Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States
From July 1824 to September 1825, the last surviving French General of the Revolutionary War, the Marquis de Lafayette, made a famous tour of the 24 states in the United States. At many stops on this tour he was received by the populace with a hero's welcome, and many honors and monuments were presented to commemorate and memorialize the Marquis de Lafayette's visit.
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[edit] Reason for the visit
The Marquis de Lafayette led troops alongside George Washington in the American Revolution over 40 years earlier. He fought in several crucial battles including the battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania, and the Siege of Yorktown in Virginia.
The Marquis had returned to France and pursued a political career championing the ideals of liberty that the fledgeling U.S. Republic represented. After the Marquis left the French legislature in 1824, President James Monroe invited him to tour the United States, partly to instill the Spirit of 1776 in the next generation of Americans[1] and partly to celebrate the nation's 50th anniversary.[2]
[edit] The traveling party
During his trip, he visited all of the American states and travelled more than 6,000 miles (9,656 km).[3][4] Lafayette was accompanied by, among others, his son Georges Washington de La Fayette.[1] The main means of transportation for the Party were stagecoach, horseback, canal barge and steamboat.[5]
[edit] Welcoming celebrations
Different cities celebrated in different ways. Some held parades or conducted an artillery salute. In some places schoolchildren were brought to welcome the marquis. Veterans from the war, some of whom were in their sixties and seventies, welcomed the Marquis and some dined with him. While touring Yorktown, he recognized and embraced James Armistead Lafayette, a free negro who adopted his last name to honour the Marquis, (he was the first US double agent spy), the story of the event was reported by the Richmond Enquirer.
[edit] General timeline
He left France on an American merchant vessel, the Cadmus, on July 13, 1824. Lafayette's extended tour began on August 15, 1824, when he arrived at Staten Island, New York. Lafayette toured the northern and eastern states in the fall of 1824, including stops at Monticello to visit Thomas Jefferson and Washington, D.C., where he was received at the White House by President James Monroe. Lafayette began his tour of the Southern United States in March 1825, arriving at the Fort Mitchell crossing of the Chattahoochee River on March 31.[1]
[edit] Detailed timeline
(incomplete)
[edit] 1824
- July 13 — Lafayette leaves France.
- August 15 — Lafayette arrives at Staten Island, New York.
- August 20 — Leaves New York [6]
- August 20 — Arrives in New Rochelle, NY. [6]
- August 21-24 - Travels through and makes stops in New Haven, CT, Providence, RI, and Boston, MA.[6]
- August 25 — Arrives in Cambridge, MA. [6]
- August 31 — Leaves Boston, travels through and made stops at Lexington, Concord, Salem, Marblehead, and Newburyport, MA. [6]
- September 1 — Visits Portsmouth, NH. [6]
- September 2 — Visits Boston, MA, and Lexington, MA. [6]
- September 3 — Visits Worcester, MA, and Tolland, CT [6]
- September 4 — Visits Hartford, and CT, Middletown, CT. [6]
- September 5 — Arrives in New York, NY [6]
- September 11 — Celebrates the 47th anniversary of the Battle of Brandywine with French residents in New York[7]
- October 6 — Lafayette escorted to Wilmington, Delaware by the Grand Lodge of Delaware Masons.[8]
- October 12 — Lafayette arrives in the District of Columbia.[9]
- October 15 — Spends the entire evening at Arlington House, although he returned to his hotel in Washington D.C. at night.[9]
- October 17 — Lafayette visits Mount Vernon and George Washington's tomb (in Virginia).
- October 18-19 - Lafayette arrives by steamer in Petersburg, VA for visit to Yorktown for festivities marking the 43rd anniversary of the battle.
- October 19-22 - Lafayette visits Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary.
- October 22 — Lafayette arrives in Norfolk, Virginia via steamer from Petersburg and spends four days there and in Portsmouth[10][11][12]
- October — Arrives in Richmond on a steamer from Norfolk.[13] Edgar Allen Poe was in the youth honor guard in Richmond, who welcomed him when he arrived.
