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

Paul E. Cohen

On board ship with Lafayette was one of the most skillful military map makers of the era, Michel Capitaine du Chesnoy. As Lafayette's aide-de-camp he was at the general's side much of the time during Lafayette's two tours of duty in America, and he was on the site during many of Lafayette's battles. The masterful maps he drafted of these encounters are among the most important records of Lafayette's military career and include several of the most significant maps of the American Revolution. Despite their historical importance, these maps are virtually unknown, largely because they have remained almost exclusively in manuscript form and are exceedingly rare. There are only six eighteenth-century Capitaine manuscript maps preserved in American libraries.(1)

Now six previously unknown maps by Capitaine have been found in an American private collection. These maps were drafted and colored by hand (very likely by Captaine himself, or at least under his direction) and are dissected (a once popular technique of cutting a map into sections so it can be folded) and glued to eighteenth-century linen. They add considerably to our knowledge of Lafayette and his map maker. One of these maps was completely unrecorded and others were known only from one or two eighteenth-century manuscript copies or later nineteenth-century ones. Lafayette himself possessed a sizeable collection of Capitaine's maps, but they have disappeared.(2) So this private collection represents by far the largest group of Capitaine's maps in existence, exceeding even the holding of the Service Historique de l'Armee de Terre at Vincennes.

From his initial landing near Georgetown, South Carolina, Lafayette and most of his men traveled to Philadelphia to report for duty, arriving on July 27, 1777. Capitaine had become ill on his strip north and spent the next several months recuperating in North Carolina. In Philadelphia Lafayette was treated as an unwanted foreign adventurer who did not even have the backing of his own government. He was informed that Deane had not had the authority to issue commissions and that his was invalid. Unlike other foreign mercenaries, however, Lafayette wrote a petition to the Continental Congress stating that he would serve at his own expense as a volunteer officer. (Volunteer officers were usually young men waiting for older officers to die in battle so they could claim a commission.) In common with European custom, Lafayette presented laudatory letters of introduction pointing out his many virtues, the most important being his aristocratic pedigree. At that moment Lafayette was the richest nobleman in France. Once the Americans realized the importance of their well-connected volunteer officer, they appointed him a major general in the Continental army and introduced him to a man who would change his life: General George Washington. A legendary bond was established between the forty-five-year-old commander in chief and the teenage major general.

Lafayette wrote to Congress soon thereafter:

I shall neglect nothing on my part to justify the confidence which the Congress of the United States has been pleased to repose in me, as my highest ambition has ever been to do everything only for the best of the cause in which I am engaged. I wish to serve near the person of General Washington till such time as he may think proper to entrust me with a division of the army.(3)

When Washington had to deliver the bad news that Congress objected to Lafayette's having his own division, Washington, who was childless, added that he would be pleased to have Lafayette's confidence as a friend and a father. Louis R. Gottschalk, who wrote masterfully of Lafayette in the 1930s, commented:

To Lafayette, it was the most decisive moment of his life....the titles 'father and friend' dropped perhaps casually by Washington, took a real and precise meaning in the quixotic lad's mind. He had - almost suddenly - ceased to be merely a companion of French soldiers of fortune seeking glory in an unknown world and had become the adopted son of a hero.(4)

On September 11, 1777, Washington tested his new general with a combat assignment. British forces under Admiral Richard Howe (1726-1799) and General William Howe (1729-1814) had assembled off the Delaware capes with a plan to capture Philadelphia. As the British advanced, Washington and Lafayette established positions along the Brandywine Creek, about twenty-five miles southwest of the city. On September 11 Lafayette was drawn into battle for the first time in his life at the Battle of Brandywine, when he confronted a flank attack by the British general Charles Cornwallis (1738-1805). Using military tactics learned in France, Lafayette dismounted and himself led his disbelieving men in charging the enemy. A musket shot hit the marquis below the calf and went through his leg. He was thrilled. The wound was not serious, but enough so to provide a much needed emblem of courage. Baron de Kalb (1721-1780), a major general in the Continental army, called this "an excellent bit of good fortune, for it established Lafayette in the eyes of his American comrades."(5) Regrettably, it is the only battle of Lafayette's American years for which there is no Capitaine map, for the map maker was still in North Carolina at the time of the action. Philadelphia fell to the British at the end of September 1777.

