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Louis Le Bègue Duportail (1743-1801) was the chief engineer of George Washington’s Continental Army, yet he was made prisoner of war here when Charleston fell to the British in May 1780.

When civilians talk of the art of war, the menial business involving the pick and the shovel pale in public interest to that of the cannon, the musket, and the sword. How many monuments have been dedicated to brilliant military engineers? Ask a career soldier, however, and he'll tell you in a snap that if you don't have engineers with you, then you'd better have a plan to skedaddle. The Army of Northern Virginia didn't call Robert E. Lee the "King of Spades" for nothing.

Two-hundred and thirty-one years ago this summer two of France's finest military engineers languished in an intolerably hot imprisonment here because Charleston was forced to capitulate to the British. General Louis Leb<0x00E8>gue Duportail and his assistant, Captain Pierre Charles L'Enfant, known as Peter, advised patriot General Benjamin Lincoln and the city fathers that our city was indefensible and that they'd better make the best deal with British General Clinton that they could before the siege began in earnest.

This affair occurred in April 1780. By May 12, 1780, the American colonies suffered the greatest loss of the War - the loss of Charleston. In this defeat for the Patriots, it appeared that the Southern colonies were cut off entirely from Washington's force in New England. Duportail and L'Enfant might have worked a miracle had they been dispatched by Congress earlier; however, their plight as prisoners of war in steamy Charleston was almost as much a blow to the cause of liberty as was the loss of our city and Lincoln's army.

The history of military engineering is not quite as ancient as first records of warfare, but it is ancient. The Old Testament book of Jeremiah, 52nd chapter, tells of King Zedediah of Jerusalem being beseiged by special forts built by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. Roman military engineers such as Vitruvius designed and built everything from forts and siege weapons to roads, canals, and viaducts. The ruins of these great works can be seen all over Europe 2,000 years later.

Colonial America possessed artisans skilled in constructing two and three story masonry buildings; however, we did not have men trained in the grand and terrible art of fortifying strategic points or of waging war against a powerful foe.

No small wonder that Ben Franklin sought divine providence when the Continental Congress met at Philadelphia. We needed professionals and we needed them by the dozen. There was just one hope of securing such highly-trained men, and that was through the aid of Britain's arch enemy France - a nation that had a score to settle with her enemy over her loss of Canada in the French and Indian War. Our fortunes began to change for the better the month that Louis Leb<0x00E8>gue Duportail, Jean Baptiste Joseph, Chevalier de Laumoy, Hays de la Radi<0x00E8>re, and Gouvion Saint Cyr, a cousin to the great field marshal, arrived on American soil. The conspiracy that brought them here is a story in itself.

French historian Daniel Jouve published in the journal les Amis de la Grive (on-line): "In September 1775, Foreign Minister Vergennes gave the young secret agent, Julien Achard de Bonvouloir, the mission to sound out the newly formed government of the insurgent American colonies. De Bonvouloir met secretly with Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia and advised Vergennes that Congress would like to have two skilled and well-recommended military engineers. That request would increase to four engineers in 1776 when Franklin arrived in Paris to represent the insurgent colonies."

Duportail and his colleagues were academic disciples of the legendary Marquis de Vauban and Jean Errard, the early modern masters of military engineering science. Errard's Calais- Citadelle and the massive walled fortification of Boulogne are masterpieces of defense still studied today by architects and engineers.

Vauban's intricate coastal canal system and corresponding forts at Gravelines intrigued George Patton two centuries later, as did his fort at Le Quesnoy. Duportail's training was accomplished at the Royal School of Engineering in Mézi<0x00E8>res, capital of the Ardennes. The government of Louis XVI had Duportail moved up in rank several grades to Lieutenant-Colonel. This was done to impress the American revolutionary leaders.

Moving stealthily through their own country to avoid detection by British spies, the cadre of engineers departed Nantes in disguise bound for Cap Fran<0x00E7>ais in Saint-Domingue. Espionage was at an all time high during the era of the American revolution. So much was at stake for European powers contesting over new world colonies.

