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FIRST OF 12 IMPORTANT YORKTOWN CAMPAIGN LETTERS FROM LAFAYETTE LAFAYETTE, GILBERT DU MOTIER; MARQUIS DE. Autograph Letter Signed, "Lafayette," as Major General, to Brigadier General George Weedon, urgently requesting ammunition, having been unable to follow through on an attack due to a lack of it; also requesting help in delivering his personal baggage. With franking signature "Lafayette M G" on separate address sheet in Lafayette's hand. 3 pages, 4to, on a single folded sheet; stitch holes in margin touching text, moderate foxing at center fold. "Camp at Sleepy Hole" [VA], 20 March 1781
Lafayette's small force of 1200 men was newly arrived in Virginia, trying to contain Benedict Arnold's larger British raiding force, despite a shortage of ammunition and supplies. Here he asks an American general on the scene for help: 'On my arrival at this place I intended to move down the whole corps under Gnl Müllemberg in order that the works of the ennemy might be reconnoitered . . . but to my great surprise there was no ammunition arrived in camp, so that no men had a sufficiency and many had none at all.' He had a skirmish with the British which looked promising, but 'for want of ammunition we could not drive them into town.' Asks that Weedon send 500 axes as previously requested, and supply provisions to the French sailors at Yorktown. His final request is personal: 'I have ordered my baggage to this place, and will be much obliged to you to give orders for the procuring of two waggons to that purpose.' The skirmish he describes here, with a small party of Hessians, was the first combat Lafayette had seen since his return to America. Published in Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, III:406-7.
