A career general, who commanded the French forces that helped defeat the British army at Yorktown, the comte de Rochambeau had been sent by King Louis XVI to help the American revolutionaries. Rochambeau was inactive for his first year here, after landing with 5,500 troops at Newport, RI, because the French fleet was blockaded off Narragansett Bay. In 1781 he persuaded George Washington to join forces with Lafayette's forces and the fleet of the comte de Grasse to trap Gen. Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown. The plan was successful, drawing the war to a close.