Who was Augustin Mottin de la Balme?

Augustin Mottin de la Balme was a French cavalry officer who served in Europe during the Seven Years War and in the United States during the American Revolution.

Augustin Mottin was born 28 August 1733, in the French Alps near Saint-Antoine, the son of a tanner. He served as a trooper in the distinguished “Scottish” company of the Gendarmerie de France during the Seven Years War.

The French forces were nearly destroyed at the Battle of Minden, but Augustin Mottin was one of the surviving French Cavalry officers. Incidentally, another French officer, Colonel Lafayette, was killed in the battle, leaving his two-year old son Gilbert du Mottier with the title "Marquis de Lafayette". The British forces at Minden were under the command of Lieutenant General Lord George Sackville, who was court-martialed for failing to crush the defeated French. All of these names would become familiar during the American Revolution.

Following the war, Augustin studied horsemanship, eventually becoming master at the Gendarmerie’s Riding School in Lunéville. Mottin was promoted to Fourrier-Major in 1766, and retired with a pension in 1773. Using the assumed name “Mottin de La Balme,” he wrote a book on horsemanship in 1773, followed with a book on cavalry tactics in 1776.

Augustin de La Balme left for the United States to assist in the American Revolution. In 1777, he was appointed as the Colonial Army’s Inspector General of Cavalry. Upon learning that Casimir Pulaski would be in command of the United States Cavalry, La Balme resigned in October of 1777.

In 1780, allegedly under secret orders from General Washington, but as likely acting on his own, he traveled down the Ohio River to Kaskaskia. The success of General Clark’s capture of Fort Sackville at Vincennes inspired La Balme to attempt a similar feat against the British at Fort Detroit. La Balme recruited a militia force from among the French citizens of Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes, then started up the Wabash River with the expectation of adding to his force from the French villages of Ouiatenon (present day Lafayette, Indiana) and Kekionga (present day Fort Wayne). La Balme apparently expected French residents at Fort Detroit to join him as well once they arrived.

La Balme's force had little opposition until reaching Kekionga, where they raided British stores for over three days while awaiting reinforcements that never arrived. Upon learning of the return of a Miami hunting party to Kekionga, Le Balme departed to raid another trading post on Eel River. Leaving some twenty men to guard the captured stores at Kekionga, his force marched out over the Eel River trail (the same trail Colonel John Hardin would follow ten years later).

The Miami Indians, learning of the intrusion, destroyed the small group of men left at Kekionga. Chief Little Turtle, who lived in a village along the Eel River, attacked La Balme before he reached the Eel River trading post. La Balme and his men fortified themselves on the banks of the river. There remains some confusion as to the length of the battle; accounts of the siege vary from several days to several weeks. They were eventually defeated by an overwhelming force, and only a few survivors managed to escape.