6 Unsung Heroes of the American Revolution

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette

Contents:

6 Foreign-Born Heroes of the American Revolution

2. Casimir Pulaski

After an investigation, a Congressional commission recommended in early that two regiments of the Continental Army be stationed in the West. Once Adrienne was released from prison in France, she, with the help of U. Furthermore, Colonel Daniel Brodhead refused to detach the men because he was staging his own expedition against the Delawares, who had recently entered the war against the Americans. He followed its martial tradition and was commissioned an officer at age The single largest contingent came from Hesse-Kassel , hence the term "Hessians".

He was at Yorktown on 19 October for the anniversary of Cornwallis's surrender, then journeyed to Monticello to meet with his old friend Jefferson—and Jefferson's successor James Madison , who arrived unexpectedly. He had also dined with year-old John Adams at his home near Boston, who was the other living former president. With the roads becoming impassable, Lafayette stayed in Washington City for the winter of —25, and thus was there for the climax of the hotly contested election in which no presidential candidate was able to secure a majority of the Electoral College , throwing the decision to the House of Representatives.

In March , Lafayette began to tour the southern and western states. There would be special events, visits to battlefields and historic sites, celebratory dinners, and time set aside for the public to meet the legendary hero of the Revolution. He was traveling up the Ohio River by steamboat when the vessel sank beneath him, and he was put in a lifeboat by his son and secretary, then taken to the Kentucky shore and rescued by another steamboat that was going in the other direction. Its captain insisted on turning around, however, and taking Lafayette to Louisville, Kentucky.

From there, he went generally northeast, viewing Niagara Falls and taking the Erie Canal to Albany, considered a modern marvel. He also took some soil from Bunker Hill to be sprinkled on his grave. He met again with John Adams, then went back to New York and then to Brooklyn , where he laid the cornerstone for its public library. He celebrated his 68th birthday on 6 September at a reception with President John Quincy Adams at the White House, and departed the next day.

As king, Charles intended to restore the absolute rule of the monarch, and his decrees had already prompted protest by the time Lafayette arrived. In the elections of , the year-old Lafayette was elected to the Chamber of Deputies again. Unhappy at the outcome, Charles dissolved the Chamber, and ordered a new election: Lafayette again won his seat.

Lafayette remained outspoken against Charles' restrictions on civil liberties and the newly introduced censorship of the press. He made fiery speeches in the Chamber, denouncing the new decrees and advocating American-style representative government. He hosted dinners at La Grange, for Americans, Frenchmen, and others; all came to hear his speeches on politics, freedom, rights, and liberty. He was popular enough that Charles felt he could not be safely arrested, but Charles' spies were thorough: On 25 July , the king signed the Ordinances of Saint-Cloud , removing the franchise from the middle class and dissolving the Chamber of Deputies.

The decrees were published the following day. When Lafayette, who was at La Grange, heard what was going on, he raced into the city, and was acclaimed as a leader of the revolution. When his fellow deputies were indecisive, Lafayette went to the barricades, and soon the royalist troops were routed. Fearful that the excesses of the revolution were about to be repeated, deputies made Lafayette head of a restored National Guard, and charged him with keeping order. The Chamber was willing to proclaim him as ruler, but he refused a grant of power he deemed unconstitutional.

He also refused to deal with Charles, who abdicated on 2 August. Many young revolutionaries sought a republic, but Lafayette felt this would lead to civil war, and chose to offer the throne to the duc d'Orleans, Louis-Philippe , who had lived in America and had far more of a common touch than did Charles. Lafayette secured the agreement of Louis-Philippe, who accepted the throne, to various reforms. The general remained as commander of the National Guard. This did not last long—the brief concord at the king's accession soon faded, and the conservative majority in the Chamber voted to abolish Lafayette's National Guard post on 24 December Lafayette went back into retirement, expressing his willingness to do so.

Lafayette grew increasingly disillusioned with Louis-Phillippe, who backtracked on reforms and denied his promises to make them.

2. Nathanael Greene

The retired general angrily broke with his king, a breach which widened when the government used force to suppress a strike in Lyon. The following year, he served as a pallbearer and spoke at the funeral of General Jean Maximilien Lamarque , another opponent of Louis-Phillippe. He pleaded for calm, but there were riots in the streets and a barricade was erected at the Place de la Bastille. The king forcefully crushed this June Rebellion , to Lafayette's outrage. Lafayette spoke publicly for the last time in the Chamber of Deputies on 3 January The next month, he collapsed at a funeral from pneumonia.

He recovered, but the following May was wet, and he became bedridden after being caught in a thunderstorm. He was buried next to his wife at the Picpus Cemetery under soil from Bunker Hill, which his son Georges Washington sprinkled upon him.

In the United States, President Jackson ordered that Lafayette receive the same memorial honors that had been bestowed on Washington at his death in December Both Houses of Congress were draped in black bunting for 30 days, and members wore mourning badges. Congress urged Americans to follow similar mourning practices. Later that year, former president John Quincy Adams gave a eulogy of Lafayette that lasted three hours, calling him "high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind". Lafayette was a firm believer in a constitutional monarchy.

