Lafayette, Marquis de

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Lafayette, Marquis de

LAFAYETTE, MARQUIS DE. (1757–1834). (Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette.) Continental general. Before his second birthday he lost his father, a colonel of grenadiers killed at Minden. His mother died before he was thirteen years old, and Lafayette was a wealthy orphan when his grandfather died a few weeks later. When he was age sixteen he married his cousin, Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles, and thus strengthened his alliance with one of the most powerful families of France. He had entered the Royal Army as a musketeer on 9 April 1771, was promoted to second lieutenant in the Noailles Regiment on 7 April 1773, and promoted to captain on 19 May 1774. While serving at Metz, he attended a dinner on 8 August 1775 at which the duke of Gloucester expressed some candid and sympathetic views on the course being pursued by the American insurgents. Motivated by his interest in the American cause, he made plans to join the Americans. Knowing that his family and the king would disapprove of his action, he confided in the Comte de Broglie, who introduced him to Johann De Kalb. The latter, already seeking service in America, became a sort of guardian, and after many delays they sailed for America with written agreements from Silas Deane that they would be commissioned major generals. With a party of other soldiers, they landed near Georgetown, South Carolina, on 13 June 1777, and were in Philadelphia six weeks later. Their reception by Congress was chilly, but after Lafayette offered to serve at his own expense and start as a volunteer, Congress on 31 July commissioned him a major general without command. The next day he met Washington, and the American cause acquired a valuable, if enigmatic, asset.

WASHINGTON'S CONCERNS

Washington was at first irritated by Lafayette's expressions of availability for a field command. At the Battle of Brandywine, on 11 September 1777, the ardent volunteer helped check the enemy's advance and was wounded in the left thigh and evacuated to the Moravians' care in Bethlehem. After two months of recuperation, he rejoined the army at White Marsh (after the Battle of Germantown). On 25 November he led a reconnaissance force of Greene's division against the position of Cornwallis at Gloucester, New Jersey, and with three hundred men got the better of a skirmish with a superior force of Hessians. Lafayette's effectiveness in battle complicated Washington's quandry. On 1 November, Washington wrote to Henry Laurens:

I feel myself in a delicate situation…. He is extremely solicitous of having a command equal to his rank…. It appears to me, from a consideration of his illustrious and important connections, the attachment which he has manifested for our cause, and the consequences which his return in disgust might produce, that it will be advisable to gratify his wishes…. Besides, he is sensible, discreet in his manners, has made great proficiency in our language, and from the disposition he discovered at the battle of Brandywine possesses a large share of bravery and military ardor. (Washington, Papers, 12, p. 81).

These comments explain more than first meets the eye about Washington's initial hesitations, his change of mind, and later his concerns about Congress's reaction to conferring a command on a foreigner as well as Lafayette's true role in the Revolution.

A FIELD COMMANDER

On 1 December 1777, Congress voted him command of a division of Virginia light troops. After sharing the hardships of Valley Forge and proving himself one of Washington's most stalwart supporters in the so-called Conway Cabal, he went to Albany to lead the proposed Canada invasion of 1778. Returning to Valley Forge in April 1778 after that frustrating experience, he was involved in the action at Barren Hill, Pennsylvania, on 20 May. He then figured prominently in the Monmouth campaign in June. Washington gave him command of the two veteran brigades engaged at Newport in July and August 1778, where he had a prominent part in salvaging the wreck of the first Franco-American venture. When the Peace Commission of Carlisle issued a manifesto questioning France's motives in the alliance, Lafayette challenged Carlisle to a duel, which Carlisle sought to avoid. Washington and Estaing succeeded in urging Lafayette to withdraw from pressing the matter.

TO FRANCE AND BACK

With France's entry into the war in the spring of 1778, Lafayette sought permission from Congress for a leave to return to France, resolve his relations with the king, and "be any way useful" to America. Congress concurred on 21 October and added a letter of recommendation to Louis XVI on Lafayette's behalf. He sailed on 11 January 1779 (his departure having been delayed by a fever), reached Paris a month later, and after a week of "political quarantine" to purge himself of disobedience in defying the royal will in leaving France, he was given a hero's welcome. He was received with favor at court; appointed colonel of dragoons; and, in presenting an accurate picture of affairs in America, won the confidence of Vergennes. Although Lafayette failed to get approval for many of the schemes he advocated—an invasion of England, Ireland, or Canada; hiring part of the Swedish navy for service in America; floating a large loan in Holland—he was successful in endorsing the proposal to send a French expeditionary force to serve under Washington.