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.

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.

Gloucester was a battle of little consequence to anyone but Lafayette. After recovering sufficiently from his wound, Lafayette was given charge in mid-November 1777 of a reconnaissance mission of three hundred men to locate British pickets. Cornwallis was encamped north of Gloucester. As Lafayette reported to Washington:

I came pretty late into the Gloucester road....A scout...found a strong post of three hundred and fifty hessians with field pieces...we pushed the hessians more than half a mile from the place where was theyr main body, and we made them run very fast - british reinforcements came twice to them but very far from recovering theyr ground, they always went back.(10)

Lafayette's forces killed one man, took fourteen prisoners, "and only five of ours were wounded. Such is the account of our little entertainment."(11)

Soon after the battle, Lafayette acquired the sought after division to command. Washington lobbied Congress to reward Lafayette's "Bravery and military ardor"(12) as demonstrated at Brandywine and Gloucester, and he sent along to Congress a letter from General Nathanael Greene (1742-1786) that enlarged somewhat on Lafayette's achievements on the battlefield at Gloucester:

The marquis, with about four hundred militia and the rifle corps, attacked the enemy's picket last evening, killed about twenty, wounded many more and took about twenty prisoners. The marquis is charmed with spirited behavior of the militia...[and] is determined to be in the way of danger.(13)

It was difficult for Congress to reject such an appeal, and on December 1, 1777, it passed a resolution "that the marquis de La Fayette be appointed to the command of a division in the Continental army."(14) He spent the next few months drilling the 3,096 soldiers in his troop.

Lafayette considered Capitaine to be part of his family and greatly missed his companionship during the campaigns of 1777. By April 1778, his aide-de-camp had traveled to York, Pennsylvania, on his way to rejoin Lafayette at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, but he was sidetracked into a mapping expedition on the Susquehanna River. Lafayette was frustrated by this turn of events, and wrote to Henry Laurens (1724-1792), the president of the Congress, on April 25, 1778:

I schould have been happy had Mr. Capitaine been left to me for drawing the last campaign as far as possible and for to begin the next one - but if he thaught useful any where else I have no objection to his going and am very glad he is employed if no other can do the business. However I want him [to] be considered as mine because he was given to me by the Marshal and Count de Broglio - to whom he was belonging before they attached him to me as a present.(15)

The youthful major general had good reason to be possessive about his talented aide-de-camp, Capitaine, who was probably the most accomplished military cartographer on the American side until the arrival of Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur (1725-1807), comte de Rochambeau, and his army in 1780. While many of the British map makers were trained as draftsmen or engineers, the Americans were comparative amateurs whose maps were often crude.

Capitaine had been trained in France as a topographical engineer and came to America as a captain (later promoted to major) in the Royal Corps of Engineers. From rough sketches and notes made on the battlefield, or in some cases gathered from other sources, he drew finished maps. Eighteenth-century map makers frequently made more than one copy of their manuscript maps, but they rarely indicated this fact. The copies often varied in size, finish, and detail and were made by the map maker or under his supervision.

On May 18, 1778, Lafayette had his first opportunity to deploy his new division, and Capitaine had apparently rejoined him to record this historic event. At the time the British still occupied Philadelphia, but they were finding their prize a burden. The British surrender at Saratoga in October 1777 "marked the turning point of the American Revolution, since France now decided to enter the war as an ally of the thirteen United States," according to the Dictionary of American History.(16) After the alliance was confirmed, George III ordered Sir Henry Clinton (1738-1795) to abandon Philadelphia. In mid-May 1778 it was Lafayette's task to intercept communications sent in and out of the city. Under the watchful eye of the British, Lafayette established a camp at Barren Hill near the city. On the evening of May 18 troops outnumbering Lafayette's three to one approached the camp from two sides, and Lafayette appeared to be trapped. His retreat from Barren Hill was commended as masterly, and the Capitaine map of it is one of the best known [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE III OMITTED].

