Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau was a French Royal Army officer who played a critical role in the Franco-American victory at the siege of Yorktown in 1781 during the American Revolutionary War. In 1780, Rochambeau was appointed commander of land forces as part of the project code-named Expédition Particulière. He was given the rank of lieutenant general in command of 7,000 French troops and sent to join the Continental Army under George Washington during the American Revolutionary War. He landed at Newport, Rhode Island, on 10 July but was held there inactive for a year because he did not want to abandon the French fleet blockaded by the British in Narragansett Bay. Washington and Rochambeau then marched their combined forces to the Siege of Yorktown and the Battle of the Chesapeake. On 22 September they combined with the Marquis de Lafayette's troops and forced Lord Cornwallis to surrender on 19 October. The Congress of the Confederation presented Rochambeau with two cannons taken from the British in recognition of his service. He returned them to Vendome, and they were requisitioned in 1792. Upon his return to France, Rochambeau was honored by King Louis XVI and was made governor of the province of Picardy.