- November 4 — Lafayette visits former President Thomas Jefferson at Monticello
- November 8 — Lafayette attended a public banquet at the University of Virginia in nearby Charlottesville[14]
- Early December — Lafayette stays in Washington, D.C. visiting the White House, meeting several times with President James Monroe, as well as George Washington's relatives. Visits the Navy Yard, and Columbian College (now Gallaudet University). On Dec. 8 and 9 he makes official visits to the Senate and addresses the U.S. Congress at the House of Representatives.[7]
- December 15 — Lafayette was feted at the first commencement ceremony of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.[15]
[edit] 1825
- March 2–3 — Raleigh, North Carolina: Lafayette was reunited with Colonel William Polk who had fought beside him at the Battle of Brandywine where both had been wounded.[16]
- March 19 — Lafayette arrives in Savannah, Georgia.
- May 4 — Lafayette arrives in Nashville, Tennessee.
- May 11–13 — Lafayette stays in Louisville, Kentucky.
- May 14 — Attends dinner and a ball in Frankfort, Kentucky.
- May 15 — Spent the night at the home of Major John Keene, five miles from Lexington, Kentucky.
- May 16–17 — Attends a military parade and speaks at Transylvania University and the Lexington Female Academy in Lexington, Kentucky[17]
- May 18 — Arrives in Georgetown, Kentucky.
- May 19–20 — Stays in Cincinnati, Ohio.
- May 21 — Arrives in Maysville, Kentucky.
- June 4 — Lafayette gives speech at Eagle Tavern, Lafayette Square, Buffalo.
- June 7 — Lafayette meets local Revolutionary War veterans at Silvius Hoard's Tavern, Rochester, NY.
- June 20 — Lafayette visits Germantown and Chestnut Hill, near Philadelphia.[6]
- June 26 — Lafayette departs Chester, Pennsylvania for the Brandywine Battlefield ending the day in West Chester.[6]
- June 27 — Departs from West Chester, Pennsylvania for Lancaster.
- Late June — Departs from Lancaster for Baltimore, Maryland, via Port Deposit, Pennsylvania and Harve de Grace, Maryland. Spends two days in Baltimore.[6]
- July 25 — Lafayette again visits Wilmington, Delaware[8]
- Late August — Lafayette returns to Mount Vernon.[18]
- September 6 — Lafayette arrives in Washington, D.C., where he meets the new U.S. President John Quincy Adams, addresses a joint session of Congress and celebrates his 68th birthday at a White House banquet with President Adams.[7]
- September 7 — Lafayette leaves Washington D.C. and returns to France on the frigate USS Brandywine.[3]
[edit] Honors received during the trip
Fayetteville, North Carolina was named after him. The College of William and Mary on October 20, 1824, conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. Late in the trip, he again received honorary citizenship of Maryland.[19] He was voted, by the U.S. Congress, the sum of $200,000 and a township of land located in Tallahassee, Florida to be known as the Lafayette Land Grant.[20][21]
[edit] 1825: Conveying Marquis de Lafayette back to France
The Marquis had expressed his intention of sailing for home sometime in the late summer or early autumn of 1825. President John Quincy Adams decided to have an American warship carry the Marquis de Lafayette back to Europe. Adams chose a recently built 44-gun frigate (originally named Susquehanna) for this honor, and accordingly, as a gesture of the nation’s affection for Lafayette, the frigate was renamed Brandywine to commemorate the battle in which the Frenchman had shed his blood for American freedom. Launched on June 16, 1825, and christened by Sailing Master Marmaduke Dove, Brandywine was commissioned on August 25, 1825, Capt. Charles Morris in command.
