Revolutionary War Naval Breakthrough, John Millar

[A fine article authored by our member, John Millar, concerning Benedict Arnold, Virginia, and the Continental Navy. Enjoy!]

   Benedict Arnold established the fresh-water Continental Navy on Lake Champlain at the end of April 1775, only ten days after the events at Concord and Lexington. Most of the various states established their own navies, Rhode Island being the first on 12 June 1775. The salt-water Continental Navy was founded as a result of Rhode Island’s intercession with Congress on 13 October 1775. Virginia, arguably the wealthiest of all the original states, established her own navy close to Christmas 1775.

   Virginia may have been the wealthiest state, but most of that value was in real estate, which was very difficult to tax. As a result, the vessels of the Virginia Navy at first were small – schooners about 50 feet long on deck with only swivel-guns. Finally, in 1780, Governor Thomas Jefferson was able to finance the construction of a naval force that looked quite formidable, at least on paper. Four frigates of 20 to 24 carriage guns (essentially, the same size as the British frigate Rose that had plagued Rhode Island 1774-6, or the ancient Fowey that had served as the British flagship in Virginia at that same time). These four Virginia frigates each measured about 100 to 105 feet long on deck, 30 feet in breadth, and needed about 13 feet of water to float. Each could set about 30,000 square feet of sail with 10 square sails plus 10 fore-and-aft sails. These four ships sported classical Greek names (as one might expect from Jefferson): Thetis, Poseidon, Nereus, and Artemis, of which only Thetis was able to get under sail.

   The four frigates were backed up by 18-gun corvettes, about 90 feet long on deck, Apollo and American Fabius, to which was added the corvette Cormorant captured from the British. Still less expensive were five 16-gun corvettes, about 75 feet long on deck, Renown, Tartar, Tempest, Gloucester, and Morningstar.  A few additional smaller ships, rigged as 14-gun brigs, were added to the mix. Tidewater Virginia is riven by a number of substantial rivers on which these ships could be constructed in part-time shipyards: the James, the Chickahominy, the York, the Rappahannock, and the Potomac.

   Jefferson had been able to come by enough money to construct and fit out these warships, but crewing them was a different matter. Each of the frigates was expected to have a crew of 150 men, and the corvettes appropriately smaller numbers, but Jefferson was unable to recruit more than 150 men in total to be spread between all the ships, by the time that General Benedict Arnold arrived in Virginia in January 1781 with almost 2000 British troops. Arnold, who carefully picked Portsmouth as his base, across the Elizabeth River from Norfolk (which the Patriots had burned to the ground on New Year’s Eve 1775-6 so that the British would not be able to use it as a base), had been issued clear orders. He was not to bother any peaceable Virginians, but if he encountered warlike supplies, he was to destroy them, and then he was to capture the Virginia House of Burgesses without harming anyone (the idea being that the captured legislators could then be talked into signing a generous peace treaty with the British). The House of Burgesses was meeting in a tobacco warehouse in the tiny village of Richmond when Arnold made two unsuccessful attempts to capture the legislators there in January and May 1781, and he made a third almost successful attempt in June with the help of 300 cavalry under Colonel Banastre Tarleton, after the House of Burgesses had hurriedly moved 60 miles west to Charlottesville.

   Of course, Arnold could not ignore all the newly-constructed Virginia warships. Some of the ships (including three of the frigates) had not yet been launched at their shipyard on the Chickahominy River, so Arnold made quick work of burning them in place. Most of the rest of the ships, with their greatly under-strength crews, were drawn up at anchor across the James River with their guns loaded and run out. Arnold sent detachments of troops with field-guns to the bluffs at each end of the line of ships, and they systematically destroyed or captured almost the entire fleet.

   In Richmond, Arnold destroyed a wealth of naval stores, including some freshly-harvested hemp for making cordage, and there is anecdotal evidence of resulting wild hemp plants growing out of cracks in the sidewalks of the Shockoe Bottom district of Richmond well into the twentieth century!

