 Captain William Ludwig von Sonntag was one of the 10,000 troops of King Louis XVI of France that were sent under the Count de Rochambeau to America to aid the Americans in their Revolutionary War against Great Britain.Captain von Sonntag was present with his regiment at the siege of York-Town, in Virginia, where Lord Cornwallis surrendered, which virtually closed the war; the independence of the States being acknowledged soon after by Great Britain.John de Havilland also gives a swashbuckling account of his paternal grandfather, James Haviland, as being remembered in Somersetshire for his wonderful strength and cool courage.