On September 2, 1781, a flotilla of transports sailed up the James River, bringing the first French troops to Virginia during the American Revolutionary War. The 3,200 soldiers, under Major General Claude Anne de Rouvroy, Marquis de Saint-Simon, included the regiments of Touraine, Gâtinais, and Agenois and had sailed from French-controlled Santo Domingo in the Caribbean. Saint-Simon placed his troops under the command of the American general Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. With these combined American and French forces, Lafayette believed he could contain Cornwallis at Yorktown until General George Washington arrived with additional American troops and a French army commanded by General Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau. By late September, more than 17,600 American and French troops were in Williamsburg, ready to begin a siege against Cornwallis at Yorktown. At the start of the siege, Saint-Simon, though ill, insisted on being carried on a stretcher to lead his troops and was later wounded by British grapeshot. Washington praised Saint-Simon and his division for the prompt and secure debarkation and junction with American troops, and for the military ardor, discipline, and measures they displayed during the siege.