indian War (1755-1763), Ticonderoga had been thought of as the Gibraltar of America, and the British considered their victory there the most decisive of the war: Upon hearing the news of the victory George III said: "I have beat them! I have beat all the Americans!"(6) However, much of the ground gained at Ticonderoga was lost a few months later when Burgoyne was soundly defeated at nearby Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777. Capitaine's map shows for the only time the location of Burgoyne's troops several months after their victory at Ticonderoga and several days after their defeat at Saratoga. The discovery of the map adds significantly to the cartographic record of the fort since only two other Revolutionary War maps of it are known - a large undated manuscript map in the Fort Ticonderoga Museum and a small printed map of the battle prepared to accompany the court-martial proceedings of Major General Arthur St. Clair (1736/7-1818), who abandoned the fort before Burgoyne laid siege.

Before the recent discovery of the maps in this private collection, the primary source of information about Capitaine was from six nineteenth-century copies of his maps executed for the American historian Jared Sparks (1789-1866), who spent years collecting and copying documents in Europe related to the American Revolution. In 1825 he visited Lafayette in Paris, who proudly showed Sparks his maps "of all the actions in which he was engaged in America."(7) Sparks had copies made of at least some of the maps "under the eye of General Lafayette."(8) Six of these are in the Cornell University Library in Ithaca, New York. As Peter J. Guthorn, Capitaine's bibliographer, points out about the Cornell maps: "Although none of these handsomely executed copies on handmade paper bear Capitaine's name, his authorship is a reasonable assumption."(9)

One of the copies at Cornell is a map of the action at Gloucester, New Jersey, on November 25, 1777, when a limping Lafayette took part in an encounter with General Cornwallis [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE II OMITTED]. It is not among the maps in the private collection, and no example of the original is known. Capitaine had not rejoined Lafayette in November 1777, so once again he could not have recorded first hand Lafayette's engagement with a party of Cornwallis's troops foraging in New Jersey. Guthorn included this map in his list of Capitaine's maps. If it is actually by him, as I believe it is, like the Ticonderoga map it was executed months after the conflict.

Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy, the marquis de Lafayette's cartographer

Magazine Antiques, Jan, 1998 by Paul E. Cohen

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