   The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City owns a folk-art painting of a frigate the size of Thetis, #63-201-3, which used to be called The Plantation. According to Met Curator Ashley Williams, their staff believes the painting to have been executed in the 1820s. However, evidence in the ship herself suggests strongly that it was painted early in the 1780s. First, the ship lacks a ‘dolphin-striker’ below the bowsprit, invented in 1792, and almost all images of ships after 1792 contain that spar. Second, the stars-and-stripes ensign is flown from an [outrageously tall] ensign staff, whereas from the mid-1780s on, the ensign was flown from the gaff. Third, the color of the ship’s hull is mostly buff or yellow-ocher, as it would have been in the 1780s, not mostly black as it would have been in the 1820s.

   Is it possible to identify the ship depicted? Assuming a date from the early 1780s, it may be possible. First of all, the ensign flown by the ship is the Stars-and-Stripes, a flag that was limited by law to ships of the Continental Navy or the various state navies. Privateers and merchant ships were required to use a flag of thirteen red and white stripes, with no stars, although some ship owners and captains may have been indifferent to or unaware of those rules. At this stage of its life, The Continental Navy lacked the money to acquire such ships, so this ship is not in the Continental Navy. Of the state navies, those in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina had ships of this size, but the painting shows the frigate under way close to shore. Virginia, with its powerful rivers, was the only state where a ship could sail that close to a river bank.

   Ms. Williams remarked that the substantial building behind the frigate looks Germanic, and that may indeed be a clue to the identity of the painting. German-born and educated Revolutionary War scholar Dr Robert A Selig came across a remarkable document in Germany. It was the journal account in German of the career of Private Georg Daniel Flohr (1756-1826) in the Royal Deux-Ponts or Zweibrucken German-speaking French regiment that was brought to America in 1780 by General Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau. Flohr illustrated his journal with folk-art paintings, many of them showing towns that he visited, including Boston, Providence, Newport, Philadelphia, Annapolis, Yorktown, and Williamsburg. Dr Selig published many of Flohr’s illustrations in the October 1994 issue of American Heritage Magazine (vol. 45, #6). Flohr made notes about the buildings shown in each town, so that he generally got the sizes and numbers of windows correct, but he waited until he had returned to Europe before finishing the paintings. Of course, the only buildings that he could see in the German section of France were German buildings, so his paintings of American towns were populated with Germanic buildings, even if they had the correct numbers of windows.

   Many commentators over the years have remarked that the Met’s painting represents Turkey Island Plantation House, which had been built in the late 1760s for the prestigious Randolph family on the east bank of the James River a short distance upriver from the well-known Shirley Plantation. Turkey Island had been destroyed in the American Civil War in the 1860s, but it is described in insurance documents and travel diaries. Its foundations have also been investigated, and, allowing for the folk artist’s exuberance, the painting matches the foundation. The house was crowned, we are told, by a particularly large cupola that was popularly known as ‘the bird-cage,’ and in fact the painting shows the cupola as looking like a giant period bird cage.

   Flohr was based at Williamsburg for about a year, so it would have been simple for him to have sailed up the James River and seen Turkey Island Plantation House. The frigate Thetis, however, is another matter, because she was no longer in the James River after Arnold’s raid on the ships. The only thing I can think of is that some local artist painted the ship while she was sailing in the James, and donated his little work to Flohr when he saw Flohr making such detailed notes about the buildings and vegetation of Virginia; Flohr then painted his copy of the portrait of the ship into the painting of the plantation house.

   As for Flohr, he returned home to his German-speaking district of France when his regiment was no longer needed (and you can imagine that he was not permitted to serve even another day after he arrived home, because the French government was found to be insolvent). The insolvency led to the King’s arrest and imprisonment. Flohr was in Paris and witnessed the guillotining of Louis XVI on 21 January 1793. The incident turned his stomach, so he packed his bags and moved back to Virginia. There, he managed to be ordained as a German-Lutheran pastor. He was assigned to St John’s Lutheran Church, Wytheville, Virginia, where many of the parishioners were German-speaking, and where he spent the rest of his life.

   Thomas Jefferson wanted the world to know that he had written the national Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and that he had founded the University of Virginia in 1819, and those three things are the only achievements inscribed on his gravestone. His having served as Governor of Virginia, Ambassador to France, Secretary of State, President of the United States, and purchaser of Louisiana were not mentioned. If this paper’s supposition about the ship in the Met’s painting being the frigate Thetis is true, this is the only surviving period image of any ship of the Virginia Navy in the entire Revolution, those ships being, in spite of their sad fate, yet another feather in Jefferson’s cap. While several period images have survived of ships in the Continental Navy, very few images survive of ships of state navies (New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, and now Virginia, are all that come to mind). A handful of period images of privateers are also known.

