Lafayette in the Somewhat United States

The next day, a council of war drafted a letter to d’Estaing stating that his actions would shame France and that his withdrawal could damage the Franco-American alliance. Lafayette refused to sign the letter and supported d’Estaing.

American sentiment for the French soured after Newport. In Boston, a mob of locals fought with two French officers, killing one—Saint-Sauveur—during an argument. To placate d’Estaing after the killing, the people of Boston promise to build a monument in Saint-Sauveur’s honor, which was completed near the outbreak of World War I. The contrition that Boston showed after the killing helped assuage the suddenly tenuous relationship with France.

In January 1779, Lafayette visited France and stayed for a year. He began planning an attack on the British homeland, but it never amounted to anything more than talk. Lafayette and Adrienne conceived another child while he was visiting, a boy that they would name Georges Washington Lafayette. Vergennes sent Lafayette back to America to fight on March 5, 1780.

Charleston fell to the British shortly after Lafayette’s return, and the British took more than five thousand men as prisoners of war. Washington sent Lafayette to visit Rochambeau about a possible, cooperative attack on New York. Rochambeau did not have enough troops, and the attack was postponed indefinitely as the arrival of French reinforcements kept getting delayed.

In October 1780, Washington knew that unless he could secure peace or receive reinforcements soon, he would lose the war. The Americans were too poor and had too few men. Franklin wrote to Vergennes, asking for 25 million livres. Vergennes agreed to pay six million, which allowed Washington to purchase more supplies.

Washington ordered Lafayette to take a division of infantrymen to Virginia to capture the traitor Benedict Arnold. Arnold was giving American secrets to the British, who in turn made him a brigadier general. British naval forces were able to turn the Americans away, and Lafayette returned to Washington to receive new orders. He next went to Virginia to bolster Greene’s forces.

In the present, Vowell visits Colonial Williamsburg, where she watches an irritated George Washington impersonator shout: “Virginia owes Lafayette a great debt, as he’s been defending you for months” (218). She then sees a mob of reenactors complain about the lack of supplies suffered by the Continental Army in Virginia of 1781.

The book reverts to the 18th-century narrative. In May, British General Cornwallis returned to New York. Washington assigned Lafayette to use his men to harass Cornwallis’s troops but avoid full-scale engagements. Lafayette’s four thousand troops followed Cornwallis’s divisions everywhere they went, initiating small skirmishes, then retreating, forcing them to stay on guard. As he was hunkered down at Yorktown, Cornwallis promised that he would capture Lafayette. Lafayette and his men encircled the town as the British soldiers fortified its defenses.

On his way to the Chesapeake, Washington stopped at Mount Vernon, the home he had not seen in six years. Washington’s homesickness was part of what gave him the strength to go on. He wanted the war to end so he could return to his domestic life. But memories of home also contributed to his melancholy.

On September 5, a British fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Thomas Graves arrived in the Chesapeake to help Cornwallis. Frenchman Admiral de Grasse had to leave the bay and head to open sea to fight the enemy and avoid being trapped. Of the Battle of the Chesapeake, some historians would eventually say:

[It was] the most important altercation of the American Revolution, a take that’s all the more astonishing since not a single American took part in it. Nor did a single American even witness it once de Grasse’s ships followed Graves over the horizon (234).

On September 9, after the two fleets fought to a stalemate, an additional French fleet commanded by Admiral de Barras arrived.

In the modern narrative, a historian tells Vowell that the naval aspect of the Revolutionary War is underappreciated. In Colonial Williamsburg, she sees gratitude for the pivotal role of the French everywhere. She speaks with Mark Schneider, an actor who plays Lafayette in a reenactment. He tells her a story about an older man who claimed to have hated the French before hearing Schneider’s presentation as the proud, America-loving Lafayette. But afterwards, the man said, “I no longer feel that way about the French. Thank you for telling me the truth and the facts about this” (239).

Vowell asks what it was like to play Lafayette around 2003, when French fries in Congressional cafeterias were renamed Freedom Fries as a petty response to France’s refusal to back American sanctions against Iraq. The incident was a large part of why Vowell grew interested in Lafayette. Shortly afterwards in 2003, she was in the Berkshire Mountains attending a wedding. She visited Arrowhead, the house where Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick. She saw a small silk dress displayed in a glass case. Melville’s wife, Elizabeth, had worn the dress as a two-year old in 1824. Her mother had taken her to see Lafayette on his farewell tour and saved the dress. After the visit, Vowell began researching Lafayette’s 1824 tour in earnest.

Schneider tells her that portraying Lafayette in 2003 was difficult because visitors to Colonial Williamsburg did not want to hear about France’s important role in the war. They wanted to malign the French. Schneider views his role as telling the true story of the American revolution, including all who sacrificed for it.

Vowell considers one of the greatest benefits of the French and American alliance to be that they could test ideas out on each other. Given their differing backgrounds, and the gap between the military experience of the French and American soldiers and officers, their viewpoints and instincts were often at odds. This generated debates that led to more productive, innovative, and collaborative decisions.

Back in the past, Washington’s army surrounded Yorktown and began the long siege, culminating in a relentless barrage of cannon fire that would lead to Cornwallis’s surrender. The day after the surrender, Washington urged the troops to commemorate their victory by attending church services and maintaining a sense of sober gratitude. The 1783 Treaty of Paris proclaimed, “His Britannic Majesty acknowledges that the said United States…to be free sovereign and independent states” (255). The war had finally ended.

At the Yorktown battlefield in the present, Vowell listens to Ranger Williams talk about the importance of Independence Day. She thinks about why Americans celebrate Independence Day rather than Yorktown Day. She believes it is because Americans prefer that the story of the Revolutionary War is a story of American victory, not of American reliance on the French.

Lafayette remained a supporter of America after returning to France, although he despised the institution of slavery and acknowledged that America had its faults.

Vowell lists a multitude of cities, parks, monuments, and other landmarks dedicated to, or named after, Lafayette. Lafayette Square, which is across from the White House, is the most significant in her estimation. It is “the nation’s capital of protests, the place where we the people gather together to yell at our presidents” (263).

She concludes the book with a story about the suffragist Evelyn Wotherspoon Wainwright of the National Woman’s Party. On September 16, 1918, she gave a speech in Lafayette Square and prayed to a statue of Lafayette. She asked Lafayette for help in persuading Woodrow and the rest of the country that women should have the right to vote. In the book’s final line, Wainwright says, “Lafayette, we are here!” (267).