Matthias Alexis Roche de Fermoy (c. 1737 – after 1778) was a French volunteer soldier who served as a brigadier general in the Continental Army. Born in the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

, he was one of several foreigners given command positions in the army in 1776 (the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de La Fayette (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (, ), was a French aristocrat, freemason and military officer who fought in the American Revolutio ...

being one of the more famous of these). Fermoy's tenure as a brigadier general was marked by disgrace. Although he performed competently leading a brigade during the December 26, 1776 Battle of Trenton, he abandoned his brigade while it occupied a forward defensive position opposing the British advance prior to the

Battle of the Assunpink Creek The Battle of the Assunpink Creek, also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, was a battle between American and British troops that took place in and around Trenton, New Jersey, on January 2, 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, an ...

. In July 1777 his force was occupying Mount Independence, part of the defenses around

Fort Ticonderoga Fort Ticonderoga (), formerly Fort Carillon, is a large 18th-century star fort built by the French at a narrows near the south end of Lake Champlain, in northern New York, in the United States. It was constructed by Canadian-born French milit ...

in northern New York, prior to General

John Burgoyne General John Burgoyne (24 February 1722 – 4 August 1792) was a British general, dramatist and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1761 to 1792. He first saw action during the Seven Years' War when he participated in several bat ...

's advance. When the decision was made to secretly abandon the works on the morning of July 6, Fermoy endangered the operation by setting fire to his quarters at 2 am. After he was rejected for promotion to major general, he resigned in January 1778, and returned to the West Indies.

References

*Leiter, Mary Theresa
''Biographical sketches of the generals of the Continental army of the revolution''
* * * * Continental Army generals 1730s births Year of death unknown {{US-military-bio-stub