Matthias Alexis Roche de Fermoy must have been a point of confusion for other, better generals in the Continental Army. Yes, the Martinique-born de Fermoy did show up in the colonies in 1776, claiming to be a French colonel, a move that earned him a commission as a brigadier general. But his actions thereafter weren’t exactly becoming of a great officer. Sure, his first few engagements went by without much upset, but when the British began to move their forces from Trenton to Princeton in January 1777, de Fermoy started to fumble. He was supposed to position his soldiers between the two cities to hold up the British, but de Fermoy took this opportunity to get too drunk to command.
In March, de Fermoy was put in charge of Fort Independence, though George Washington reportedly balked at the idea. De Fermoy abandoned the fort on July 6, 1777, and, disobeying orders, set fire to it. That made it painfully obvious to the British that the rebels there and at nearby Fort Ticonderoga, under the command of Gen. Arthur St. Clair, were retreating. By drawing British attention, de Fermoy put St. Clair’s troops in danger.
Despite this, de Fermoy thought that he could still rise in rank and asked Congress to make him a major general. That didn’t happen, and de Fermoy resigned in January 1778, with Congress giving him an $800 payout to return to the Caribbean, after which he disappeared from the record.
[Featured image by Pi3.124 via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 4.0]
