Late in the American War for Independence, George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau learned that a French fleet under Admiral de Grasse, carrying 3,000 French soldiers, was headed for Chesapeake Bay. After Rochambeau's army marched from Providence, Rhode Island, to White Plains, New York, the generals decided on August 14 to move their combined armies 450 miles south to Yorktown as quickly as possible in order to surprise and besiege General Cornwallis' British army at Yorktown, Virginia. On September 5, Washington learned that de Grasse had landed troops at Jamestown, Virginia, under General Saint-Simon, and de Grasse then intercepted and defeated a British fleet bound for the Chesapeake, preventing Cornwallis from escaping by water. Most of the allied armies sailed down Chesapeake Bay to Yorktown while their emptied baggage wagons and livestock continued overland, and both routes converged in the victorious siege of the British army at Yorktown, the most decisive engagement in the American War of Independence. In 1781, Washington and Rochambeau were among the prominent travelers who passed through Colchester and nearby river fords, going through on September 13 after a brief visit to Mount Vernon on their way to lead the siege; it was Washington's first visit to his home there in six years. American wagons passed through Colchester on September 21, 1781, along the old Kings Highway, the era's equivalent of today's Interstate I-95. Lauzan's French Legion, in two escadrons totaling almost 300 men, passed through Colchester on September 26, 1781, after camping near Pohick Creek north of Colchester. After the British surrender at Yorktown, the American army moved north through Colchester in small detachments over nearly two weeks, and the French army also returned north through Colchester in July 1782 after wintering in Southern Virginia.
