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John Adams
Silas Deane was a Connecticut politician who wound up serving as an American ambassador to France for much of the war. Deane often promised fancy jobs and titles to Frenchmen, angering his American colleagues; he was even implicated in some efforts to unseat Washington as Commander in Chief. Most of all, though, Vowell uses Deane—who left his new wife with his son from a previous marriage—to show how willing Patriot fighters were to abandon their families in the name of war.
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Silas Deane Character Timeline in Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
The timeline below shows where the character Silas Deane appears in Lafayette in the Somewhat United States. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Pages 1-59
While Lafayette was planning to abandon his family in France, Silas Deane , a politician in Connecticut, was set on doing the same thing to his wife...
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With Beaumarchais’s help, Vergennes created a plan to secretly send aid to the Americans, through Silas Deane . Even as the French began to stockpile weapons, however, the British were faster. Thousands...
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Pages 60-125
...of these military men wanted to unseat George Washington as Commander in Chief and pressured Silas Deane to allow them to do so. Lafayette also went through Deane—but unlike some of his...
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...dismissed him; the Patriot politicians were sick of fancy Frenchmen (many of them sent by Silas Deane ) coming over and demanding a high-ranking office. As Washington put it, “these men have...
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Pages 126-190
...Conway was a Frenchman who had wound up in America because of his relationship with Silas Deane . In a moment where Washington was particularly unpopular, Conway wrote to Congress asking to...
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