François de Fleury

Who was François de Fleury?

François-Louis Teissèdre de Fleury was a French nobleman who joined the Royal Army in 1768 and later volunteered to fight in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. In America he demonstrated his bravery at Piscataway in May 1777 after which he was appointed an officer of engineers. He fought at the Brandywine in September and was wounded at Germantown in early October. He served capably during the Siege of Fort Mifflin where he was wounded again in November. George Washington made him an assistant to Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben at Valley Forge in the spring of 1778. He served during the Monmouth Campaign in June 1778 and fought in Rhode Island in August.

While leading one of the attacking columns at Stony Point in July 1779, Fleury won an award for being the first attacker to enter the British bastion. Granted leave to return to France later that year, he returned to fight at Yorktown in October 1781. Back in the French army, he held commands in India and the Indian Ocean until 1790 when he returned to France. In the early part of the French Revolutionary War he was badly wounded and later resigned from the army.