Maj. Chevalier de Villefranche was the latest French engineer sent to West Point. Before he arrived Kosciuszko had pondered what to do with a chest full of detailed plans that he had drafted during his two and a half years working on the citadel. The Polish engineer did not know who his successor would be, so he left the valuable renderings at the boardinghouse of Mrs. Warren for safekeeping. For the British the chest might as well have been filled with gold, because it would have provided them with a secret roadmap of how to sneak in and capture West Point.
