Lafayette, Marquis de

Lafayette, Marquis de (1757–1834), French statesman and Revolutionary War general.The marquis de Lafayette was the most influential Frenchman in the early American republic. The prospect of military advancement and an affinity for republican principles drew the young cavalry captain to join the Continental army during the Revolutionary War. Americans appreciated his powerful court connections, unwavering enthusiasm for their cause, and offer to serve without pay. Despite Congress's growing irritation with troublesome foreign adventurers, the nineteen‐year‐old nobleman acquired, on 31 July 1777, a major general's commission in the army, albeit without pay or a command.

Lafayette's notable services, first at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777, eventually won him his own troops. In 1778, Congress designated him to head the proposed invasion of Canada, a plan eventually canceled; then George Washington gave him a division to strike the British near Monmounth, an assignment that Charles Lee ultimately claimed on the basis of higher rank. Lafayette finally led six light infantry battalions in 1780 and a Light Corps in 1781, moving to the Southern Department, where his troops help confine Charles Cornwallis's army to the Virginia coast and set up the decisive siege of Yorktown.

Lafayette remained a supporter of the United States during the French Revolution, despite considerable risk to himself and his family. In 1824–25, he returned to the United States for a triumphal tour that symbolized the passing of the revolutionary generation.
[See also Revolutionary War: Military and Diplomatic Course; Yorktown, Battle of.]

Bibliography

Louis Gottschalk , Lafayette Joins the American Army, 1937.
Louis Gottschalk , Lafayette and the Close of the American Revolution, 1942.
Stanley J. Idzerda, ed., Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776–1790, 1977–.

J. Mark Thompson