Meeting Notes: March 18, 2026

The March meeting, of the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond, was held on March 18, 2026, in the Heilman Dining Center, at the University of Richmond.

The evening’s presentation “The Illinois Campaign, Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes 1778-1779” was made by Glenn F. Williams. Glenn is a retired Army officer who recently retired from federal civilian service as a Senior Historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, DC. He has also served as Historian of the American Battlefield Protection Program of the National Park Service, Curator / Historian of the USS Constellation Museum, and Assistant Curator of the Baltimore Civil War Museum – President Street Station. Beyond his publications for Center for Military History, he is the author of several books, including Year of the Hangman: George Washington’s Campaign Against the Iroquois (Westholme 2005), recipient of the Thomas J. Fleming Award for the Outstanding Revolutionary War Book of 2005, and named one of “The 100 Best American Revolution Books of All Time” by the Journal of the American Revolution in the spring 2017 issue. For his book, Dunmore’s War: The Last Conflict of America’s Colonial Era (Westholme 2017), Glenn was recognized for contributions to the study of 18th Century American military history with the Shelby Cullom Davis Award of the Ohio Society of Colonial Wars and the Judge Robert K. Woltz Award of the French and Indian War Foundation. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Maryland, College Park.

The British were initiating the southern strategy to regain control of the rebellious Southern Colonies by appealing to the relatively strong Loyalist sentiment there. George Germain, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, wrote to General Sir Henry Clinton that capturing the Southern Colonies was "considered by the King as an object of great importance in the scale of the war." Germain's instructions to Clinton, framed as recommendations, were that he should abandon Philadelphia and then embark upon operations to recover Georgia and the Carolinas. At the beginning of winter 1778-1779, Washington was at the Middlebrook Cantonment for the winter and Knox was at Pluckemin Continental Artillery Cantonment Site. British occupied Fort Detroit which served as a staging area for attacks on frontier settlements by British regulars, Butler's Rangers and Britain's Indigenous allies

Shortly after the Revolutionary War began, Kentucky County, Virginia (which then encompassed the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky, bounded on the west by the Ohio River) was being organized as part of Virginia, with George Rogers Clark as head of its local militia. Clark’s mission was to secure the forts in Virginia and Kentucky County, Virginia; secure Illinois County, Virginia; and, attack Fort Detroit.

Clark asked Virginia Governor Patrick Henry for permission to lead a secret expedition to capture the nearest British posts located in the Illinois country. This area had been ceded to the British as a consequence of the French defeat in the French and Indian War and became part of the British Province of Quebec. George Rogers Clark led, in what is named, the Illinois Campaign against the British. Illinois Country east of the Mississippi River along with what was then much of Ohio Country became part of Illinois County, Virginia, when claimed by right of conquest. Virginia Governor Patrick Henry commissioned Clark, a lieutenant colonel, and authorized him to raise troops for an expedition to seize the British outposts of Kaskaskia and Cahokia on the Mississippi River.  The Illinois Campaign began in July 1778, when Clark and about 175 men crossed the Ohio River at Fort Massac and marched to Kaskaskia (on the western side of the Mississippi River) taking it on the night of July 4. Cahokia was taken two days later (near Saint Louis), and Vincennes (on the Wabash River 180 miles east of Kaskaskia) was occupied by the end of the month and was renamed Fort Sackville. Several other villages and forts in British territory were subsequently captured without firing a shot, because most of the French-speaking and American Indian inhabitants were unwilling to take up arms on behalf of the British.

To counter Clark's advance, Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Quebec, set out from Detroit on October 7 with 125 militia and 60 Lakes' Nation warriors. They were later joined by a 34-man detachment from the 8th Regiment. Hamilton surprised Fort Sackville's small garrison and retook Vincennes on December 17. He decided to winter at Vincennes with the British regulars, while most of the militia, volunteers, and Lakes' Nations warriors returned to Detroit.

