Event
Retracing Our Steps: the French-American Joint Reconnaissance Tour in the Winter of 1780-1781
Fee:
Free.Location: LAT/LONG: 43.000000, -74.000000
This event will be held in the Visitor Center Theater.
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Description
This program is part of Saratoga NHP’s Fall Lecture Series, brought to you in partnership with the Friends of Saratoga Battlefield.
Use the "Contact Us" button to send an email with how many spots you would like to reserve and mention the specific event you would like to reserve for.
Studying the terrain to analyze how the action unfolded on Revolutionary War battlefields isn’t just a modern pursuit. It was the first order of business when the French Army arrived on American soil, seeking to understand the war they had just joined. Contrary to popular belief, rather than waiting for their respective leaders to dispatch more troops and supplies, the French and American officers did not sit idle over the winter of 1780–81. Rather, the French organized a joint reconnaissance mission to previous battlefields of the American Revolution under the initiative of François-Jean de Chastellux, an overlooked figure who played a crucial role as a liaison officer between the French and Americans, and in the logistical and strategic planning of the allied army. Dr de Rode's discovery of his unpublished private papers, in the ancestral château of the Chastellux family in Burgundy, reveals numerous details about his role, especially on this forgotten reconnaissance mission, including an in depth study of the battlefield of Saratoga.
Dr de Rode, who is originally from the Netherlands, received her doctorate from the Université de Paris in November 2019. Her dissertation was based on her discovery of the private papers of François-Jean de Chastellux, one of the French generals who served at Yorktown. She published a biography on Chastellux in 2022 for which she won the 2023 Prix Guizot of the Académie Française for "best history book of the year". In 2018, together with her PhD supervisor, Prof. Bertrand van, she co-authored a book on Mathieu Dumas, the aide de camp to Rochambeau, whose handwritten journal discovered in 2012 revealed interesting details about the March to Yorktown.
Iris is currently working on a new English book titled "En route for Revolution" that will be published by the University of Virginia Press next year. She has received 20 fellowships for her work, including from George Washington's Mount Vernon, Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, the Society of the Cincinnati and the American Philosophical Society, Iris has presented her research many times in Europe and the United States (130+ lectures!) Iris has been teaching American and Transatlantic history at two universities in Paris, and she is today working on public history initiatives with the National Park Service, the Washington Rochambeau Revolutionary Route Association, the Philadelphia Museum of the American Revolution, George Washington's Mount Vernon and the French Embassy in Washington DC.