American Revolution
Revolutionary War Document Count Rochambeau’s Army
1781, Manuscript Account of provisions supplied to the French Army of Count Rochambeau by Wadsworth & Carter, Extremely Fine.
Sutler, 1781, Manuscript Document Signed, “Wadsworth & Carter,” 1 page, 9” x 8.5,” no place mentioned. This document is an accounting of supplies furnished by Wadsworth & Carter to Count Rochambeau’s army from January through March 1781. The supplies were obtained by Peter Colt, Jere. Platt and Henry Champion Jr. and included large quantities of corn, oats, and hay, as well as sheep and oxen.

At that time, Rochambeau’s army was at Newport. Wadsworth & Carter was a Hartford, CT firm made up of Jeremiah Wadsworth (1743-1804) and John Carter. Before the Revolutionary War, Wadsworth had already made a fortune as captain of a ship engaged in the West Indies trade. He served as a commissary officer for the Continental Army during 1777-1779, then in 1780, with the rank of Colonel, he took command of the Commissary Department for Count Rochambeau’s army, where he remained till the end of the war. After the war he served as a member of the Continental Congress (1788) and in the U.S. House of Representatives (1789-1795).

This historically interesting document has some light browning and a few tiny tears in the right margin (not affecting content), and overall is in wonderful condition and written in beautiful script.
Count Rochambeau (Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau) (1725–1807) , was a French military officer who took part in the wars of King Louis XV, and had been promoted to Lt. General by 1780, when King Louis XVI sent him, with 6,000 regular troops, to aid General George Washington in the Revolutionary War. He landed in Newport, RI, and remained there a year because the French fleet was blockaded off Narragansett.

In July, 1781, he joined Washington on the Hudson River and the two armies marched south against General Cornwallis. The result was the Yorktown campaign, which ended the war when Cornwallis’ army was trapped on the peninsula. In the French Revolution, Rochambeau was made a Marshal in 1791 and commanded the Northern Army, but resigned in 1792.

He was imprisoned during the Terror and barely escaped execution. Napoleon restored him to his rank. His memoirs of the American Revolution were published in English in 1838.