The 'Washington-Rochambeau Route to Victory' Displays depict a route taken by the two generals was described in a March 1980 bill approved by Virginia's General Assembly that designated a "Washington-Rochambeau Highway" from Mt. Vernon to the state-run Victory Center in Yorktown. The original displays, were erected during the Bicentennial by a French and American �Committee of the Bicentennial 1776-1976' and used the route designated by the Virginia General Assembly, and labeled the trace the �Washington, Rochambeau Route to Victory'. Virginia highway authorities erected green markers along the trace, labeling it the "Washington-Rochambeau Route."

A recent study by the Virginia Department of Historical Resources (VDHR) has been unable to find the research underlying the specific route designation in the 1980 bill. Since June 2007, VDHR, in conjunction with some counties and cities in Virginia, have launched a fresh historical survey being overseen by Dr. Robert A. Selig (project historian to the National Park Service for the Washington-rochambeau Revolutionary route National Historic Trail Project). Dr. Selig has determined that the 1980 description of the commanding generals' route between Mount Vernon and Williamsburg in September 1781 "was marred by poor research since neither Washington nor Rochambeau took the route thus marked in some places. (Washington and Rochambeau, for instance, traveled the route to Yorktown not by way of Hanover Court House in September 1781; instead, they crossed from Caroline into King and Queen and King William counties and into New Kent County via Ruffin's Ferry, near West Point.)." [Taken from "Designating a National and Virginia Washington � Rochambeau Trail" by Robert A. Selig, in Notes on Virginia, No. 51, 2007, published Virginia Department of Historic Resources; p.52.]

See webpage on Revision of the Washington-Rochambeau Route to Victory
or
http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/W-RRREV.HTM

Page initially posted 4 May 2009,