Dubuysson des Hays, Charles-François, Vicomte

DUBUYSSON DES HAYS, CHARLES-FRANÇOIS, VICOMTE. (1752–1786). Continental officer. Of noble French birth, he became an artillery officer candidate (aspirant) in 1768 and sous lieutenant in the Noailles cavalry regiment in 1772 and was discharged (reformé) in 1776. He accompanied Lafayette to America and then from Charleston to Philadelphia in 1777. On 4 October 1777 he was appointed major in the Continental army and assigned as aide-de-camp to De Kalb. On 11 February 1778 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, subject to his having command only over Canadian troops raised in Canada. Because of his abrasiveness with members of Congress in his application, Laurens advised De Kalb to tell him that "hurry & urgency … are exceedingly disgusting to a deliberative body." On 16 August 1780 he suffered serious wounds at Camden and was captured. North Carolina awarded him an honorary rank of brigadier general by virtue of his conduct. As a prisoner on parole in Philadelphia, he repeatedly sought Washington's intervention in advancing his exchange to return to France, but Washington repeatedly declined, claiming his release out of proper order would interfere with the public good. On 4 September 1781 Congress commended him and authorized his return to France. He was honorably discharged on 1 January 1782. He became a chevalierin the Orderof Saint Louis in 1785.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bodinier, André. Dictionnaire des officiers de l'armée royale qui ont combattu aux Etats-Unis pendant la guerre d'Indépendance, 1776–1783. Vincennes, France: Service historique de l'armée, 1982.

Lafayette, Gilbert du Motier de. Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Documents, 1776–1790. Edited by Stanley J. Idzerda et al. 5 vols. to date. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977–.

Laurens, Henry. The Papers of Henry Laurens. Edited by Philip M. Hamer et al. 16 vols. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968–2003.

                              revised by Robert Rhodes Crout