Which French officer commanded American and French forces alongside George Washington at Yorktown?

Comte de Rochambeau commanded the French army alongside George Washington at Yorktown.

Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, led the French expeditionary force sent to support the American Revolution. French troops joined Washington’s Continental Army in the campaign that moved south toward Virginia in 1781.

At Yorktown, Rochambeau commanded French land forces while Washington led the combined American army. The allied armies besieged the British position held by Lord Cornwallis. French naval forces under the comte de Grasse also blocked British relief by winning the Battle of the Chesapeake.

Rochambeau is sometimes confused with Lafayette, a French volunteer who served as an American major general, or de Grasse, the admiral whose fleet was crucial at sea. Rochambeau’s role was specifically command of the French army in the allied land operation that produced Cornwallis’s surrender.