Norman Desmarais - Washingtons Engineer: Louis Duportail and the Creation of an Army Corps

Sailed from Le Havre for Dominica (Haiti) on December 14, 1776

• 52 bronze guns (four- and six-pounders), their carriages and fore-carriages, etc.
• 20,160 four-pound cannonballs
• 9,000 grenades
• 24,000 pounds of lead balls
• 2,900 spades
• 239 iron shovels
• 2,900 pickaxe mattocks
• 500 rock picks
• 484 pick heads
• 1,000 mattocks
• 300 hatchets
• 1,500 bill hooks
• 5 miners drills
• 12 iron pincers
• 10 pistols
• 4 scoops (surgical instruments)
• 6 priming wires
• 2 iron wedges
• 4 pickaxes (sage-leaved)
• 15 crescent-shaped axes
• 5 shears
• 4 punches
• 2 rammers
• 6,132 muskets
• 255,000 gun flints
• 5,000 worms (tools for removing debris from the barrels of firearms)
• 12,648 iron balls for cartridges
• 345 grapeshot
• 1,000 pounds of tinder
• 200 levers
• 37 bales of tent covers
• 12,000 pounds of gunpowder
• 5 bales of blankets
• 925 tents
• clothing for 12,000 men
• 5,700 stands of arms

Sailed from Nantes on February 4, 1777

• 11,987 stands of arms
• 1,000 barrels (50 tons) of gunpowder
• 11,000 flints
• 57 bales, 4 cases, and 2 boxes of cloth
• 48 bales of woolens and linens
• 9 bales of handkerchiefs
• thread, cotton, and printed linens
• 2 cases of shoes
• 1 box of buttons and buckles
• 1 case of sherry, oil, etc.
• 1 box lawn
• 1 case of needles and silk neckcloths
• caps, stockings, blankets, and other necessary articles for clothing the troops

Note that in this document, Duportails name is spelled Lewis instead of Louis.

Source: Henry L. Abbot, The Corps of Engineers, Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 15, no. 68 (March 1894): 41327.

Names of French nobles present particular difficulties for American researchers. First, they tend to have multiple surnames and titles, making it difficult to select an access point. Consider, for example, the famous Marie Jean Paul Joseph du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, or Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, and our protagonist, Louis Le Bgue (Lebque or Lebgue) de Presle Duportail. Second, while the American and French Revolutions fought to overthrow the nobility, France was more radical, ignoring all titles. So, in our example, one would search by name [du Motier, de Vimeur or Le Bgue (Lebque or Lebgue)], sometimes with the article, sometimes without, in France but by title in America [Lafayette, Rochambeau, or Duportail]. Notice also that American practice includes the article as part of the name [Lafayette instead of la Fayette and Duportail instead of du Portail). In some cases, the individuals adopted American practices.

France has relatively few documents about Duportail, to her embarrassment. The Directory sequestered many of Duportails writings during the French Revolution. The existing documents are widely dispersed. They may be found in the diplomatic archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (archives diplomatiques du Ministre des Affaires trangres), the archives of the Bibliothque Nationale de France, the French national archives, the municipal archives of Le Havre, the registre de catholicit du Diocese dOrlans, and the archives dpartementales du Loiret.

Some of the cited memorials, letters, cards, drawings, and maps cannot be found. Some were seized by the British. Others were tossed in the ocean to prevent their capture by the British. Many of the surviving documents are located in the Library of Congress, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Association of Military Engineers, the headquarters of the Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, the National Historic Park of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Valley Forge, Cornell University, Yale University, the US Military Academy at West Point, and the New York Historical Society.

Some biographical dictionaries include a biography of Duportail, such as the following:

Bodinier, Gilbert. Dictionnaire Des Officiers Gnraux De Larme Royale, 17631792. Paris: Archives & Culture, 2009.

Herringshaw, Thomas William. Herringshaws National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-Five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States; Illustrated with Three Thousand Vignette Portraits. Chicago: American Publishers Association, 1909.

Lasseray, Andr. Les Francais Sous Les Treize toiles, 17751783. Macon, France: Imprimerie Protat frres; se trouve Paris chez D. Janvier, 1935.

Also see subject encyclopedias, like Harold E. Selesky, ed., Encyclopedia of the American Revolution: Library of Military History, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Charles Scribners Sons, 2006), initially compiled by Mark Mayo Boatner. These sources usually draw on the only monographic biography of Duportail.

Elizabeth S. Kite, of the Institut Franais de Washington (DC) authored