On 28 April 1780 he landed at Boston. Rochambeau reached Newport in July, and with Washington's wholehearted support, Lafayette sought to serve as intermediary in working out plans for allied cooperation. When Benedict Arnold's raid in Virginia forced Washington to send regulars there, he selected Lafayette as commander of this detachment. In his Virginia military operations, Lafayette proved himself an effective strategist in eluding the efforts of Cornwallis's larger force to "trap the boy," and at Green Spring on 6 July 1781, he showed ability as a tactician. When Rochambeau and Washington moved south for the Yorktown campaign, Lafayette was given command of the light division for the final action against Cornwallis.

RETURNING HOME

He sailed for home in December 1781 and reached France with lavish commendations from Congress to Louis XVI and instructions to the U.S. ministers in France to confer with him and avail themselves of his assistance. Congress made the Alliance available for his crossing. Upon his return to France, Lafayette was promoted to the rank of maréchal de camp, effective 19 October 1781. In Europe, along with Estaing, he was assembling an army of twenty-four thousand French and Spanish troops at Cádiz for operations against the British when the word of the treaty arrived. He received the Cross of the Order of Saint Louis in 1783.

PROMOTING FRANCO-AMERICAN RELATIONS

In the last half of 1784 he revisited America at Washington's invitation and promoted the cause of a stronger American union. After 1783 he was of great assistance to various American causes in Europe, working tirelessly for improved Franco-American relations by, among other things, seeking expanded commercial relations between France and America, encouraging Greene and Knox to have their sons educated in France, supporting the Society of Cincinnati, and—especially—aiding Jefferson's mission as minister to France. In 1786 Lafayette's bust (a gift from the state of Virginia) was placed in the Paris City Hall, a signal distinction for a living Frenchman.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

In 1787 he was a member of the Assembly of Notables; in 1789 he represented the nobility of Auvergne in the Estates General. On 11 July he submitted a draft for the Declaration of the Rights of Mankind and the Citizen. On 17 July 1789 he was named commander of the newly established Paris National Guard, a post he kept until autumn 1791, when France completed its written constitution. Having been promoted to lieutenant general on 30 June 1791, he returned to active duty as commander of the Army of the Center on 14 December 1791, when France feared the outbreak of war. The collapse of the monarchy in August 1792 led to his arrest by the Jacobins and his decision to flee to America on 19 August, but he was taken and imprisoned by the Austrians and Prussians in a series of locations until his release in 1797. In March 1800 he returned to France to find his fortune destroyed. He acknowledged Napoleon but declined his offers of a senatorship, the Legion of Honor, and the post of minister to the United States. He also declined President Jefferson's offer in 1805 to become governor of Louisiana.

LATER YEARS

During this period and until 1818 he kept out of politics, cultivating his lands at La Grange, forty-three miles from Paris. He then sat in the Chamber of Deputies until 1824, and in that year accepted the invitation of President Monroe to visit the United States. During the visit, Lafayette was warmly welcomed in every state of the Union, and everywhere Revolutionary War veterans hurried to his side. Of those with whom he had served, he often remembered their names and those of their families. He sailed back for France on 8 September 1825 with a renewed commitment to international causes that he conceived as based on the principles of the American Revolution. Louis-Philippe's assurances of a monarchy "with republican institutions" in the July Revolution of 1830 convinced him to accept the title of commander of the French National Guard until December 1830. Thereafter he continued as a major figure in the opposition until his death. His residences in Paris and in the countryside (La Grange) were the destination for many American visitors during the remainder of his life.

Lafayette spent an estimated $200,000 of his personal fortune in support of the American Revolution. In 1794 Congress voted him some $24,500 to cover the salary he had declined during the Revolution, and in 1803 and 1825 that body granted him lands in Louisiana and Florida.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ford, Worthington C., ed. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789. 34 vols. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1904–1937.

Gottschalk, Louis R. Lafayette in America, 1777–1783. 3 vols. Arveyres, France: L'Esprit de Lafayette Society, 1975.

Lafayette, Gilbert du Motier de. Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers. Edited by Stanley J. Idzerda. 5 vols. to date. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977–.

???????. Mémoires, Correspondance, et Manuscrits du Général Lafayette Publiés par sa Famille. 6 vols. Paris: H. Fournier, 1837–1838.

Morris, Robert. Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784. Edited by E. James Ferguson, et al. 9 vols. to date. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973–.

Tower, Charlemagne. The Marquis de Lafayette in the American Revolution. 2d ed. 2 vols. 1901. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1970.

Unger, Harlow Giles. Lafayette. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2002.

Washington, George. The Papers of George Washington: Revolutionary War Series. Edited by Philander D. Chase, et al. 14 vols. to date. Charlottesville, Va.: University Press of Virginia, 1985–.

revised by Robert Rhodes Crout

Encyclopedia of the American Revolution: Library of Military History