For the first time in nearly 200 years the
Marquis de Lafayette returned to the City of Richmond, and reminisced before an
audience about his early life in France and some of his military campaigns
during the American Revolution.
Historical interpreter Charles Wessinger,
dressed in a Continental Army major general uniform and speaking throughout the
program in a French accent, portrayed the Marquis de Lafayette at the January
15, 2014 meeting of the American Revolution Roundtable of Richmond. Wessinger has
worked on stage, film and commercials in portrayals of characters from the
American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War and World War II. He began
his Lafayette program with a brief review of Lafayette’s ancestry.
Lafayette was born in the south central part of
France on September 6, 1757. He came from a long line of military ancestors, in
fact one of the longest lines in France. When Lafayette was only two years old,
his father was killed at the Battle of Minden while serving as a colonel in the
French grenadiers. “My father was blown out of his boots by a British
cannonball,” said Lafayette/Wessinger.
Lafayette’s mother died when he was age 12,
leaving him a huge estate which included eight mansions, several French
businesses and a very large amount of money. At the age of 14 he became a page
to the king and queen of France, and joined the royal musketeers.
“Perhaps you have heard of the Three Musketeers,
“ asked Lafayette/Wessinger to his roundtable audience. “I belonged to the
king’s black musketeers, which got its name from the black horses which the
regiment rode. There was also a gray musketeers regiment which rode gray
horses.”
By the age of 16 Lafayette had risen to the rank
of lieutenant and married his wife who was only 14 years old. During his
military service in the mid 1770s Lafayette became familiar with many of the
disputes between Great Britain and her American colonies. He sympathized with
the Americans, and at a Paris dinner he met Silas Deane and Benjamin
Franklin---two of the Americans serving as commissioners in France on behalf of
the Continental Congress. They encouraged him to support the American
Revolution, and Deane promised Lafayette a commission with the rank of major
general if he would join the American army.
Lafayette accepted Deane’s offer and made
arrangements to sail to America at his own expense. He bought a ship which he
re-named La Victoire
and hired his own crew to sail him and a few friends across the Atlantic Ocean.
“We landed at Georgetown, South Carolina,” said
Lafayette/Wessinger. “The Americans shot at my ship because they thought we
were British but finally we were able to take a small boat to shore, walk a few
miles and then convince the Americans that we were French and trying to help
them.”
When Lafayette told his new American friends
that he needed to report to the Continental Congress, the South Carolinians
told him that he needed to go to Philadelphia. “I said where is this
Philadelphia, let’s go. I had no idea that it would take over 30 days to get
there,” laughed Lafayette/Wessinger.
Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, Lafayette and
his travelling companions received a less than hospitable reception from
members of the Continental Congress. Unknown to Lafayette was the fact that
Silas Deane had promised many other Frenchmen the rank of major general in the
American army if they sailed to America. Most of these Frenchmen were bakers,
blacksmiths and other artisans who had little or no military experience.
"At first when I tried to claim my commission as
a major general, they laughed at me and told me I was but a child,” said
Lafayette/Wessinger. “Finally I was able to show them a letter written by
Benjamin Franklin which introduced me, and mentioned some of my experience in
military college and the musketeers, as well as my family background.”
Congressional leaders apologized to Lafayette
for the less than hospitable greeting but told him the government didn’t have
any money to pay him a major general’s salary. After Lafayette volunteered to
pay his own way Congress told him they couldn’t use him because they didn’t
have any regiments for him to command, however they welcomed him to serve on
General George Washington’s staff. Although Lafayette strongly wanted a field
commission, he accepted the position as a staff officer to Washington. At the
age of only 19, Lafayette was the youngest general in the American army.
“It was 1777,” said Lafayette/Wessinger. “As I
went around the American camp with General Washington, I saw the best of his
army and the worst of his army. I spent my own money toward buying uniforms and
ammunition for the army but I must say it was extremely difficult since most of
my money was in France, and my relatives wouldn’t send it.”
Lafayette’s relatives were angry with him for
the abrupt and clandestine manner in which he left France and sailed to
America. Prior to departing he had been afraid to tell any relatives, including
his wife, about his travel plans for fear that they would try to stop him. In
addition to his family, King Louis XVI and other French government officials
were opposed to his trip.
The Battle of Brandywine Creek was Lafayette’s
first combat in America. During the early stages of the battle he served behind
the front lines as a staff officer but when the British turned the American
right flank, Washington agreed to send Lafayette into the fight. Lafayette
helped to rally the outflanked and outnumbered American troops into an orderly
retreat.
At some point during the battle Lafayette was
wounded in the left leg. He first noticed the wound when blood started coming
out of his left boot but he ignored the wound until he had finished rallying
his retreating troops. When Washington learned that Lafayette had been wounded
and was in the field hospital, he sent his personal surgeon to Lafayette’s aid
with the instructions to “treat him as if you were treating my adopted son.”
