LAFAYETTE AT THE BRANDYWINE
When Lafayette joined the army at Washington's headquarters, a few
miles north of Philadelphia, he was very much surprised by what he
saw. Instead of the ample proportions and regular system of European
encampments, with the glitter and finish of their appointments;
instead of feather-trimmed hats and violet-colored facings, with
marching and countermarching in the precision and grace of a minuet,
he saw a small army of eleven thousand men, poorly clad, with nothing
that could by the utmost courtesy be called a uniform, and woefully
lacking in knowledge of military tactics.
But Lafayette had on his rose-colored spectacles. The pitiful
condition of the American soldiers awakened nothing but sympathy in
his heart--never any contempt. In spite of their disadvantages, he
perceived that they had in them the making of fine soldiers, and that
they were being led by zealous officers.
Lafayette, now a major general in the American army, attended the
councils of war and stood by Washington when he reviewed the troops.
When the General took occasion to speak rather apologetically of the
deficiencies in his little army, suggesting that Lafayette must feel
the difference between these untrained soldiers and those he was
accustomed to see, Lafayette had the self-possession and tact to
answer that he had come to America to learn, not to teach. This answer
charmed Washington and endeared the young French officer to the whole
army.
Washington, having heard that an English fleet was coming up
Chesapeake Bay, moved south to meet the portentous army that he knew
would promptly be debarked. On their way south the American troops had
to pass through the city of Philadelphia. In view of the dark
forebodings that the approach of the English was causing in the minds
of the people, Washington was desirous that the soldiers should make
as fine an appearance as possible in passing through the city, and
made special regulations for that day. The army was to march in one
column through the city; the order of divisions was stated; each
officer without exception was to keep his post with a certain space
between, no more and no less; each brigadier was to appoint patrols
to arrest stragglers from the camp and all others of the army who did
not obey this order; the drums and fifes of each brigade were to be
collected in the center of it, and a tune for the quickstep was to be
played; but it must be played with such moderation that the men could
keep step to it with ease.
An army that needed admonitions like these could still awaken
enthusiasm from spectators. The austere commander in chief looked very
handsome as he passed; the slim, eager-eyed French major general rode
at his side; every window shone with curious and admiring eyes and the
sidewalks were crowded with applauding citizens. The men could not
help catching the spirit of the occasion; each soldier stuck a sprig
of green in his hat to make up as far as possible for the lack of fine
uniforms and military brilliancy.
They were on their way to the place which was to be the scene of the
battle of Brandywine, one of the most disastrous defeats of the
Revolution. At the head of Chesapeake Bay the English had landed a
large and finely equipped army, and from that point they threatened
Philadelphia. Washington, with an inferior and poorly furnished force,
placed his army in form to receive the attack at the Birmingham
meetinghouse near Chad's Ford on Brandywine Creek, a point about
fifty miles south of Philadelphia.
Lafayette accompanied General Washington to the battle. His rank of
major general gave him no command. Practically, he was a volunteer.
But when he saw that the American troops were in danger of defeat
before the superior English force, he asked to be allowed to go to the
front. He plunged into the midst of the panic that followed the
failure of the American line to stand up before the galling fire of
the well-trained British soldiers. The retreat was rapidly becoming a
panic. At this point Lafayette sprang from his horse and rushed in
among the soldiers; by starting forward in the very face of the enemy
and calling the disorganized men to follow, he did all in his power to
induce the men to form and make a stand. It was impossible. The odds
were too great against the Americans. Lafayette and the other generals
waited until the British were within twenty yards of them before they
retired.
But at the height of the confusion, when Lafayette was too excited to
notice it, a musket ball struck his left leg just below the knee. Of
this he was unconscious until one of the generals called his attention
to the fact that blood was running over the top of his boot. Lafayette
was helped to remount his horse by his faithful aid, Major de Gimat,
and insisted on remaining with the troops until the loss of blood made
him too weak to go further. Then he stopped long enough to have a
bandage placed on his leg.
Night was coming on. The American troops were going pellmell up the
road toward Chester. There was horrible confusion, and darkness was
coming on. At a bridge just south of Chester, the American soldiers
were at the point of complete disorganization. Seeing the great need
for some decisive mind to bring order out of this chaos, Lafayette
made a stand and placed guards along the road. Finally Washington came
up and made Lafayette give himself into the hands of the surgeons. At
midnight Washington wrote to Congress, and in his letter he praised
the bravery of the young French soldier. Lafayette had passed his
twentieth birthday but four days before.
General Washington was happy to have this French officer proved by
test of battle and to find his favorable judgment more than warranted.
He showed the most tender solicitude for his young friend and gave him
into the care of the surgeons with instructions to do all in their
power for him, and to treat him as if he were his own son.