Of the six eighteenth-century Capitaine manuscript maps in American libraries, three depict the retreat from Barren Hill. What can be seen from Capitaine's map is that Lafayette had wisely camped in a position that had access to several roads. As the British moved quietly into position to capture him, they awoke a patriot who raced up the hill in his nightshirt and alerted the unsuspecting marquis of imminent danger. Lafayette quickly sized up the situation and dispatched a small band of decoy soldiers to confront the British general James Grant (1720-1806). Then he and the rest of his troops evacuated Barren Hill along the one road still open. While not a victory, the retreat won Lafayette more accolades from both Washington and Congress.

It was apparently Lafayette himself who convinced Washington that the thousand British troops evacuating Philadelphia in June 1778 should be harassed and forced into battle as they marched to New York. At first Washington wanted Lafayette to lead six thousand men into battle, but Major General Charles Lee (1731-1782) insisted that, as the senior officer, he should be in Charge of the attack on the rear echelons of the British line. The engagement took place at Monmouth Court House in what is now Freehold, New Jersey, on June 28, 1778. After a halfhearted and undisciplined effort that failed to cut off the troops of the British rear guard, Washington admonished Lee on the battlefield and took charge of the attack himself. (Lee later demanded and received a court-martial.) Lafayette wrote in his memoirs that Washington "was never greater in war than during this action. His presence stopped the retreat, his dispositions brought about a victory."(17) While not precisely a victory once again, the battle was important for morale because it proved that American forces could face British regulars on equal terms.

The Battle of Monmouth turned out to be the last major confrontation of the British and American armies in the northern theater. It was the longest battle of the war and was fought under conditions made unbearable by a temperature that reached one hundred degrees. Lafayette was in charge of the second line of offense, which was not drawn significantly into the action. Capitaine drafted the only contemporaneous plan of the battle from the American side [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE IV OMITTED].(18) He carefully drew the deep ravines that figured so decisively in the action, and the several positions taken up by both armies. The twenty-four item explanation supplied considerable detail. The discovery of this map confirms that the only published plan of the battle is a reduced, 8 3/4 by 15 1/2 inch, version of Capitaine's map.(19)

While the Battle of Monmouth was taking place, a French fleet under Vice-Admiral Charles Hector d'Estaing (1729-1794) was underway, bound for America. It arrived at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, on July 5, 1778. Lafayette became the liaison between the French admiral and Washington as they planned their first military action: an attack by land and sea on the British-occupied port of Newport, Rhode Island. Divisions commanded by Generals Greene, Lafayette, and John Sullivan (1740-1795) were to lead the land assault, with the French fleet attacking by sea. The poorly coordinated battle began disastrously and ended in retreat for the Americans. The land forces began fighting too soon; d'Estaing sailed into a three-day storm while pursuing a small British fleet; and in the end the British returned to Newport. Losses were about the same for both sides. Once again Lafayette turned retreat to his advantage when he received from Congress a formal recognition of his services in the successful evacuation of Rhode Island. Capitaine made two maps of Rhode Island, one showing the unsuccessful action executed by General Sullivan's troops [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VIII OMITTED], and the other a map after the American retreat [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE V OMITTED].

Lafayette had examples of these two maps of Rhode Island with him in 1779 when he returned to France on leave with the permission of Congress. He discussed the continuing presence of the British in Newport with the French foreign minister, Charles Gravier (1719-1787), comte de Vergennes. On June 24, he wrote the count:

I went to your office...to give you the maps. I had them made on the spot to my own satisfaction, and I shall be pleased if they different points that you were so kind as to discuss with me. You will see; Monsieur le Comte, the enemy's works on Rhode Island and the area of land, too extensive to be well defended, by which an attack from the rear could be carried out. I think that of the various means of attacking this island, several offer a good probability of success.(20)

By the end of 1779 the British army no longer occupied Newport.

Lafayette had explained to Henry Laurens on July 23, 1778, why Capitaine was so important to him:

Such an officer I can't spare, and I will employ him to make plans of our positions and battle for [General] Washington, for me, and also for the king who will be glad to have an exact draft of [General] Washington's battles.(21)

While Lafayette and Capitaine were on leave in Paris Capitaine did draft a map of the battles of the American Revolution for Louis XVI. This is the only map Capitaine ever had printed [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VI OMITTED]. The legend on it lists significant battles beginning with Bunker Hill and shows the position of Washington's army at White Plains, New York, his encampments north of Philadelphia, and his winter camp at Valley Forge. Crossed swords identify the location of such important battlefields as Lake Champlain and Brandywine.

