Lafayette Comes Back

After Forty Years of Failure, He Hears the Echo of His Youthful Triumph.

Forty years after his return to France at the end of the American Revolution, General Lafayette came back to visit the nation he had helped to create. Cities of the United States heaped honor and hospitality upon him. The people greeted him in villages and taverns as he traveled, and it is not strange that he returned to France “astonished” at the vigor of the young republic.

He himself had seen France taste freedom, turn to the Terror, accept Bonaparte’s dictatorship and fight the world—and he had taken his part in it all, even to five years spent in a prison cell. Now he beheld on the throne again the scions of the same monarch who had tried in vain to prevent his aiding America in her fight for freedom, and, his title and estates gone, he must have felt France’s failure to realize such ideals of government as he and Washington knew, as keenly as he appreciated the “astonishing” march of democracy on this continent.

Entertained first in the North, Lafayette hurried South to see Jefferson at Monticello for a day. From the Charlottesville estate he traveled to Orange Courthouse, and thence, over the road his army had cut through “The Wilderness” and which even to this day is known as “The Marquis Road,” he came to Wilderness Tavern, where he was met by an escort from Fredericksburg.

Fredericksburg was awaiting him, and Lafayette was glad of the opportunity to spend the greater part of a week in the “home town” of George Washington, to visit Washington’s relatives, and to meet those of the Revolutionary general still living in the place. He had been to Fredericksburg before in 1774, an honored guest at “The Peace Ball.” He had said that he felt more at home in Fredericksburg than anywhere in America.

General Washington, Mrs. Washington, General Mercer, General Weedon—a dozen of his closer friends whom he had left behind forty years ago—were dead, but among the Fredericksburg people there were still numbers who knew him, some who had entertained him, and many who had fought with him.

Peculiar Items of Expense

That Fredericksburg did her best and that good cheer was not lacking when the general arrived, is recorded in the old courthouse of that city in the official bill of expenses for the entertainment of the distinguished guest. On these yellow papers written in the careful hand of that day, are bills for ribbons and laces and cocked hats, sperm candles and cakes, oranges (at $1.20 a dozen), cockades, cloaks and “everything” that might assist in making the November days of the Marquis’ stay glide right merrily.

Before the general arrived there was preliminary work, and this is recorded in a number of bills, among them that of Sally Stokes who had one for “cleaning and schowering the town hall, and whitening the steps and cleaning the walls, etc.—I charge for myself and 2 other women—$2.25.” Her charge was probably a little high as the work was for the city. “Benj. Day” got the draying contract and profiteered in the following rate:

“Dr. me for myself and team and dray for 4 days hauling for the Entertainment Commit. $6.00.” Also among the bills for labor is one:

“To John Scott, Dr. to hire of my man Billy, the painter, for 6 days to paint the market house, $4.50,” while “Mary Lucas,” a “freewoman,” got $1.25 for “sawing 2 1-2 cords of wood.”

George Cary’s Great Thirst

General Lafayette was met at Orange by a committee and under its escort he journeyed south, (along that forest road which his army cut when with “Mad Anthony Wayne” he followed Tarleton into the unsettled parts of Virginia and the Carolinas,) to the Wilderness and to Fredericksburg. It is possible that some message had to be sent from or to his escort, in fact it is evident, for George Cary has left record of it, and in presenting his bill he has left as well his individuality and his photograph behind him. If one remembers that brandy was $1.00 a gallon, he needs little more of George Cary’s history than this.

“To George Cary for services rendered as messenger, to the Wilderness, including self and horse, $7.00.”

“and drink, $1.75”

“Deduct 50c. advanced him by the Mayor, $8.25.”

Near Fredericksburg, and almost at the spot where during the Revolution the camp of Hessian prisoners was kept, General Lafayette was met by a military escort commanded by Colonel John Stannard. When the cavalcade reached the city it passed through rows of grown-ups and children and (surely previously rehearsed for many days!), the latter sang in French, “The Marseillaise,” and, stepping from his coach, Lafayette marched between the rows of children, singing the anthem of the French revolution.

Only one break was made during the stay of the Marquis in Fredericksburg, if deductions from these old accounts are correct. The town cannon must have “busted.” And why it did, and the legitimate enthusiasm which led to such a contretemps, due probably to the exuberance of one who had followed the general in the great war for liberation forty years before, is gathered from these bills:

“To John Phillips, for tending to the gun, $2. Old junk, 37c. Old junk, 27c. Old junk, 23c. 4 kegs of powder, $24., two quarts whisky, 50c.”

“To John Phillips, fireing the cannon, $4.”

“To Thomas Wright, for 21 panes glass broken by the cannon last Saturday night and on the 19th of November, 10c. a pane and 8×10 each—$2.10.”

When General Lafayette left Fredericksburg he went by stage to Potomac Creek, by boat to Washington, by stage to Baltimore, and thence he sailed back to France. With him went Messrs. Mercer and Lewis, both sons of men who had been Generals in the war for Liberty.