Lafayette's spirits were not in the least dashed. When the doctors
gathered round to stanch the blood, expressing their apprehensions for
his safety, he looked at the wound and pluckily exclaimed,
"Never mind, gentlemen; I would not take fifteen hundred guineas for
that."
It was partly this buoyant, merry spirit that made Lafayette win all
hearts. To the army he was now no stranger. His broken English was
becoming more and more understandable. But words were not necessary;
the look in his eyes said that he was a fearless and sincere man; that
he had not come to this country to "show off," but from a true love
for the principles for which he had offered his sword. Never was there
a more complete adoption than that of Lafayette by the American army.
Lafayette's first care on reaching Philadelphia was to write to
Adrienne lest she should receive exaggerated news concerning his
wound.
"It was a mere trifle," he wrote. "All I fear is that you should not
have received my letter. As General Howe is giving in the meantime
rather pompous details of his American exploits to the king his
master, if he should write word that I am wounded, he may also write
word that I am killed, which would not cost him anything; but I hope
that my friends, and you especially, will not give faith to reports of
those persons who last year dared to publish that General Washington
and all the general officers of his army, being in a boat together,
had been upset and every individual drowned."
Years afterwards when Lafayette, then an elderly man, revisited our
country, he referred to his wound in these gracious words: "The honor
to have mingled my blood with that of many other American soldiers on
the heights of the Brandywine has been to me a source of pride and
delight."
After a few days it was thought wise to take the wounded Lafayette to
a quieter place. So Henry Laurens, the President of Congress, who
happened to be passing on his way to York, Pennsylvania, whither
Congress had removed, took him in his traveling carriage to Bethlehem,
where dwelt a community of Moravians, in whose gentle care Lafayette
was left for the four wearisome weeks of convalescence.
"Be perfectly at ease about me," he wrote Adrienne. "All the faculty
in America are engaged in my service. I have a friend who has spoken
to them in such a manner that I am certain of being well attended to;
that friend is General Washington. This excellent man, whose talents
and virtues I admired, and whom I have learned to revere as I have
come to know him better, has now become my intimate friend; his
affectionate interest in me instantly won my heart. I am established
in his house and we live together like two attached brothers with
mutual confidence and cordiality."
Again Lafayette writes: "Our General is a man formed in truth for this
revolution, which could not have been accomplished without him. I see
him more intimately than any other man, and I see that he is worthy of
the adoration of his country.... His name will be revered in every age
by all true lovers of liberty and humanity."
At last Lafayette was well enough to go into service again. He
requested permission this time to join General Greene who was making
an expedition into New Jersey in the hope of crippling the force of
Lord Cornwallis. Lafayette was given command of a detachment of three
hundred men, and with these he reconnoitered a situation Lord
Cornwallis was holding at Gloucester opposite Philadelphia. Here he
came so near to the English that he could plainly see them carrying
provisions across the river to aid in the projected taking of the
city, and he so heedlessly exposed himself to danger that he might
easily have been shot or imprisoned if the English had been alert. By
urgent entreaty he was called back. After gaining this information, he
met a detachment of Hessians in the service of the British army, and
though they numbered more than his own detachment, he succeeded in
driving them back. In the management of this enterprise he showed
great skill, both in the vigor of his attack and in the caution of his
return. He took twenty prisoners. General Greene, in reporting to
Washington, said that Lafayette seemed determined to be found in the
way of danger.
General Washington was now convinced that the titled volunteer could
be trusted with a command. He wrote to Congress as follows:
"It is my opinion that the command of troops in that state cannot be in
better hands than the Marquis's. He possesses uncommon military talents;
is of a quick and sound judgment; persevering and enterprising, without
rashness; and besides these, he is of a conciliating temper and perfectly
sober,--which are qualities that rarely combine in the same person. And
were I to add that some men will gain as much experience in the course of
three or four years as some others will in ten or a dozen, you cannot
deny the fact and attack me on that ground."
On this recommendation, Lafayette was appointed to the command of a
division composed entirely of Virginians. Needless to say he was
overjoyed; for though the division was weak in point of numbers, and
in a state of destitution as to clothing, he was promised cloth for
uniforms and he hoped to have recruits of whom he could make soldiers.
When Lafayette enlisted in the American army, he was not to lack for
companionship. John Laurens had come from his study of history and
military tactics at Geneva and, leaving his young wife and child
behind, even as Lafayette had done, had rushed home to serve his
country in her need. Alexander Hamilton was now both military aid and
trusted adviser and secretary to General Washington. These three young
men, all boys at the same time in different quarters of the globe, had
come together while still in early youth and were entering into the
great work of the American Revolution.