On April 28, 1780, Lafayette made a triumphant return to America, arriving on one of the king's frigates bearing the official news that a French expeditionary force under the comte de Rochambeau was on its way to serve as an auxiliary to the Continental army. As one historian wrote, "Lafayette had become one of the central figures in an alliance that was to prove decisive in the outcome of America's long war for independence."(22) The close relationship he had established with Washington continued as Lafayette served as interpreter and liaison during Washington's meetings with the French commanders.

At the beginning of 1781, the theater of war had changed focus from the North to the South as British forces increased in the Carolinas and Virginia. Benedict Arnold (1741-1801) was appointed to command the British forces in Virginia, and on February 20, 1781, Washington sent Lafayette to Virginia to lead an American detachment against Arnold. As Lafayette headed to Yorktown, Virginia, on March 13, he left his troops near Annapolis, Maryland, where Capitaine made a detailed map of the city and harbor [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE VI OMITTED]. Like his map of Ticonderoga, the legends on this map are in English.

Upon his return to Annapolis on April 8, 1781, Lafayette wrote to Washington:

I found that Our preparations were far from Promising a Speedy Departure...the State very desirous to keep us as Long as possible, as they were Scared By the Apparition of the Hope 20 guns and the Monk 18 guns who Blockaded the Harbour and who (as Appeared from the Intercepted Letters) were Determined to Oppose our Movements.(23)

Capitaine's map shows the British warships that were blockading the harbor until Commodore James Nicholson (1737-1804) drove them off, enabling Lafayette to evacuate Annapolis.(24)

Lafayette took command of the American troops in Virginia on April 21, 1781, a few days before General Cornwallis arrived in Virginia to help cut off supplies to the American army. After a series of maneuvers during the summer of 1781, Cornwallis in August disembarked his troops at Yorktown and Gloucester on opposite sides of the York River and began to fortify Yorktown as a naval station. On August 15 Washington ordered Lafayette to keep Cornwallis blocked on the land side as reinforcements came by land and sea. A French fleet under Francois Joseph Paul, comte de Grasse (1722-1788), sailing from the West Indies, was dispatched to the Chesapeake Bay for action against Cornwallis. By October 1781, French land forces under Rochambeau and naval forces under de Grasse had arrived, and Washington himself was on the scene.

With the Americans taking positions on the right and the French on the left, the allied forces began digging trenches six hundred yards from the British fortifications so as to surround the besieged city of Yorktown. The parallel (trench) was opened on October 6, and on October 10 a bombardment destroyed artillery within Yorktown. That day a second parallel was started three hundred yards closer to the British lines. Cornwallis was forced to abandon his outer fortifications and retreat to his inner ones. At this juncture Washington ordered an attack on the two British redoubts, with Lafayette directing the rear action. As Rochambeau described it to de Grasse, "The smallest of these two works has been taken by the Americans under M. Le marquis de La Fayette, and it contained the battery that was the most dangerous in the York River."(25) To avoid defeat, Cornwallis attempted to escape with his army to Gloucester, but a storm ruined that plan. Completely surrounded, Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781.

Capitaine's large and beautifully colored map of the baffle at Yorktown [ILLUSTRATION FOR PLATE IX OMITTED] is one of the most magnificent maps of the American Revolution. On it he documented elements important to the outcome of the battle troop disposition and movement, terrain, location of camps and batteries. Accompanying the map is a six-page summary of the campaign, which is signed by Capitaine. Lafayette is known to have owned a copy of this map, and Sparks saw it on his visit in 1825. "The General has...a map of the Virginia campaign, taken at the time," wrote Sparks,(26) who reported that he had this map copied, although it is not among the maps at Cornell. Lafayette's map is probably the map, now lost, that was exhibited in 1934 at the Musee de l'Orangerie in Paris to commemorate the centenary of Lafayette's death. It is described as being lined in blue watered silk, rolled up, and stored in a cardboard case.(27)

The recently discovered map of the Battle of Yorktown appears to have been the master used for making copies The presence of light guidelines (some with numbers) that form a grid makes it a likely prototype. Pinholes at the intersections of the lines indicate that tracing paper was once held in place over the map for copying. At least one previously known copy of this map appears to have been made from this one. The example, at Yale University, has faint guidelines corresponding exactly to those on the map in the private collection. Another copy of the Yorktown map is in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Williamsburg, Virginia.