In February 1779, Clark’s force set out on an unusual winter expedition in frigid and wet conditions on an eighteen-day trek from Kaskaskia. Clark returned to the Vincennes settlement (in the Illinois Country). Clark’s force retook the town, forced Hamilton's unconditional surrender of Fort Sackville, and captured Hamilton in the process. The winter expedition was Clark's most significant military achievement as it secured the western frontier from attacks and served as a temporary deterrent to British and native incursions into Kentucky, and the U.S. acquiring the Northwest Territory that included Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (an area nearly as large as the original 13 states).

Hamilton was taken to Williamsburg, Virginia, was falsely accused of paying for scalps and was treated as a criminal rather than a prisoner of war. The Virginia Council, headed by Thomas Jefferson, ordered Hamilton placed in irons and confined to the Williamsburg jail until October, 1780, when he was paroled and was exchanged in the spring of 1781.

 

 

Routes to Vincennes by Henry Hamilton and George Rogers Clark

NPS Image

Following Clark's victory, the Virginia General Assembly gave official status to the region northwest of the Ohio River and named it Illinois County. Illinois County, Virginia, was formed in 1778 to govern Virginia's claims to present-day Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Illinois County was abolished 5 January 1782 and the territory ceded by Virginia to the Congress of the Confederation in March 1784. Three years later, Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, creating the Northwest Territory.

George Rogers Clark was subsequently promoted to brigadier general in command of all the militia in the Kentucky and Illinois counties. His older brother William Clark, was co-leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition that explored the Louisiana Purchase with Meriwether Lewis and who was subsequently made brigadier general of the Louisiana militia.

--Fred Sorrell, Secretary

Next Meeting: May 27, 2026

"The Battles of Spencer's Ordinary and Green Spring, 1781," John Maass

John is an educational staff member of the new National Museum of the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir, VA, who received his B.A. degree in History from Washington & Lee University. Receiving his PhD in Early American History at Ohio State University, John is the author of several books and numerous articles on early US military history, including North Carolina and the French and Indian War: The Spreading Flames of War; Defending a New Nation, 1783-1811; The Road to Yorktown: Jefferson, Lafayette and the British Invasion of Virginia; George Washington's Virginia; and The Battle of Guilford Courthouse: A Most Desperate Engagement. John's latest book is "From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points of the Revolutionary War." He also served as an officer in the US Army Reserve.

This will be a regular, in-person meeting, beginning with dinner at 5:30 in the Heilman Dining Center at the University of Richmond.  The meeting begins at 6:30. 

Meeting Notes: January 21, 2026

The January 21, 2026, meeting was a Zoom meeting. Members of the University of Richmond’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute also participated. Over 150 participants logged in for Woody’s talk.

The evening’s presentation was made by Woody Holton, Ph.D. who is the McCausland Professor of History at the University of South Carolina and author of Abigail Adams [New York: Free Press, 2009], a biography of the wife of John Adams. John was a key figure in the formation of the United States and second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. The book was awarded the Bancroft Prize which is one of the most prestigious awards in the field of American history writing.

Abigail and John's marriage is well documented through their correspondence and Abigail’s letters to others. Woody’s presentation centered on Abigail’s life as a strong-willed person responsible for family and farm. John’s legal career was on hold while he attended to the interests of independence which required him to be absent from his home for long periods and at great distances.

Abigail helped financially support her family in the context of the times:

--By necessity Abigail became the family’s financial manager.

--By will she became the closest political advisor to John. She took an active role in politics and policy. Some referred to her as "Mrs. President". At times Abigail planted favorable stories about her husband in the press.

·    --Abigail was a risk taker. John was not.

·    --Abigail became creative in her money management. At the time of her passing, she had become involved in profitable investments which she managed while at home and while traveling with John to France and England.

·    --Abigail was a supporter of the revolution by financially enabling John’s political travels.

·    --Abilgail was a smuggler. When Abigail learned of friends in Europe who were returning to America, she would ask them to purchase goods, pack them as their own goods, and pay them for their troubles, extracting a few of the items for her family’s needs.

·     --She became a merchant buying household necessities and luxury items from British manufacturers, using bills of exchange, and selling the goods to local shopkeepers eliminating British middlemen. While the importation was illegal, she learned if one shipment in three escaped seizure the venture was profitable.

