Louis Le Beque Duportail

Date of Birth

1743

Place of Birth

Near Orleans, France

Date of Death

August 1801

Place of Death

Returning to France and buried at sea

American Revolution Service

Fostered the Military Academy at West Point and developed the first curriculum. He is the Father of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Donor

Ann and Lanny Patten

Louis Le Beque Duportail, born in France in 1743, was a military engineer educated at the Mezieres Royal Engineering Academy.

He was a “Miner and Sapper,” meaning he was trained to handle explosives and build military fortifications and river crossings. No such professional skill existed in the Colonies at this time, and the King of France, with Benjamin Franklin’s urging, dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Duportail, age 33, to America in 1777 with three engineer subordinates.

Portrait by Charles Wilson Peale. The only known image of Louis Duportail 1743-1801

Original house to the rear, from Lanny Patten

At the French Ecole Du Genie in Angers to dedicate a bronze bust of Duportail at the military academy in 2012

Bronze Duportail bust sculpted in FranceGoing in at West Point, gift from SAR in Pennsylvania, With Museum Staff, from Lanny Patten

Presentation in the original Duportail room, from Lanny Patten

Entry to the grounds, from Lanny Patten

❮ ❯

I shall ever retain a grateful sense of the aids I have derived from your knowledge and advice to me.

- Washington

Lt. Col. Duportail served as Washington’s Chief Engineer on personal staff throughout the war, 1777–1783, becoming a most trusted staff advisor, principal translator and finally appointed Major General of the Continental Army.

Lt. Col. Duportail designed the defenses of Philadelphia and of Valley Forge; approved West Point defenses; the siege at Yorktown; the first curriculum for West Point as a military engineering school; and is the Father of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He was Washington’s translator in meetings with French General Comte de Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse.

In the end, Washington was so impressed with Duportail that he wrote “I shall ever retain a grateful sense of the aids I have derived from your knowledge and advice to me.” His Valley Forge residence, Duportail House, is a public venue near the national park, and he purchased a farm and land grant near what is now Bridgeport, Pennsylvania, after the Revolutionary War. The farm was later repossessed after Duportail left to Return to France. He became ill aboard the ship, died and was buried at sea in August 1801.