Lafayette enjoyed a last state dinner to celebrate his 68th birthday on the evening of September 6, and then embarked in the steamboat Mount Vernon on the 7th for the trip downriver to join Brandywine. On the 8th, the frigate stood out of the Potomac River and sailed down Chesapeake Bay toward the open ocean.
After a stormy three weeks at sea, the warship arrived off Le Havre, France, early in October; and, following some initial trepidation about the government’s attitude toward Lafayette’s return to a France now ruled by the ultra reactionary King Charles X, Brandywine's honored passenger returned home.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c www.encyclopediaofalabama
- ^ Glatthaar, Joseph T.; James Kirby Martin (2007). Forgotten Allies, The Oneida Indians and the American Revolution. Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 9780809046003. http://books.google.com/books?id=J777rlgcm9sC&dq=marquis+de+lafayette&lr=&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0., p.3
- ^ a b Clary, David (2007). Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship that Saved the Revolution, he was given a grant of $200,000 because of his well nobability. New York, New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 9780553804355. http://books.google.com/books?id=cgGgAAAACAAJ&dq=adopted+son&ei=cd-dSLuoGo3wjAHH76T6BA. pp. 443-444
- ^ Loveland, Anne (1971). Emblem of Liberty: The Image of Lafayette in the American Mind. LSU Press. ISBN 0807124621. http://books.google.com/books?id=r5uqsO1KQ5YC&dq=lafayette%27s+death&lr=&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0., p. 3
- ^ www.post-gazette.com
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Levasseur, Auguste tr Alan R. Hoffman Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825, Lafayette Press, Manchester NH, 2006
- ^ a b c William Jones, November 2007, Rekindling the Spark of Liberty: Lafayette's Visit to the United States, 1824-1825, accessed September 13, 2011.
- ^ a b www.phoenixmasonry.org
- ^ a b www.nps.gov
- ^ www.cbp.gov
- ^ pps.k12.va.us
- ^ historyengine.richmond.edu
- ^ richmondthenandnow.com
- ^ "''Marquis de Lafayette'', Th. Jefferson Encyclopedia, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc". Wiki.monticello.org. 2008-10-15. http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Marquis_de_Lafayette. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ encyclopedia.gwu.edu
- ^ Murray, Elizabeth Reid (1983). Wake [Capital County of North Carolina]. Vol. 1. Raleigh, North Carolina: Capital County Publishing Company. pp. Pages 222–226. ASIN B000M0ZYF4.
- ^ Kleber, John E., The Kentucky Encyclopedia, University Press of Kentucky, 1992, pp. 528-529
- ^ Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens. "Washington & Lafayette". Washington & Lafayette. http://www.mountvernon.org/visit/plan/index.cfm/pid/349/. Retrieved 12 August 2008.
- ^ Lafayette was already a "natural born" American citizen via his pre-Constitution Maryland citizenship.
- ^ "Historic Markers Program of America". Historicmarkers.com. http://www.historicmarkers.com/component/content/article/2773-leon/59282. Retrieved 2009-08-09.
- ^ Holbrook, Sabra (1977). Lafayette, Man in the Middle. Atheneum. ISBN 0689305850. http://books.google.com/books?id=UXdKAAAACAAJ&dq=lafayette+man+in+the+middle&ei=UQeeSIGQHqaijgGGp4SaBQ., p. 177
[edit] Sources
- Levasseur, Auguste (1829). Lafayette in America, in 1824 and 1825: or, Journal of travels, in the United States, Volume I. Philadelphia: White, Gallaher & White. http://books.google.com/books?id=WhGc5a5srvYC.
- Levasseur, Auguste (1829). Lafayette in America, in 1824 and 1825: or, Journal of travels, in the United States, Volume II. Philadelphia: White, Gallaher & White. http://books.google.com/books?id=pPRIZqUYmoEC.
[edit] External links
- www.nndb.com
- www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
- His tour is the subject of an essay presented by writer Sarah Vowell in "Reunited", episode #291 of radio show This American Life.
