Lafayette in the Somewhat United States: Pages 60-125 Summary & Analysis

Meanwhile, Beaumarchais went undercover to stockpile more guns and ships—only to reveal his true identity when he saw a group of actors putting on a subpar production of his play, The Barber of Seville. The British complained to the French about this playwright-spy, and Beaumarchais had to stand down. However, by the time the British found out what was going on, Beaumarchais had already sent most of his supplies across the Atlantic.

In other good news, Washington had just had his first success of the war. In December of 1776, the general led Patriot troops across the Delaware River in New Jersey to launch a sneak attack on the Hessians (Germans who were under temporary hire as British soldiers). Though Washington’s victory had little tactical effect, it cheered the rebellious colonists and prompted the French to offer up even more of their resources.

The French sent guns, but they also sent high-ranking officials and engineers (including Pierre L’Enfant, who would later plan the city of Washington, D.C.). Some 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 older, more titled counterparts, Lafayette had nothing but respect for the American generals he planned to serve.   

When Noailles learned of his son-in-law Lafayette’s plans, he forbade Lafayette and his young friends from crossing the Atlantic. To appease Noailles, Lafayette—stubborn as ever—pretended to drop the idea of joining the war. He even took a quick trip to England, where he talked about revolution with important British officials like General Henry Clinton (the man who would later be put in charge of the whole Redcoat operation). But on his way back from England, rather than returning to his wife’s home, Lafayette instead snuck onto the Victory, a ship he had purchased for the express purpose of going to America.

Lafayette’s secret exit horrified Noailles and upset Adrienne, his now very pregnant wife. For his part, Lafayette’s guilt about leaving his wife did cause him to return to France—but only briefly. All it took was one royal aide encouraging Lafayette to head to America, and he was off again, going to Spain and then across the Atlantic. Vowell surmises that Lafayette’s antics can be attributed to the fact that as a teenager, his prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that assesses risk) had yet to be fully formed.

Lafayette had endless faith in the new American republic: he saw the nation as a “sure refuge of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, of equality.” Vowell points out that he was overly optimistic, as U.S. history (from the brutal treatment of indigenous peoples to the Chinese Exclusion Act) is defined by intolerance and a lack of equality. At the same time, despite his naivete and his desire for glory, Lafayette’s promise that he was “coming as a friend” would prove true for the next 40 years. And while Lafayette was a hero on the battlefield, he also performed a host of “dull grown-up kindness” (like arranging trade agreements) later on.

After a long, nauseating voyage, Lafayette at last arrived in Charleston, South Carolina on June 13, 1777. Though the city was hot and filled with mosquitoes, Lafayette thought it was the most wonderful place he had ever been. He was particularly taken with the sense that in America, “all citizens were brothers.”

Lafayette and his associates then began the long, difficult journey north toward Pennsylvania (all of which Lafayette paid for). Though many of his comrades complained of the physical hardship, Lafayette’s letters to Adrienne were filled only with praise for the “vast forests and immense rivers” he encountered. He also, again, celebrated the sense of equality he felt with all those around him—though Vowell points out that “only a white guy” could feel that way. 

After a 32-day trek to Pennsylvania, Lafayette hoped that the Continental Congress would rejoice at his arrival. Instead, they 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 no attachments or ties to the country.”

One particularly egregious case of this was when Phillipe Du Courdray, a high-status Frenchman, tried to unseat the American Henry Knox. Knox was a Boston bookseller whose business was gravely affected by the Intolerable Acts (a steep 1774 British tax). When the British moved to attack Boston in March of 1776, Knox was able to sneak away to Fort Ticonderoga in New York, where many of the Patriots’ weapons were held. Knox then smuggled the weapons thousands of miles—overnight—up to Boston, allowing the Americans to fend off the encroaching Redcoats. The idea that such a man as Knox could be replaced by a French stranger was therefore ridiculous.

Still, Congress was hesitant about annoying the French but ignoring Du Courdray (who claimed that he was much closer to Louis XVI than he actually was). Eventually, the entire debacle was sorted out, but it made Congress skeptical about rewarding Lafayette with a fancy title. It was only when Lafayette promised to serve “at his own expense” and “as a volunteer” that the Patriots agreed to let him join. From his first moments in the U.S., Vowell comments, Lafayette seemed to have “vomited up his adolescent petulance,” emerging as a more thoughtful and mature man than he had been on the European side of the Atlantic.

After speaking with Congress, Lafayette met with Washington and found himself instantly amazed by the famed general. The two men became fast friends, especially once Washington asked Lafayette to “consider himself at all times as one of his family.” For the orphaned teenager, this kind of father figure was exactly what he had been looking for.

Lafayette hoped that eventually he would stop being a volunteer and gain an actual title, which made for some awkwardness with Washington. But the awkwardness was overcome when once Lafayette saw how outmatched the Patriots were; many of them had only torn hunting shirts instead of proper uniforms, for example. Yet rather than critique Washington’s work, Lafayette embraced this raggedness as yet another example of a kind of uniquely American “virtue.”

