Part 6

No wonder Washington liked a man who could be so unselfish as that! He gave the command back to Lee, and arranged that Lafayette should lead the advance.

Early the following morning Washington ordered an attack on the British at Monmouth Court House, and on June 28, 1778, the battle of Monmouth was fought. The result might have been very different if Lafayette, and not Lee, had been in command. For Lee delayed, and when he did finally move forward he assaulted what he thought was a division of the enemy, but what turned out to be the main body. He was driven back, tried another attack, got his officers confused by his contradictory orders, and at last gave the word for a retreat, which threatened to become a rout. At this point Washington rode up, questioned the officers, got no satisfactory answer as to what had happened, and was so indignant that when he reached General Lee he took the latter to task in the strongest terms. Then he gave instant orders to make a stand, and by his superb control of the situation succeeded in having his men repulse all further attacks.

Lafayette meantime had led his cavalry in a charge, had done his best to stem the retreat, and when Washington arrived reformed his line upon a hill, and with the aid of a battery drove back the British. By his efforts and those of the commander-in-chief the day was finally partly saved and the American army manœuvred out of disaster.

Night came on and the troops camped where they were. Washington, wrapped in his cloak, slept at the foot of a tree, with Lafayette beside him. And when they woke in the morning they found that the enemy had stolen away, leaving their wounded behind them.

So the honors of war at Monmouth, in spite of General Lee, lay with Washington. The enemy, however, escaped across New Jersey and reached New York without any further attacks by the Americans.

When Sir Henry Clinton arrived near Sandy Hook he found the English fleet riding at anchor in the lower bay, having just come from the Delaware. Heavy storms had broken through the narrow strip of sand that connects Sandy Hook with the mainland, and it was now divided by a deep channel. A bridge was made of the ships’ boats, and Clinton’s army crossed over to the Hook, and was distributed on Long Island, Staten Island, and in New York. In the meantime Washington moved his troops from Monmouth to Paramus, where the Americans rested.

Now a French fleet of fourteen frigates and twelve battle-ships, under the command of Count d’Estaing, reached the mouth of the Delaware at about that time. Monsieur Gérard, the minister sent to the United States by the court of France, and Silas Deane, were on board, and when D’Estaing heard that Lord Howe’s squadron had left the Delaware he sent Gérard and Deane up to Philadelphia in a frigate, and sailed along the coast to Sandy Hook, where he saw the English fleet at anchor inside. He had considerable advantage over Lord Howe in point of strength, and at once prepared to attack the enemy squadron. Anticipating this, Washington crossed the Hudson River at King’s Ferry, and on July twentieth took up a position at White Plains.

The French fleet, however, could not make the attack. They could find no pilots who were willing to take the large ships into New York harbor, for all the pilots agreed that there was not enough water there, and the French admiral’s own soundings confirmed their opinion.

Washington and D’Estaing therefore agreed on a joint expedition against Newport, in Rhode Island. Washington sent orders to General Sullivan at Providence to ask the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island to supply enough militia to make up an army of five thousand men. At the same time he sent Lafayette with two thousand men from the Hudson to Providence to support the French naval attack.

On July twenty-ninth the French fleet reached Point Judith and anchored about five miles from Newport. General Sullivan and Lafayette and some other officers went on board to make plans for the joint attack. The British troops numbered about six thousand men, and they were strongly intrenched. The allies had some four thousand men on the French ships and between nine and ten thousand Americans at Providence.

Disputes arose as to the best plan of campaign; it was argued whether the men of the two nations would fight better separately or together. Then the English fleet appeared in the distance, and D’Estaing, considering that it was his chief business to destroy the enemy squadron, at once stood out to sea. A violent storm came up, driving the two fleets apart, and doing great damage to ships on both sides. When the storm subsided D’Estaing insisted on sailing his fleet to Boston to make needed repairs, and so the joint expedition came to an end, without having struck a blow. General Sullivan’s plans were in confusion. Lafayette rode to Boston and begged the French admiral to come back as soon as he could. At last D’Estaing promised to land his sailors and march them overland to Newport; but before he could do this the British were strongly reinforced, and Lafayette had to gallop back to protect his own rear-guard forces. The Americans were in peril, but again, as at Monmouth, he was able to save them from defeat.

There was great disappointment over the failure of the attack on Newport, and this was increased by the feeling that there had been disputes between the American and French commanders. Lafayette had all he could do to make each side appreciate the other. In this he was greatly helped by Washington, who wrote to both the French and the American generals, soothing their discontent, patching up their differences, and urging future union for the sake of the common cause.