Ben Franklin's personal secretary, Dr. Edward Bancroft, appears to have been a double-agent, spying for the colonies while at the same time providing information to the British.

Upon reaching Cap Fran<0x00E7>ais, our allied engineers contacted a mysterious fellow named Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, a watchmaker, merchant, playwright, gun-runner, and spy. Beaumarchais, a pen name, was the publisher of Voltaire's banned works as well as the author of numerous plays - including some that won acclaim from Marie-Antoinette. More important to the American cause, however, Beaumarchais was the head of a dummy corporation, Roderigue Hortalez and Company, set up in France to funnel arms and money to America in support of our revolution.

Roderigue Hortalez and Company was, on paper at least, a respectable trading company carrying on the sugar trade in the Caribbean for France. In reality, guns and money came into Charleston and other accessible ports.

It was Beaumarchais who arranged for Duportail and his colleagues to have a fast schooner to run the Frenchmen into the New River headwaters where an agent provided the Frenchmen with horses to go overland for Philadelphia.

One of the gentlemen who interceded with Beaumarchais to aid the French engineering experts was the Virginian, Arthur Lee, brother to famed cavalry leader, Lighthorse Harry Lee.

Once in Philadelphia, George Washington arranged for the Congress to cover the salaries and expenditures of these gallant soldiers whose expertise we so desperately needed. Franklin arranged a generous stipend for each of them, but the arrangement fell through and Duportail ended up paying over 17,000 pounds sterling of his own money to cover his expenses over here.

Duportail and his French associates assisted in the fortification of Valley Forge and of our forts on the Hudson. This versatile French officer was brought into Washington's innermost circle, often sitting in on the critical war councils. The Commander-in-Chief's councils were much influenced by the European commanders of whom Washington thought so highly: Duportail: the Marquis de LaFayette, Baron de Kalb, and Baron von Steuben.

When the British army and navy moved from Savannah to lay siege to Charleston, it was imperative that Congress send engineering expertise immediately. Men such as William Moultrie and Charles Lee could erect fortifications, but they had an imperfect understanding of escarpments, batterie de bombardes, revetments, traverses, and the like. Getting in to Charleston in the spring of 1780 proved to be a difficult matter. Duportail and L'Enfant used water and over-land routes to reach us. Some suspect that slaves employed a pirogue to slip the French duo into the city during the night. Duportail and L'Enfant arrived on Tuesday night, April 25, 1780. General Lincoln showed the men the defenses, much of which ran from where Chapel Street intersects East Bay Street in modern times to where the parking garage for Roper Hospital is near Calhoun Street.

Duportail shook his head in despair. The Charleston defenses were totally inadequate against the overwhelming power of the British artillery. Duportail counseled Lincoln to make a deal with Britain's General Clinton. Lincoln was hamstrung because Charleston merchants demanded that the city be defended at all costs.

When the British lobbed hotshot into the city setting a number of wooden buildings on fire, the residents and the recalcitrant merchants then demanded surrender rather than see the city destroyed.

Duportail insisted upon completing the hornwork into a complete walled citadel with guns on three sides. Sixty years later city fathers resurrected the term, Citadel, for the State's new military college. And today, there is a remnant of the tabby hornwork still standing in Marion Square.

The Patriot forces had 5200 men captured, the entire division of Benjamin Lincoln. For Clinton and Cornwallis, it was a magnificent victory that played well in Parliament for Lord North's faction. Duportail developed a low-opinion of Charlestonians who he felt had no appreciation for the grand scheme of warfare. He and Laumoy, Cambray, and L'Enfant were made prisoners and whiled away some exceptionally hot days and nights here in the summer of 1780.

They were not paroled, but Duportail was able to manage an exchange and returned to Washington's side where he developed the grand battle plan for the siege at Yorktown. Duportail became the "father" of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as well as one of the originators of the idea for a United States Military Academy at West Point. Had he been able to arrive here more than two weeks prior to the surrender of Charleston, there might have been a different chapter written in our history. Pierre L'Enfant later on had the honor of laying out the streets of our new capital in Washington, D.C.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village. Visit his Web site at www.historyslostmoments.com).