Besides, while there was lots of internal conflict on the colonists’ side, the British were far from unified in their fight against the Patriots. Most crucially, British Commander in Chief William Howe had a plan to attack the Patriots at Albany from all sides, but Parliament refused to give him the troops he needed to accomplish this goal. Howe decided to change course and attack Philadelphia, but the officials in London never comprehended this plan, either, leading to a lot of tactical confusion on the British side.

Meanwhile, Washington was coming to terms with his troops’ inherent weakness. (“Are these the men with which I am to defend America?” he once famously asked.) Stressed and overworked, Washington decided to embrace what is known as the Fabian strategy, in which one army continually retreats, hoping to outlast an opponent and therefore eventually defeat them. When Washington realized that Howe was planning to attack Philadelphia, he decided to apply this strategy and let the new nation’s capital be slowly taken by the British.

In 2013, Vowell revisits the Brandywine countryside, the part of Pennsylvania in which Washington fought a brutal battle with General Howe. Vowell is surprised to find that the once-famous site now is occupied by a combination Pizza Hut-Taco Bell. Additionally, the Battle of Brandywine was fought in the winter, and Vowell is visiting in the spring. It is hard for her to process that centuries ago, these lush fields were the site of such violence. Plus, Vowell has to contend with Nick, the very grumpy tour guide she’s hired.

Though the Battle of Brandywine is famous mostly for the mistakes that both Washington and Howe made, Vowell is en route to a surprisingly festive celebration of this fateful battle. Vowell is amused that contemporary Pennsylvanians are able to celebrate a battle that was far from victorious for the Americans. The Patriots lost here, largely because the lush hills around Brandywine allowed the British Redcoats to conceal their identities—and launch a sneak attack.

Vowell takes a break in the Brandywine River Museum, where she sneaks a glance at painter Andrew Wyeth’s depictions of the region. Even aided by maps and GPS technology, Vowell has struggled to find her way through Brandywine, and she can only imagine Washington had an even harder time. Vowell wonders if the British ambush at Brandywine reminded Washington of his brutal loss at Long Island, giving him the worst kind of déjà vu.

But Lafayette, always hungry for glory and ready for blood, nevertheless begged Washington to allow him to join the fray. The Patriots’ Fabian strategy was supposed to be an orderly retreat, but instead, the soldiers were fleeing at random, leading to deadly confusion. As more and more Americans deserted, Lafayette started using his body to block the exits from the battlefield—and wound up getting shot in the leg in the process. When Lafayette went to get his bullet hole treated, Washington told the doctor to “take care of him as if he were my own son.”

Then and now, Brandywine was and is Quaker country, and Vowell ends up at a Quaker meeting. Quakers are known for their belief in nonviolence—though one of the most important generals in the American Revolution was Nathanael Greene, known as the “Fighting Quaker” because he abandoned his faith and joined several local New England militias. Vowell wants to talk about Greene, but the Quakers at the meeting prefer to remember just how much regular civilians suffered during the war. Both armies plundered food and goods from the quiet citizens of the Brandywine valley.

Vowell chats with Christopher Densmore, whom she later learns is one of the country’s most important Quaker scholars. Densmore explains that he views the history of the United States as a history of war, but Vowell disagrees. Instead, informed by her training as an art historian, Vowell prefers to explore American history through artifacts, monuments and “found objects.” Densmore criticizes this view, and Vowell jokes that though Quakers are wise, they often are “a little more honest than the situation calls for.”

Though they disagree on some things, Vowell and Densmore share their concern that Americans are forgetting their own history—for example, more than half of U.S. citizens incorrectly believe that the Civil War came before the Revolution.

Vowell travels to a nearby monument for Lafayette, commemorating the blood he lost at Brandywine. As she reads the quotes inscribed on the monument, Vowell once more comes to terms with how much Lafayette seemed to seek out danger. He greeted gunshot almost with excitement, because it meant that he was finally a part of the war’s real action. And again, Vowell is struck by the juxtaposition of the peaceful fields with their violent past: “there would be no indication of the mayhem that went down here,” she muses, “unless this Lafayette doodad marked the spot.”

It’s time for the battle reenactment, and Vowell marvels at Americans’ ability to convert sad historical events into happy summertime celebrations. She watches a well-researched puppet show about Lafayette’s life, and she hears some war reenactors talk about their wives’ resentment of their historical hobbies. Many of the men acting as Patriots are wearing the shoddy hunting shirts that, at least to Lafayette, symbolized both the colonists’ virtue and their lack of preparedness.

Off to the side, Vowell notices a woman winding yarn, dressed in Revolutionary garb to reenact this less flashy part of history. Though nobody pays much attention to this woman, her actions have great historical significance. When the British raised taxes on imports, the colonists created non-importation agreements as a form of protest. As part of this protest, many women began making their own yarn and sewing their own garments in what was known as the Homespun Movement. Homespun clothes then became an international symbol of America’s folksy strength; Washington eventually wore a homespun suit to his inauguration. And Ben Franklin went even further, wearing a simple fur cap to all of his fancy French meetings as way of advertising (and overplaying) America’s pastoral values.