CHAPTER II 
JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 
Extraordinary career of the naturalist’s father—Wounded at fourteen and 
prisoner of war for five years in England—Service in the French mer- 
chant marine and navy—Voyages to Newfoundland and Santo 
Domingo—His marriage in France—His sea fights, capture and im- 
prisonment in New York—His command at the Battle of Yorktown— 
Service in America and encounters with British privateers. 
Few names of purely Gallic origin are today better 
known in America, or touch a more sympathetic chord 
of human interest, than that of Audubon, and few, we 
might also add, are so rare. John James Audubon first 
made his family name known to all the world, and 
though he left numerous descendants, it has become well 
nigh extinct in America, and is far from common in 
France. The great Paris directory frequently contains 
no entry under this head; Nantes knows his name no 
longer, and it is rare in the marshes of La Vendée, 
where at some remote period it may have originated. 
The lists of the army of five thousand which Rocham- 
beau’s fleet brought to our aid in the American War of 
Independence show but a single variant of this euphoni- 
ous patronym, in Pierre Audibon,' a soldier in the regi- 
ment of Touraine, who was born at Montigny in 1756; 
but in the fleet of the Count de Grasse which codperated 
with our land-forces at the Battle of Yorktown, on 
October 19, 1781, a ship was commanded by an officer 
with whom we are more intimately concerned. This 
1For similar spelling of the name by John James Audubon, see 
Appendix I, Document No. 12. 
2A 