Lafayette recovered from his leg wound and later
rejoined Washington’s army during the early stages of the 1777-78 winter at
Valley Forge. When America’s newly created Board of War offered Lafayette the
opportunity to transfer to Albany in order to prepare a new army for an
invasion of Canada, Lafayette accepted. He didn’t know that the real purpose
for the Board of War’s offer was to separate him from Washington. In what
became known as the Conway Cabal, several American generals and congressmen
tried to replace Washington as the overall American commander with General
Horatio Gates, and used the Board of War (headed by Gates) to move Lafayette
away from Washington because Lafayette was one of Washington’s most loyal and
influential subordinates.
Shortly after arriving in Albany, Lafayette saw
where his assigned troops were too few in number and in no condition to make a
winter invasion of Canada since they had no winter clothing. He also learned
the truth behind the Conway Cabal and immediately supported Washington in
correspondence to Congress. The plot to overthrow Washington failed, and Lafayette
returned to Washington’s army at Valley Forge when the Canada invasion was
canceled.
The alliance between America and France was
officially announced to the world in March 1778, which in effect served as
France’s declaration of war on Great Britain. In February 1779 Lafayette was
granted a furlough in order to return to France and encourage the French
government to send a large army and more ships to fight in America. Lafayette
advised King Louis XVI to allow French generals and admirals to serve under
Washington’s overall command. General Rochambeau, the French general who would
command the French troops going to America, agreed with Lafayette on the need
for Washington to serve as overall commander. However, the French navy was not
placed under Washington’s authority.
“Generals and admirals don’t work well together,
said Lafayette/Wessinger. “Admirals don’t like talking to generals so it was
agreed that only French generals and not French admirals would serve under
General Washington. Our admirals were encouraged to listen to American
suggestions and to work with the Americans when they could, but weren’t
required to do so.”
When Lafayette returned to America in April 1780
he brought a ship full of supplies and ammunition, as well as the good news to
Washington about France’s plans to send an army and more ships to America in a
few months. Shortly after Rochambeau arrived at Newport, RI in July, Washington
sent Lafayette to Rochambeau’s headquarters to discuss strategy. “I didn’t get
along very well with General Rochambeau,” said Lafayette/Wessinger. “He wasn’t
use to someone being a major general who was so much younger than he was.”
Rochambeau was 55 years old, more than twice Lafayette’s age.
In September 1780 Lafayette was with Washington
on the trip to West Point when Benedict Arnold, the American commander at West
Point, turned traitor. After Arnold resurfaced in January 1781 as a British
general leading a British raid on Richmond, Washington sent Lafayette south
that spring with 1,200 troops to stop Arnold and to “bring him to the gallows”,
if Lafayette captured Arnold.
The British sent their own army to support
Arnold under the command of William Phillips. Although the British outnumbered
his army over two to one, Lafayette managed to contain the British forces and
to keep Phillips and Arnold out of Richmond in May 1781. Later that month
Phillips died from typhus and Charles Cornwallis arrived in the area with part
of his army that had fought in the Carolinas.
Cornwallis received orders to take all of the
British troops in Central Virginia to the east coast and establish a supply
base where his army could receive provisions and combat support from the
British navy. As Cornwallis’ army marched eastward, Lafayette’s much smaller
army shadowed him. At times Lafayette’s troops would take advantage of
skirmishing with the British. “We learned from the Indians how to fire and
move, fire and move,” said Lafayette/Wessinger.
After Cornwallis selected Yorktown as his supply
base Lafayette’s troops camped outside Yorktown, and waited for Washington and
Rochambeau to bring their much larger armies to entrap Cornwallis. On September
5, 1781 the French navy defeated the British navy at the mouth of the
Chesapeake Bay, which basically shut off Cornwallis’ supply lines to the
outside world. On September 28 Washington and Rochambeau arrived with their
armies, and the Siege of Yorktown was underway. The combined American/French
armies outnumbered the British more than two to one.
Under the realigned American army Lafayette was
given command of one of Washington’s three divisions. On October 14 a regiment
in Lafayette’s division, which was led by Alexander Hamilton, charged into
Redoubt #10 after dark and captured the key British position with a minimal loss
of life. In a separate attack a French regiment captured the adjacent Redoubt
#9. With the loss of the two key redoubts the British came under point blank
bombardment, and surrendered five days later.
Just a few weeks after Cornwallis’ surrender at
Yorktown, Lafayette set sail for France where upon his return he was treated as
a national hero. Wessinger concluded his presentation with Lafayette’s return
and then took questions from the audience on a variety of topics, ranging from
the American Revolution to the French Revolution, plus Lafayette’s 1824-25 tour
of 24 American states.
In addition to portraying Lafayette, Wessinger’s
other portrayals include James Madison, Francis Scott Key and the British spy
John Andre.
--Bill Seward
