Allied Battery

The siege of Yorktown was truly an Allied operation, and it brought the French and Americans into daily close contact. Both developed an admiration for the other. General Francois-Jean de Chastellux, the French Army’s liaison officer with George Washington, wrote that, “The [American] artillery was always well served, the general [Henry Knox] incessantly directed it and often himself pointing the mortars; seldom did he leave the batteries. The English marveled at the exact fire and terrible execution of the French artillery; and we marveled no less at the extraordinary progress of the American artillery.” Compliments from the French for the American technical branches of artillery and engineering was high praise indeed.