It was now autumn, and there was little prospect of a further campaign that year. Wearied by the many misunderstandings, distressed by the failure of the joint attack, homesick and sad over the news of the death of his little daughter in France, Lafayette decided to ask for a leave of absence and go back to France on furlough. In October he reached Philadelphia and presented his request. Washington, much as he disliked to lose Lafayette’s services even for a short time, seconded his wishes. And Congress, which only sixteen months before had hesitated to accept his services, now did all it could to pay him the greatest honor. It thanked him for his high assistance and zeal, it directed the American minister in Paris to present him with a sword of honor, and it ordered its best war-ship, the frigate _Alliance_, to convey him to France. Henry Laurens, the president of Congress, wrote to King Louis XVI. that Congress could not allow Lafayette to depart without testifying its appreciation of his courage, devotion, patience, and the uniform excellence of conduct which had won the confidence of the United States and the affection of its citizens.

And finally Monsieur Gérard, the French minister at Philadelphia, wrote to his government in Paris, “You know how little inclined I am to flattery, but I cannot resist saying that the prudent, courageous, and amiable conduct of the Marquis de Lafayette has made him the idol of the Congress, the army, and the people of America.”

With words like these ringing in his ears, Lafayette said good-bye to George Washington in October, 1778, and rode away from camp, bound for Boston, where he was to board the frigate _Alliance_.

VII

THE FRENCHMAN IN THE FIELD AGAIN

Lafayette, on his way to board the _Alliance_, rode into the town of Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, and there fell ill of fever. He had been entertained by people all the way from Philadelphia to the camp on the Hudson, and these constant receptions, combined with chilly and wet weather, brought on malaria. The Marquis was very sick; Washington rode daily from his camp eight miles away to inquire about Lafayette’s condition, and insisted on his own physician taking charge of the patient. And when the young Frenchman recovered the commander-in-chief sent his physician on to Boston with him, and wrote him, “I am persuaded, my dear marquis, that there is no need of fresh proofs to convince you either of my affection for you personally or of the high opinion I entertain of your military talents and merit.”

The strongest affection bound these two men, so different in many respects, so alike in their love of liberty and honor. On board his ship in Boston Harbor Lafayette added a postscript to a letter to Washington. “The sails are just going to be hoisted, my dear general,” he said, “and I have but time to take my last leave of you.... Farewell. I hope your French friend will ever be dear to you; I hope I shall soon see you again, and tell you myself with what emotion I now leave the coast you inhabit and with what affection and respect I am forever, my dear general, your respectful and sincere friend, Lafayette.”

On January 11, 1779, the _Alliance_ sailed for France, having had so much difficulty in making up its crew that a number of English prisoners and deserters had been pressed into service as sailors. This makeshift crew came very near to proving disastrous for the Marquis. An English law offered to pay the full value of any American ship to the crew that would bring it into an English port, and there were considerably more English prisoners and deserters in the crew of the _Alliance_ than there were American and French sailors. The _Alliance_ was approaching the French coast, having just weathered a storm, when a sailor ran into the cabin where the officers were sitting. He said that the prisoners and deserters who had been pressed into service had planned a mutiny, and that, taking him for an Irishman, they had offered him the command in case of success. A lookout was to give the signal “Sail ho!” and as the officers came on deck in a group they were to be shot down by cannon loaded with grape-shot and the ship sailed into an English port, where the mutineers would divide the profits. The loyal American sailor said that the signal would be given in about an hour.

Immediately the officers seized their swords, and, rushing on deck, called the Americans and Frenchmen together. The thirty-three mutineers, taken by surprise, were captured and clapped into irons, and the rest of the crew sailed the _Alliance_ into the French harbor of Brest a week later.

Here Lafayette was welcomed with delight. The young fellow who had run away to sea in the _Victory_ was returning like a hero in a war-ship of the new American republic. In triumph he landed at Brest, and as he hurried to Paris to see his family he was greeted by joyful crowds all along his route. He stopped at the royal palace of Versailles, and his old friend Marie Antoinette came out into the gardens to hear him tell his adventures. King Louis sent for him, and ordered him under arrest as a deserter, but with a twinkling eye declared that his prison should be his father-in-law’s great house in Paris, and his jailer his wife Adrienne. Then the King forgave him for running away to America, congratulated him, and, with his ministers, consulted the Marquis about affairs in the United States. Lafayette said, “I had the honor of being consulted by all the ministers and, what was a great deal better, of being kissed by all the women.”

The welcome he cared for the most was that from his wife, who had followed him in her thoughts all the time he had been in America, and had always sympathized with him and wished success for his plans. The Duke d’Ayen was delighted to see him and welcomed him to his house with open arms. Whenever the Marquis appeared on the street he was cheered by admiring throngs. The actors in the theatres put special words in their parts to honor Lafayette; poems were written about him; and the young man of twenty-one became the lion of Paris.

In a sense he represented the connecting link in the alliance that now united the two countries, and that alliance was in great favor with the people. He also stood for that ideal of “liberty” which was rapidly becoming the ruling thought of France. It would have been easy for him to rest on his laurels now, and feel that he had accomplished all that was needed of him.

But instead he used all this hero-worship to further his one aim--more help for the young republic across the sea. “In the midst of the whirl of excitement by which I was carried along,” he said, “I never lost sight of the revolution, the success of which still seemed to me to be extremely uncertain; accustomed as I was to seeing great purposes accomplished with slender means, I used to say to myself that the cost of a single fête would have equipped the army of the United States, and in order to provide clothes for them I would gladly have stripped the palace at Versailles.”