·    --Abigail was creative. John advised Abigail to invest in farmland. However, Abigail decided to ignore her husband's advice and instead invested in U.S. government bonds, which brought her far greater returns. Her investments in severely depreciated debt instruments issued to finance the Revolutionary War were well redeemed after Alexander Hamilton's First Report on the Public Credit [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Report_on_the_Public_Credit] endorsed full federal payment at face value to holders of both Continental and state government securities. Was this an example of insider trading considering John’s role in the ultimate repayment arrangement? Estimates say Abigail was able to realize rates of return of over 20%.

·    --Abigail was a land speculator. Because coverture laws [https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Coverture] prohibited married women from owning or managing property, she had a trusted friend make land purchases in John’s name and using four straw men to secure parcels for each of her four children. She recognized that land at a greater distance from their Massachusetts home presented a better investment opportunity than ones close by which John preferred to buy. She purchased five 330-acre parcels in Vermont going against John’s instructions. When John learned of her purchase he objected but did not stop it.

·    --Abigail was a progressive person. Abigail owned no property so her will was not a legal document, but she wrote one anyway and John respected it and followed her wishes. His compliance with the provisions of his wife’s will transformed it into a legally valid document. In recognizing that current laws were not favorable towards females, she bequeathed the bulk of her estate to her granddaughters, nieces, daughters-in-law and female servants, in order to enable them to make the same claim on property.

·    --Abigail persistently advocated for gender equality.

Abigail died in 1818, predeceasing John by eight years. Abigail's financial acumen provided for the Adams family's wealth through the end of John's life, and he died debt free due to the will of his wife Abigail.

Fred Sorrell

Secretary

 

Next Meeting: March 18, 2026

 George Rogers Clark and the Illinois Campaign of 1778-1779 

We welcome back Dr. Glenn Williams, a retired Senior Historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, DC, where his previous positions included Historian of the National Museum of the U.S. Army Project and Historian of the Army Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration. He has also served as Historian of the American Battlefield Protection Program of the National Park Service, Curator/ Historian of the USS Constellation Museum, and Assistant Curator of the Baltimore Civil War Museum - President Street Station. Glenn, who received his PhD in History from the University of Maryland, College Park, is the author of several books, including Year of the Hangman: George Washington's Campaign Against the Iroquois and Dunmore's War: The Last Conflict of America's Colonial Era and the essay "Let It Begin Here" (the Battles of Lexington and Concord) in Ten Critical Campaigns of the American Revolution. He is also one of the featured speakers for the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route Trail Association.

The regular March meeting is in-person, beginning with dinner at 5:30 in the Heilman Dining Center.   The meeting begins at 6:30. 

2025 Harry M. Ward Book Prize Winner

John Dickinson finally has a comprehensive and readable biography, thanks to Dr. Jane E. Calvert. Her book, Penman of the Founding: A Biography of John Dickinson, was selected by the ARRT of Richmond’s Book Prize Committee for the 2025 Harry M. Ward Book Prize. Her research and in-depth knowledge of Dickinson explains why it’s not a paradox that the author of the influential Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania could abstain from voting for independence, how a man with many Quaker beliefs could endorse military action, or how Dickinson and John Adams shared many convictions but became adversaries. Most significantly, the book documents the overlooked influence of Dickinson’s writings and actions upon all aspects of the revolution and America’s transformation from colonies to nation.

Meeting Notes: November 19, 2025

The November meeting of the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond was held on November 19, 2025, in the Gottwald Science Center, at the University of Richmond.

The evening’s presentation was made by Elizabeth Reese, author of Marquis de Lafayette Returns: A Tour of America's National Capital Region published by The History Press (imprint of Arcadia Publishing) in 2024.

Elizabeth is the Senior Manager of Public Programs and Interpretation at Woodlawn plantation and Pope-Leighey House and is completing her Master of Arts in American History from Gettysburg College. She has worked at Hamilton Grange National Memorial and the United States Capitol. She serves as the co-chair for the American Friends of Lafayette Bicentennial Committee for Washington, D.C. Her work has been published in “TIME,” the “Journal of the American Revolution,” the “New York Times,” and can be seen on C-SPAN.

