Fighter For Liberty

Defying a royal command against joining the American cause, Lafayette arrived at Georgetown, South Carolina, in June, 1777, on a ship he had bought for that voyage. Baron de Kalb was with him. Silas Deane, American agent in Paris, had given contracts to both for appointments as major generals in the Continental Army. Lafayette was then only 19. Congress was reluctant to honor his contract, but did so as part of a policy of fostering French support and because Lafayette wanted no pay.

General George Washington was puzzled at first as to how to use Lafayette, who wished to command American troops but spoke few words of English and had little military experience. In September, 1777, he proved his courage and ability in battle, at Brandywine, when he dashed into the thick of hand-to-hand fighting, helped to check the British advance, and was wounded. In November, he led a scouting detachment that got the better of a superior enemy force at Gloucester, New Jersey. During the winter of 1777–78, Lafayette was an aide to Washington at Valley Forge. Picked to command an expedition against Canada, he showed skill as a planner, but the campaign was canceled. In May, 1778, he led 2,000 Americans out of a trap that the British, with 8,000 soldiers, had set near Philadelphia.

After France entered the war as an ally of the United States, Lafayette returned home in 1779. He helped persuade his country to send troops, as well as naval units, to America. Lafayette hoped to command the troops, but the Comte de Rochambeau, an older officer, was given the assignment. Lafayette then rejoined the American army. He was a member of the court-martial that condemned to death Major John André, the British spy involved in Benedict Arnold's treason.

Washington sent Lafayette to Virginia to strengthen resistance to British forces there. Lafayette helped prepare for the siege of Yorktown in 1781. After Cornwallis, the British general defending Yorktown, was forced to surrender, Lafayette returned to France, a hero who symbolized the principles of the American Revolution. He visited the United States in 1784.