A Lafayette Lesson

To the Editor:

By the time the Declaration of Independence was posted 250 years ago, rag-tag patriot colonists had bloodied the British troops during an entrenched battle at Bunker/Breed’s hills on June 17, 1775, in Charlestown, MA. Without the Continental Army, authorized days before, over 1,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded. The year-old Continental Congress began to weigh independence versus reconciliation. The Continental Association, passed on October 20, 1774, expressed collective patriotic will and purpose. Reconciliation was possible, but rebels desperately sought advantage, including allies.

A member of the Continental Congress,SilasDeanesigned the Continental Association but not the Declaration of Independence, because as of March 2, 1776, he was a secret envoy to the French government commissioned to seek financial aid and men for war. His effort had to be discrete. It was treason and could be interpreted as a French declaration of war. Deane met the Marquis de Lafayette in Paris, who was introduced by Baron Johann de Kalb; he died after being wounded at the Battle of Camden, SC in 1780. On December 7, 1776, Lafayette agreed to join the Continental Army as a major general. Influenced by the Enlightenment, he believed the Patriots’ cause was noble—natural rights and human dignity of common people.

Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, was born on September 6, 1757, to a distinguished military family in rural France, nobles of the sword. He married into one of France’s richest families in 1774, as the Continental Congress was struggling to justify its right to independence. The British had killed his father in combat when Lafayette was two years old. Because of his lineage, Lafayette was commissioned an officer at age 13. In 1775, while engaged in his unit’s training in Metz, France, he met some of Silas Deane’s contacts, Charles François de Broglie, Marquis of Ruffec, Army of the East’s commander, and, among others, the Duke of Gloucester, King George’s brother, Prince William. Lafayette became convinced the colonists’ war was noble before he learned of the Declaration of Independence.

We rightfully question whether the French joined our cause because of hatred of Britain or high ideals. For Lafayette, it was both. The Marquis’ early life prepared him to believe in the rights of common people. After his father was killed in battle and his mother moved to Paris to be with her family, Lafayette was cared for by his maternal grandmother and by loving common people, peasants, in a rural setting where he experienced sheltered independence. His childhood days were filled with adventure and fantasy. He was morally drawn to America as a common people’s war, even though he was a marquis and Lord of Chavaniac. Lacking the social graces and skills needed to fit into noble France, he sought adventure in the name of individual liberty. He could have spent his life in Versailles, rather than, for instance, the winter of 1777-1778 in Valley Forge, where he lived in the bitter cold with common soldiers whom he helped feed, clothe, warm and arm with his personal funds.

Imbued with the Enlightenment’s commitment to natural rights, individual liberty, and hatred of oppression, he used his fortune and risked his personal safety in battle for the cause of colonial liberty. He fought bravely in several battles and was wounded. He never asked of his troops what he himself would not do. He learned from Washington the limited science of war and endeared himself to Washington and other ranking colonials, as well as common people.

He was a titled contact to ranking French military personnel, diplomats and others in the confidence of Louis XVI and his advisors. He returned to France during the war to solicit funds, personnel, and strategic military support.

In 1781, his troops blocked Lord Cornwallis’s efforts to maneuver. That gave American and French forces the opportunity to position themselves for victory during the siege of Yorktown.

This selfless hero was dedicated to the self-determination of “we the people.” How should his modest bust in our county courthouse be decorated on July 4, 2026?