The French Forces in America, 1780-1783

Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, Inc, 1977. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good. xviii, 188 pages. Frontis map. Some yellow highlighting in text noted. Includes Foreword by Jacques Godechot, Preface, Key to the Major Manuscript Sources and Collections Cited in This Work, Notes. Sources and Index. Includes chapters on Expedition Particuliere, The Auxiliaries, The French Are Coming; Newport, The Sinews of War, Winter of Discontent, False Starts, The Campaign Opens, Toward Yorktown; The Miracle, Aftermath, and Conclusion. This is Greenwood Press's Contributions in American History, Number 65. Drawing on little-used manuscripts and other primary records Kennett tells the whole story of the vital French expedition that helped win the Revolution. This book is an attempt to resurrect a brief, vital presence in our nation's history--that of the 12,000 men of the French army and navy who came in July 1780 to participate in the War of Independence. They came without great fanfare, and they campaigned in the role of subordinates; the last of them departed unobtrusively three years later. Lee Kennett is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Georgia and the author of The French Forces in America, 1780-1783, Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians During Sherman's Campaign and G.I.: The American Soldier in World War II. Jacques Léon Godechot (3 January 1907 - 24 August 1989) was a French historian of the French revolution, and a pioneer of Atlantic history. His emphasis on the international dimension of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century revolutions was crystallized in the concepts of Atlantic history.