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D'Estaing's Fleet Revealed

By Captain Dudley W. Knox, U. S. Navy (Retired)
February 1935
Proceedings
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One of the most important contributions ever made to the naval records of our Revolutionary War was the recent discovery of six accurately executed drawings showing the ships of Count D'Estaing in American waters during the year 1778. For this we are indebted to the Carnegie Institution of Washington, whose systematic search of French archives for American historical material found these exceedingly interesting pictures in the Louvre.

The mere probability of the coming of D'Estaing's fleet, like some invisible gigantic hand, had pulled the greatly superior British Army out of the perfect security of Philadelphia, and sent it scurrying on forced marches across New Jersey, in retreat before much smaller numbers of American troops weakened by the epic rigors at Valley Forge.

Arriving at the Delaware entrance barely too late to intercept the British transports carrying their army's heavy baggage from Philadelphia to New York, the French Admiral followed to the latter point but declined to attack there in en-operation with Washington's army, and chose instead an enterprise against Newport, then held by a second British army of 6,000 men.

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photograph of an oil painting by Captain Charles Bittinger, USNR

Captain Dudley W. Knox, U. S. Navy (Retired)

Commodore Dudley W. Knox, U. S. Navy (Retired) (1877 – 1960) was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and Naval War College. He had a distinguished career as a naval officer with service in the Spanish American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Great White Fleet, and World War I. But it was his abilities as a historian, librarian, and archivist that earned him respect and admiration amongst his peers and later generations.

Transferred to the Retired List of the Navy on 20 October 1921, Knox served as Officer in Charge, Office of Naval Records and Library, and as Curator for the Navy Department. The publication of his clarion call Our Vanishing History and Traditions in the Naval Institute Proceedings in January 1926 led to the establishment of the Naval Historical Foundation. He would serve as  secretary of the organization for decades and was its president at the time of his passing in 1960.

For a quarter of a century, his leadership inspired diligence, efficiency, and initiative while he guided, improved, and expanded the Navy’s archival and historical operations.  His publications include The Eclipse of American Sea Power (1922), A History of the United States Navy (1936), and multi-volume collections of documents on naval operations in The Quasi-War with France in 1798–1800, the first Barbary war and the second Barbary War.

More Stories From This Author View Biography

Digital Proceedings content made possible by a gift from CAPT Roger Ekman, USN (Ret.)

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