He believed that traditional and revolutionary ideals could be melded together by having a democratic National Assembly work with a monarch, as France always had. His close relationships to American Founding Fathers such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson gave him the ability to witness the implementation of a democratic system.

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His views on potential government structures for France were directly influenced by the American form of government, which was in turn influenced by the British form of government. For example, Lafayette believed in a bicameral legislature, as the United States had. The Jacobins, however, detested the idea of a monarchy in France, which led the National Assembly to vote against it. This idea contributed to his fall from favor, especially when Maximilien Robespierre took power. Lafayette was the author of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in and a staunch opponent of slavery.

He proposed that slaves not be owned but rather work as free tenants on the land of plantation owners, and he bought a plantation in the French colony of Cayenne in to put his ideas into practice, ordering that no slaves be bought or sold. Lafayette hoped that his ideas would be adopted by Washington in order to free the slaves in the United States and spread from there, and his efforts were not in vain, as Washington eventually began implementing those practices on his own plantation in Mount Vernon—though he freed no slaves in his lifetime.

Throughout his life, Lafayette was an exponent of the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment , especially on human rights and civic nationalism. Despite the fact that he spent most of his political career in opposition, his views were taken very seriously by intellectuals and others on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, Lafayette's image, from the time of the American Revolution, derived from his "disinterestedness" in fighting, without pay, for the freedom of a country not his own. This was reinforced by his position as surrogate son and disciple of George Washington, who was deemed the Father of His Country and the embodiment of the American experiment.

6 Foreign-Born Heroes of the American Revolution

Lafayette became an American icon in part because he was not associated with any particular region of the country: Thus, he was a unifying figure. Americans were naturally sympathetic to a republican cause, but also remembered Louis XVI as a friend of the nascent United States. When Lafayette fell from power in , Americans tended to blame factionalism for the ouster of a man who was, in their eyes, above such things.

In , Lafayette returned to the United States at a time when Americans were questioning the success of the republican experiment in view of the disastrous economic Panic of and the sectional conflict resulting in the Missouri Compromise. Historian Gilbert Chinard wrote in This occurred at some cost to Lafayette's image in America: Loveland, "Lafayette no longer served as a national hero-symbol. Lafayette's reputation in France is more problematic.

Thomas Gaines, in his book about Lafayette, noted that the response to Lafayette's death was far more muted in France than in America, and suggested that this may have been because Lafayette was the last surviving hero of America's only revolution, whereas the evolution of the French government has been far more chaotic. To the 19th-century historian Jules Michelet , Lafayette was a "mediocre idol", lifted by the mob far beyond what his talents deserved.

The Marquis de Lafayette was far from perfect. He was sometimes vain, naive, immature, and egocentric. But he consistently stuck to his ideals, even when doing so endangered his life and fortune. Those ideals proved to be the founding principles of two of the world's most enduring nations, the United States and France. That is a legacy that few military leaders, politicians, or statesmen can match.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Marquis de Lafayette Lafayette as a lieutenant general, in Adrienne de Noailles m. Battle of Brandywine and Valley Forge. Yorktown campaign and Siege of Yorktown. Assembly of Notables and Estates-General of Visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to the United States. Honors and memorials to the Marquis de Lafayette. Gottschalk says that Lafayette spelled his name both Lafayette and La Fayette. Other historians differ on the spelling of Lafayette's name: Lafayette, La Fayette, and LaFayette.

Contemporaries often used "La Fayette", similar to his ancestor, the novelist Madame de La Fayette ; however, his immediate family wrote Lafayette. Lafayette Between the American and the French Revolution — University of Chicago Press. Citizen of Two Worlds". Retrieved 29 September The Life of the Marquise de La Fayette , p.

The history of the French revolution.

Retrieved May 5, George Washington's Mount Vernon. Journal of Modern History. The New York Times. Adams, William Howard The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson. An Officer in the Late Army A Complete History of the Marquis de Lafayette: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship that Saved the Revolution. Cloquet, Jules; Isaiah Townsend Recollections of the Private Life of General Lafayette. Crawford, Mary MacDermot Madame de Lafayette and Her Family.

Crowdy, Terry; Patrice Courcelle French Revolutionary Infantry — Oxford history of the French Revolution 3rd ed. Essays, Historical, and Literary: Scenes and characters in American History. For Liberty and Glory: Washington, La Fayette, and Their Revolutions. Statue in Search of a Pedestal: Lafayette Comes to America. Between the American and the French Revolution — Greene, Francis Vinton University of Missouri Press.

Lafayette, Man in the Middle. Slavery and the Debate of the Constitution. Lafayette in Two Worlds. The University of North Carolina Press. Memoirs of Gilbert Motier La Fayette. The Apostle of Liberty: A Life of Lafayette.

