While researching my book Vineyards to Victory, I came across something I wasn’t expecting in the French artillery records at Yorktown.
Jacques-Christianne Closset, known as Fleur d’Épine.
And Nicolas Fole.
Both served as artillerymen in the Régiment d’Auxonne under Rochambeau. Both died on September 21, 1781, in the York River, exactly one week before the siege of Yorktown began.
Fole’s name is engraved on the Yorktown French Memorial, dedicated in 1911.
Closset’s is not.
Both names appear in the same French military record.
The record for Closset includes something unusual. The clerk added a formal “dit,” preserving the name his comrades used for him, a designation sometimes recorded in French military registers to distinguish or identify a soldier within his unit:
Fleur d’Épine. The Thornflower.
The National Park Service notes that the memorial list may not be complete.
Indeed, it appears not to be. If so, this omission may reflect a 115-year-old clerical error.
How does one man get remembered, and another, who died beside him, get left out?
What can be done to remedy this error and properly recognize the sacrifice of all who lost their lives in the service of American independence?
Image: Commissioned artwork by Phi Duong Thai.