As commander of the American troops in Virginia in the spring and summer of 1781, "Lafayette did more than any other allied commander to prepare the way for the British capitulation at Yorktown. The greatest American victory was Lafayette's most shining personal triumph," wrote one historian.(28) Lafayette's dedication to the cause of liberty, like that of Washington, whom he so admired, made him one of the greatest heroes in American history. The deeds of a hero must be recorded, and Lafayette had the good sense to bring along his own map maker for this purpose. Capitaine served his commander well by creating remarkable graphic documents of Lafayette's extraordinary accomplishments.

I would like to thank Douglas W. Marshall, the co-author (with Howard H. Peckham) of Campaigns of the American Revolution for his careful editing of this article, and Brian Quintenz for his many valuable suggestions.

1 Peter J. Guthorn located six examples of three distinct Capitaine manuscript maps in American libraries. These are three of his maps of Barren Hill, two of Virginia, and one of the retreat from Rhode Island. Two of these are at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and there is one each at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, the Colonial williamsburg Foundation in williamsburg, Virginia, and at the Preservation Society of Newport County, in Newport, Rhode Island. See Peter J. Guthorn, American Maps and Map Makers of the Revolution (Philip Freneau, Monmouth Beach, New Jersey, 1966).

2 It has been suggested that the newly discovered maps are Lafayette's own. This is doubtful since Lafayette's map of the Battle of Yorktown is known to have been drafted on blue watered paper (see n. 27). The Yorktown map in the private collection is on uncolored paper backed with linen.

3 Quoted Olivier Bernier, Lafayette: of Two Worlds (Dutton, New York, 1983), p. 47.

4 Lafayette Joins the American Army (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1937), pp. 38-39.

5 Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Dumas Malone (Scribner's, New York, 1946), s. v. "Lafayette."

6 Cited in Dictionary of American History, ed. James Truslow Adams (Scribner's, New York, 1942), vol. 5, p. 268.

7 Quoted in Herbert Baxter Adams, The Life and Writings of Jared Sparks (Boston, 1893), vol. 2, p. 117.

8 Quoted ibid.

9 American Maps and Map Makers oft he Revolution, pp. 9-12.

10 Quoted in Bernier, Lafayette, pp. 55-56.

11 Quoted ibid.

12 Quoted ibid.

13 Quoted ibid.

14 Quoted ibid.

15 Quoted in Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, ed. Stanley J. Idzerda (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1979), vol. 2, p. 34.

16 Vol. 5, p. 33.

17 Quoted in Bernier, Lafayette, p. 73.

18 A map from the British side was executed by Lieutenant John Hills. It is in the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

19 Kenneth Nebenzahl, Atlas of the American Revolution (Rand McNally, Chicago, 1974), p. 127, suspected that the published map was based on Capitaine's, but he was unable to establish this with certainty for the Capitaine map had not surfaced.

20 Quoted in Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, vol. 2, pp. 283-284.

21 Quoted ibid, vol. 2, pp. 112-113.

22 Ibid., vol. 3, p. xxi.

23 Quoted ibid., vol. 4, p. 10.

24 The only example of Capitaine's Annapolis map was at the Service Historique de l'Armee de Terre, Vincennes, recently enough to have been photographed, but it is now missing.

25 Quoted in Bernier, Lafayette, p. 131.

26 Quoted in Adams, Jared Sparks, vol. 2, p. 117.

27 Andre Girodie, Exposition du centenaire de la Fayette (Paris, 1934), pp. 67-68.

28 Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, vol. 4, p. xxiii.

PAUL E. COHEN is a dealer in rare books and antique maps with the firm of Richard B. Arkway, Incorporated, in New York City. He is the co-author (with Robert T. Augustyn) of Manhattan in Maps, published last year by Rizzoli.

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