The Brandywine Region Remembers the Marquis de Lafayette’s Triumph

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Regional festivities commemorated the 200th anniversary of the French general’s victory tour of America.

It was 200 years ago this fall that the 67-year-old Marquis de Lafayette made his victorious return to America for a 13-month tour of the country whose independence he fought so hard to attain in the Revolutionary War. Embracing his encore appearance, America loved him back as the conquering hero made multiple appearances across a country that had grown from 13 British colonies to 24 American states.

Lafayette couldn’t understand why these American imbeciles in Philadelphia didn’t realize that he was a rich aristocrat willing to donate his soldierly services for free—if they would only grant him the appropriate military title and the troops to go with it.

Beginning this year and continuing into 2025, commemorative celebrations will take place in the Brandywine region and across the eastern half of the United States to celebrate the French hero. But like so many love affairs, the one between Lafayette and America got off to a very rocky start.

In the fall of 1776, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, had just arrived in the U.S. after sneaking out of France at a time when the monarchy forbade the young nobleman from getting involved in the American rebellion. Lafayette was just shy of 20 years old, fresh from military training and with a young man’s impatience to get things done, as was to be documented in his diaries.

He couldn’t understand why these American imbeciles in Philadelphia, the Congress of this new nation, didn’t realize that he was a rich aristocrat willing to donate his soldierly services for free—if they would only grant him the appropriate military title and the troops to go with it. And after Congress agreed to commission him and attach him to Gen. George Washington just as the British were sailing up the Chesapeake Bay to attack, why was this older Virginia soldier so cautious? Why hadn’t he surprised Gen. William Howe and his British forces while they were disorganized and disembarking in Maryland at the head of the bay, rather than waiting to encounter them on open ground?

Washington wasn’t any happier. Who was this Lafayette —this pushy and ambitious young man he’d never heard of or asked for? What in God’s name did Congress expect Washington, the head of the new American army, to do with him?

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“Washington had had enough of Congress sending him European generals who couldn’t produce,” says Bruce E. Mowday, author of the recently published history Lafayette at Brandywine: The Making of an American Hero. “And you have to understand that Lafayette was coming from a French army of professional soldiers joining a poorly trained one.”

As Mowday notes, the near disastrous Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11, 1777, changed all that. “Lafayette got off his horse to rally his troops and was wounded by British soldiers when a musket ball penetrated his left calf,” the Chester County historian explains. “He had to be helped back onto his horse.”

During that afternoon, Lafayette earned Washington’s respect and “was unquestionably on the road to becoming America’s first international hero,” as Mowday writes in his book. Washington directed his medical staff to care for the young Frenchman as if he were his own son.

Mowday is in charge of the Lafayette Bicentennial Brandywine Committee, in conjunction with a 13-month tour coordinated by the American Friends of Lafayette organization. Celebrations kicked off this past Aug. 16 in lower Manhattan, the spot where Lafayette disembarked in 1824. Locally, official bicentennial activities began Oct. 5 in Chester. The event included family activities, speeches, food, drink and more.

“Lafayette will arrive at 11 a.m. with a procession of children leading him to the 1724 Chester Courthouse, like he did at 11 p.m. 200 years prior,” says Kate Clifford, who’s in charge of the Chester events.

On Oct. 6, activities in Wilmington began at 9 a.m. with a ticketed breakfast at Hagley Museum & Library before moving to Claymont’s Robinson House, the former home of Pennsylvania Continental Army Lt. Col. Thomas Robinson. The procession continued along Philadelphia Pike to the Brandywine Village neighborhood for a Lafayette Trail marker dedication ceremony. Then it was on to the Delaware Historical Society’s Old Town Hall for a performance by Colonial Williamsburg’s Stephen Seals. He portrayed James Armistead Lafayette, a slave who served the Continental Army under Lafayette and who later gained his freedom. The day finished with an open-house cocktail party at Amstel House and a ticketed dinner at Jessop’s Tavern in New Castle.

Next year, Lafayette fans should mark their calendars for July 26 in Chester County. “He was in Chadds Ford in the morning and West Chester in the afternoon and evening,” Mowday says. “We’re planning events at both locations.”

Visit lafayette200.org.

Roger Morris