America's 2nd War of Independence

General and Madame de Lafayette Kindle ed. Lessons in Leadership From the Idealist General. The Image of Lafayette in the American Mind. Adrienne, the Life of the Marquise de La Fayette. Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette. The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris. A Concise History of the French Revolution. Palmer, Dave Richard George Washington and Benedict Arnold: A Tale of Two Patriots. French Hero of the American Revolution.

The Rosen Publishing Group. University of South Carolina Press. The History of the French Revolution. Life of General Lafayette: Unger, Harlow Giles Holt, Rhinehart, and Winston. Significant civil and political events by year. Brant's victory ended Clark's efforts to move against Detroit. Although non-combatants, the missionaries favored the American cause and kept American officials at Fort Pitt informed about hostile British and Indian activity.

In March , Pennsylvania militiamen under Lieutenant Colonel David Williamson rode into the Ohio Country, hoping to find the Indian warriors who were responsible for ongoing raids against Pennsylvania settlers. Accusing the Christian Indians of having aided Indian raiding parties, the Pennsylvanians killed the Christian Indians—mostly women and children—with hammer blows to the head.

1. Henry Knox

Colonel William Crawford of the Continental Army came out of retirement to lead volunteer militiamen , mostly from Pennsylvania , deep into American Indian territory, with the intention of surprising the Indians. The Indians and their British allies from Detroit had learned about the expedition in advance, however, and brought about men to the Sandusky to oppose the Americans. After a day of indecisive fighting, the Americans found themselves surrounded and attempted to retreat.

The retreat turned into a rout, but most of the Americans managed to find their way back to Pennsylvania. About 70 Americans were killed; Indian and British losses were minimal. During the retreat, Colonel Crawford and an unknown number of his men were captured. Crawford's execution was particularly brutal: The failure of the Crawford expedition caused alarm along the American frontier, as many Americans feared that the Indians would be emboldened by their victory and launch a new series of raids.

In Kentucky, the Americans went on the defensive while Caldwell, Elliott, and McKee with their Indian allies prepared a major offensive. Fort Estill was attacked by Wyandot Indians in March Colonel Benjamin Logan , commanding officer of the region, and stationed at Logan's Station, learned that the Wyandot warriors were in the area on warpath. Logan dispatched 15 men to Captain Estill at Estill's Station with orders to increase his force by 25 more men and reconnoiter the country to the north and east. On the day after they left Estill's Station, a body of Indians appeared there at dawn on March 20, they raided the fort, scalped and killed a Miss Innes in sight of the fortification and took Monk, a slave of Captain Estill, and killed all the cattle.

As soon as the Indians retreated, Samuel South and Peter Hackett , both young men, were dispatched to take the trail of the men and inform them of the news. They returned with the boys to Estill's Station. The remainder crossed the Kentucky river and found the Indian trail. Captain Estill organized a company of 25 men, followed the Indians, and suffered what is known as Estill's Defeat, later known as the Battle of Little Mountain March 22, in Montgomery Co.

In July , more than 1, Indians gathered at Wapatomica, but the expedition was called off after scouts reported that George Rogers Clark was preparing to invade the Ohio Country from Kentucky. The reports turned out to be false, but Caldwell still managed to lead Indians into Kentucky and deliver a devastating blow at the Battle of Blue Licks in August. With peace negotiations between the United States and Great Britain making progress, Caldwell was ordered to cease further operations. In November, George Rogers Clark delivered the final blow in the Ohio Country, destroying several Shawnee towns, but inflicting little damage on the inhabitants.

For the Shawnees, the war was a loss: News of the pending peace treaty arrived late in In the final treaty, the Ohio Country was signed away by Great Britain to the United States, even though "not a single American soldier was north of the Ohio River when the treaty was signed". From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. American Revolutionary War Campaigns and theaters.

Ohio in the American Revolution , 5. McClellan's name is sometimes spelled McClelland. Grenier argues that "The slaughter the Indians and rangers perpetrated was unprecedented. May 26, Archived February 23, , at the Wayback Machine. The History of Kentucky. Courier-Journal Job Printing Company, p. American Revolutionary War portal. During the early stages of the revolution, the Continental Army had a reputation for being disorganized, undisciplined and poorly drilled.

That started to change in early , when the extravagantly named Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin, the Baron von Steuben, arrived to assist the patriots. The Baron was a former Prussian military officer who had once served on the staff of Frederick the Great. Though prone to exaggeration—he wore flashy uniforms and styled himself a lieutenant general even though he had never risen above the rank of captain—he also possessed a keen military mind.

Portrait of Casimir Pulaski. Polish-born Casimir Pulaski spent his brief life fighting as a revolutionary on two separate continents. After being exiled from his homeland in the early s, he made his way to France and came into contact with Benjamin Franklin, who recruited him to the cause of American independence. Despite not speaking a lick of English, Pulaski was later made a brigadier general in the Continental cavalry. Just a few months later, Pulaski was mortally wounded by grapeshot while leading a cavalry attack during the Siege of Savannah.

In , the year-old French aristocrat Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, left behind a sizable personal fortune and a pregnant wife and set off in search of military glory with the Continental Army.