Marquis de Lafayette

Through contacts with Silas Deane, Lafayette began to make arrangements to sail to America. Though he would later exaggerate the extent of royal opposition to his plan in order to increase the drama of his odyssey, he did indeed sail without official authorization. Arriving in America in the summer of 1777, he presented himself to the Second Continental Congress. This body remained unimpressed by the 19-year-old renegade French captain, but his enthusiasm and commitment, as evidenced by the considerable trouble and expense of his journey, combined with his offer to serve as a simple volunteer without pay, won the Americans over and they eventually passed a resolution giving him a commission of major general in the Continental Army.

Lafayette soon met American commander in chief George Washington, thus beginning their life-long friendship, but the older man was unwilling to assign such a young and inexperienced officer to an independent field command and so kept Lafayette on his staff. A few weeks after joining Washington, Lafayette was wounded in the leg at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777 and spent the winter recuperating and sharing the sufferings of the American forces at Valley Forge. Throughout Washington's troubles there, he provided unwavering support. The following spring, Lafayette received the welcome news that France had signed an alliance with the American colonies on February 6, 1778 and that Great Britain had declared war on the French.

After distinguishing himself at the battles of Barren Hill and Monmouth, Lafayette received leave to return to France to take a hand in the preparations for a French expeditionary force. He returned to great publicity (a publicity that he was only too willing to encourage) and a promotion to colonel in the French Army when he arrived home in February 1779. At the end of the year, his wife gave birth to their first boy, whom they named George Washington.

To his great disappointment, Lafayette was not given command of the expeditionary force, the honor going instead to the older and more experienced Comte de Rochambeau. Nonetheless, Lafayette returned to America to serve in Washington's army and facilitate cooperation between American and French forces. Though at Washington's request, Lafayette demonstrated his naïve optimism by repeatedly urging Rochambeau—who had arrived on July 11, 1780 with a force of 5,000 men wracked by disease—to participate in a combined assault on New York City. Rochambeau wisely resisted Lafayette unrealistic enthusiasm, agreeing to an assault only in 1781.

In the meantime, Lafayette, who had been given a field command, performed in several actions with great skill and bravery. In April 1781, he captured Richmond, Virginia and held it despite British efforts to recapture the city. Lafayette then conducted limited actions against British Gen. Charles Cornwallis with great dexterity, having two horses shot from underneath him at the Battle of Green Spring on July 6.

As Cornwallis occupied an seemingly advantageous position at Yorktown, Virginia, Rochambeau and Washington, who had been preparing for a siege of New York City, received news that French Admiral François de Grasse was sailing for the Chesapeake with his fleet and 3,000 French troops. The two generals immediately began marching south toward Yorktown, while de Grasse disembarked troops under the command of the Marquis de Saint-Simon in Virginia.

Lafayette and Saint-Simon gradually cut off Cornwallis' position as de Grasse drove off the British Navy. By the time Rochambeau and Washington arrived, Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown and the combined American-French forces settled into a siege. Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, and Lafayette received promotion to major general in the French Army for the victory to which he had contributed so much. He took part in the peace negotiations in Paris, consistently advocating American interests, and his world-wide fame continued to increase. On a visit to the new United States as a guest of the nation in 1784, he was received with great popular acclaim wherever he went.

After the war, Lafayette was one of the central figures in the early stages of the French Revolution. He was vice president of the National Assembly and supreme commander of the National Guard in 1789 and was also instrumental in drafting the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a document that owed much to the principles expressed in the American Declaration of Independence. As the French Revolution moved toward its more radical phase, Lafayette's essentially moderate constitutional monarchism moved him progressively further from the center of revolutionary activity.

Lafayette's role in the repression of two major public disturbances, as commander of the National Guard, damaged his popularity, but he was nonetheless named in the spring of 1792 to command one of the three army groups defending France from foreign invasion. Yet after the overthrow of the constitutional monarchy and the declaration of the First French Republic on August 10, 1792, Lafayette had had enough and fled the country. He was arrested in Belgium and held prisoner by the Austrians and Prussians until 1797, when Napoleon I negotiated his release.

Lafayette remained unsympathetic to Napoleon's authoritarianism and opposed his Consulate and Empire. He reentered politics in 1815 as a member of the liberal opposition to the restored Bourbon monarchy, consistently advocating progressive and reforming policies, such as the abolition of slavery, freedom of the press, and support for revolutions abroad. He played a prominent role, again as commander of the National Guard, in the Revolution of 1830 that overthrew the Bourbons and was instrumental in rallying popular support for the "liberal" monarch Louis Philippe.

Lafayette eventually split from the new regime and resumed his oppositional stance in 1832 when the king failed to come through on his liberal promises. Despite the vicissitudes of his political fortunes at home, Lafayette popularity never waned in the United States, as evidenced by the fanfare accompanying his tour of the young nation during 1824-1825. He was given a hero's reception as the last surviving major general of the American Revolution and voted a large stipend and grant of land by Congress. He died in Paris on May 20, 1834.

MLA Citation

"Marquis de Lafayette." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2015. Web. 16 Jan. 2015.