Her presentation was entitled “The Marquis de Lafayette Returns: The Farwell Tour of 1824-1825.” In her presentation, Elizabeth traced Lafayette’s farewell route throughout the United States, highlighting the locations and people the famous General held in high regard.

The Marquis de Lafayette’s “return to America” refers to his celebrated 1824–1825 farewell tour of the United States, when he came back as an elderly hero to visit the nation he had helped win independence. During this thirteen‑month visit, he traveled thousands of miles through nearly every state, drawing huge crowds and being honored as “the Nation’s Guest.”

At age 19, Lafayette defied French orders and family wishes, bought his own ship, and sailed to America in 1777 to volunteer for the Continental Army. Congress made him a major general despite his youth. He quickly bonded with George Washington. As Washington had no biological children, and Lafayette had lost his own father in battle as a child, these circumstances led into a relationship as between a child and parent. Lafayette openly referred to Washington as a father figure and later named his son George Washington Lafayette.

Washington used Lafayette as both a field commander and trusted aide, beginning with his wounding and steady leadership at the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777. After the war he returned to France, where he was deeply involved in the French Revolution and later political struggles, enduring imprisonment, and periods of exile.

Lafayette played a crucial military and diplomatic role in the American Revolution, serving both as a combat commander in the Continental Army and as a vital link to French political and military support. His efforts on the battlefield and in European courts helped secure the French aid that was essential to eventual American victory. Lafayette took part in several major campaigns, including Brandywine, the winter at Valley Forge, Barren Hill, and Monmouth, gaining a reputation for courage and resilience. Between tours of duty, Lafayette returned to France in 1779 and worked with figures like Benjamin Franklin to press King Louis XVI’s ministers for troops, ships, and money for the American cause. His lobbying helped bring the major French expeditionary force under Rochambeau and a powerful fleet, turning the war into a true Franco‑American alliance that shifted the balance against Britain. By 1781, he commanded Continental forces in Virginia, where he shadowed and harassed Lord Cornwallis’s army, helping contain the British until Washington and allied forces could converge on Yorktown. ​ In the Yorktown campaign, Lafayette’s troops helped pin Cornwallis on the Yorktown peninsula and held key ground until Washington and Rochambeau completed the encirclement. The combined Franco‑American siege led to Cornwallis’s surrender in October 1781, and the decisive blow that effectively ended large‑scale fighting and secured American independence.

​In 1824, President James Monroe and Congress invited Lafayette to visit the United States on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Revolution, seeing him as the last major general of the Continental Army still alive. He sailed from France in July 1824 and landed near New York City in mid‑August to salutes, parades, and immense public enthusiasm. ​ Lafayette’s tour lasted from August 1824 to September 1825 and covered roughly 6,000 miles across 24 states. He traveled by stagecoach, horseback, steamboat, and canal boat, visiting major cities such as New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, and the young capital of Washington, D.C. ​ Lafayette made a point of visiting Mount Vernon and Washington’s tomb, turning these stops into powerful patriotic rituals. He visited the Mount Vernon estate several times during the tour, paying respects at Washington’s tomb. Walking the grounds as the celebrated “Nation’s Guest,” Lafayette helped transform Mount Vernon into a national shrine to Washington’s memory.

Everywhere he went Lafayette was greeted with processions, military salutes, and reviews, dinners, balls, speeches, having his portrait painted, and monuments created. Towns, streets, and counties were named or renamed for him. Americans saw him as a living link to George Washington and the Revolution, and his presence helped revive patriotic feelings and interest in preserving Revolutionary sites and memories. ​ While visiting Boston, Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument. He met with surviving Founders, such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, reinforcing his status as a symbol of shared Franco‑American ideals of liberty. In September 1825, he departed from the United States aboard the frigate Brandywine, leaving behind a landscape dotted with places bearing his name and a powerful memory of national gratitude.

Lafayette embraced Enlightenment ideas of liberty and later pushed both antislavery measures and broader human‑rights principles, seeing the American struggle as part of a wider fight for freedom. Because he combined military service in America with revolutionary leadership in France, later generations celebrated him as the “Hero of Two Worlds” and a symbol of Franco‑American friendship.

He died on May 20, 1834. He is buried in Picpus Cemetery in Paris, under soil taken from Bunker Hill, in Charlestown, Boston for his grave.

--Fred Sorrell