Thousands of French soldiers and sailors fought and died in the American Revolution, so why is Lafayette the first French name on every American tongue? His high rank and great wealth certainly had something to do with it: Lafayette was living, breathing evidence that the old European order had faith in a young country on the other side of the Atlantic. More important, though, might have been his earnest enthusiasm for the American cause and his unflagging determination to contribute to its success.
It all started on June 13, 1777, when the 19-year-old Lafayette reached North Island, South Carolina with some 20 officers and servants on a ship he had optimistically christened the Victoire—Victory. Lafayette had never seen a day of battlefield action and knew no English before he set sail, but he came filled with a burning desire to help 13 American colonies wrest their freedom from Great Britain, France’s age-old enemy.
Explaining his actions in a shipboard letter to the wife he had left in Paris, Lafayette described himself as a “defender of this freedom which I venerate” and insisted that “the happiness of America is closely tied to that of humanity.” More practical motivations had also influenced his thinking. Hailing from a line of men who fought and died for their country, Lafayette had dreamed of martial glory since childhood. But the French army quashed his hopes in 1776 when a wave of reforms removed from active duty hundreds of young officers who, like Lafayette, had risen through the ranks thanks to money and connections. Fighting under George Washington in the Continental Army represented a second chance.
Lafayette had been granted the rank of Major General by Silas Deane, one of Congress’s envoys to France, and expected to be awarded a command upon his arrival. But Congress and Washington hesitated; surely the rank was meant to be honorary. They had grown wary of the French officers who had been sailing across the Atlantic to join the American army. Although many were fine soldiers, some were mercenaries or troublemakers who had been driven from the French army. Others expressed open disdain for the American military.
On July 27, 1777, the same day that Lafayette and his shipmates reached Philadelphia, Washington wrote a letter from Morristown, New Jersey complaining of the influx of Frenchmen: “Almost every one of them,” he wrote, harbored “immoderate expectations” and became “importunate for offices they have no right to look for.” Massachusetts Congressman James Lovell was even more pointed in his criticism, explaining to Lafayette’s group that Deane had recruited no useful men in France, but only “some so-called engineers … and some useless artillerymen.”