The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-06-11
ROCHAMB BEAU IN RIDGEFIELD
STRIKING, PECULIAR AND PIC
 TURES0UE
Was the March of French
 Army.

The unveilng of the Rochambeau Z statue in Washington makes allusion to Rochambeau's presence in this state ap- propriate His expedition had succeed ed in landing at Newport, R. L, but for a long time was cooped up there--too dangerous to go near the sea, and too difficult to reach the really vital fields of the conflict by overland journeys At last, in the summer of 17S1, Rocham- beau determined to make a junction with Washingtons army, whose head quarters were at Dobbs Ferry on the Hudson river This involved the march of the French army throughout the en- tire state of Connecticut, from east to west-and over an inland route. That route led to Hartford and then in a generally southwesterly direction to Ridgefield, and so on westerly to the Hudson. In the neighborhood of Ridge field the Frenchmen went into camp for several days of rest. The following incidental allusion to the event is from the history written for "Picturesque Stanford" says the Advocate. After sketching some other Revolutionary events which occurred in that locality at an earlier period of the war, the his- tory proceeds
 "We may recall, too another striking scene which these hills and valleys wit messed a few years later, when the glistening bayonets and bright banners of a French army gleamed through the openings of these woods. and the camp fires of Rochambeau dotted the hillsides through the summer nights of 1781, when the French battalions rested for a time after their long march through the state of Connecticut on their way from Newport to join Gen. Washington at Dobbs Ferry on the Hudson. We can in part fancy the curiosity and wonder with which the sober dWellers in this remote quarter of Connecticut gazed upon the march of these five thousand Frenchmen, and their long train of am intuition and provision wagons; the knightly gallantry of the officers, fresh from the gay scenes of the most sprightly capital in Europe; the volatile air and springy step of the soldiers, who had so lately exchanged the dress pa- rade In the Champs Elysees for the march through an American forest from which the wolves had not yet been wholly banished, and in which rem nants of the Indian tribes still fingered. This showy army, with it's gleaming steel, its waving banners, the tramp of its caparisoned steeds, the horse En avant of it's leaders and the strange jargon in which the order went echoing from rank to rank made a scene such as old Ridgefield had never known be- fore. Of this strange host, which a singular fortune had brought, not as enemies, but as friends and helpers, to such unwonted surroundings many whose gay 'chansons,' racy of Parisian boulevards, rang through the forests were destined to fine hospitable graves in America. Most of them after long marches through Jersey meadows and pine lands, Pennsylvania's wooded hills and valleyes Maryland's green fields and yellow streams, and fair Virginias park-like landscapes, were soon to see the surrender of a British army at Yorktown, and the final triumph of the American cause. The gallant Rocham- beau and most of his soldiers were to return to their beloved France only to see her in prenatal throes of that monster birth of modern history-the French Revolution. Some were doubt less. yet to swell the ranks of Napol- cons victorious army at Austerlitz, or share the dreadful rigors of his re- treat from Moscow, while few-at