De La Balme: Lafayette's Cavalry Officer
Near Fort Wayne, Indiana
In the autumn of seventeen eighty, a French cavalry officer arrived in the Indiana wilderness on a mission that would cost him his life. Augustin de La Balme had served in the French royal cavalry before crossing the Atlantic with Benjamin Franklin's recommendation to assist the American Revolution. He helped train Continental forces and briefly served as Inspector General of Cavalry.
By seventeen eighty he was in the northwest territory, leading a raid on the British post at Fort Detroit. He never reached it. Striking the Miami trading village of Kekionga, near present-day Fort Wayne, his force looted the settlement.
The Miami leader Little Turtle counterattacked swiftly, routing de La Balme's men and killing the colonel himself in November of seventeen eighty. The engagement is remembered as one of Little Turtle's earliest and most decisive victories, foreshadowing his larger triumphs over American forces a decade later.