With this desire to help the United States ever in his thoughts he went to see Benjamin Franklin, and with Franklin and the American sea-captain John Paul Jones he planned an expedition against England in which he should lead the land forces and Paul Jones command the fleet. While they were arranging this the French government suggested a greater plan. Spain was to unite with France in defense of America. Details were being worked out when John Paul Jones embarked in his ship, the _Bon Homme Richard_, and had his famous sea-fight with the _Serapis_. But the Spanish government delayed and at last the French gave up the idea of a joint attack on England.

Meantime Lafayette joined the French army again and was commissioned a colonel of the King’s Dragoons. While he was waiting at Havre he was presented by Franklin’s grandson with the sword that the Congress of the United States had ordered should be given to him. It was a beautiful sword; the handle was of gold, exquisitely wrought, and decorated, as well as the blade, with figures emblematical of Lafayette’s career in America, with his coat of arms and his motto, “_Cur non?_”

And while he waited he was always impatient to be of help to his friends across the Atlantic. To Washington he wrote, “However happy I find myself in France, however well treated by my country and my king, I am so accustomed to being near to you, I am bound to you, to America, to my companions in arms by such an affection, that the moment when I sail for your country will be among the happiest and most wished for of my life.”

His great work during that year he spent in France was the winning of a French army, under the Count de Rochambeau, to fight by the side of the Americans. There was opposition to this at first, for neither Louis XVI. nor Marie Antoinette nor the royal princes who surrounded them cared to encourage the spirit of liberty too far. But the people, backed by their hero, Lafayette, demanded it, and at last their persistency won the day. The government of France decided to send an army, commanded by Rochambeau, lieutenant-general of the royal forces, with a fleet of warships and transports and six thousand soldiers, to the aid of America.

Lafayette was sent ahead to carry the welcome news to Washington and Congress, and to let them know that there would be no more of the jealousies and disputes that had hindered the success of the French and Americans in the field before. For Lafayette had arranged that the French troops should be under Washington’s orders, that they should accept the leadership of the American officers on the latter’s own ground, and that officers of the United States should be recognized as having equal rank with those of France. This harmony that Lafayette secured had a great deal to do with the final successful outcome of the American Revolution.

He sailed on the French frigate _Hermione_, and reached Boston on April 28, 1780. The people of Boston escorted him with cheers to the house of Governor John Hancock on Beacon Hill. This was the same John Hancock who had once turned Lafayette over to Gouverneur Morris with scarcely a word of welcome, but he greeted him differently now. Instead of being an adventurous foreign recruit the Marquis was a major-general in the American army and the official representative of the court of France.

From Boston he went to Morristown, where Washington had his headquarters, and there the two friends discussed the situation. Lafayette told of the coming of the French fleet and army, which brought the greatest joy to the commander-in-chief, because he could only speak of the hardships his soldiers had borne during the winter, the difficulty of securing recruits, and the general discouragement of the country. Greatly cheered himself, he sent Lafayette to Philadelphia to make his report to Congress, and set himself to the work of rousing his army and the people to welcome the men from France.

In Philadelphia Lafayette received the thanks of Congress for his services in Europe, and then busied himself with the equipment of the army. Washington’s troops certainly needed some attention. Half-fed and half-clothed, with only four thousand out of six thousand soldiers fit for duty, they presented so sorry an appearance that Lafayette said to the president of Congress, “though I have been directed to furnish the French court and the French generals with early and minute intelligence, I confess that pride has stopped my pen and, notwithstanding past promises, I have avoided entering into any details till our army is put in a better and more decent situation.”

But Washington roused Congress and the country, and by the time the French fleet arrived the American army was in much better condition.

On July 10, 1780, the Count de Rochambeau, with the French army, reached Newport, and the French commander, informing Washington of his arrival, declared, as his government had instructed him, “We are now, sir, under your command.”

Plans had to be laid, arrangements made for the union of the French and American armies, and much time was taken up in military discussions. One of Lafayette’s pet schemes was broached again, the invasion of Canada by the joint forces, and the details of this invasion were entrusted to General Benedict Arnold, who was to be in command. On September twentieth Washington, with Lafayette and General Knox, met the Count de Rochambeau and Admiral de Terney, who commanded the French fleet, and final arrangements were made. But at this very moment events were taking place which were to frustrate the scheme.

For at the very moment when Washington and Rochambeau were in conference at Hartford Benedict Arnold and Major John André, of the British army, were holding a secret meeting, the object of which was to give Washington’s plans to the enemy. It so happened that Washington, when he left Hartford with Knox and Lafayette, took a roundabout road in order to show the Marquis the fortifications which had been built at West Point in his absence. On the morning of September twenty-fourth the party of American officers arrived within a mile of the Robinson house, where Mrs. Benedict Arnold was expecting them at breakfast.

Washington, absorbed in his work, was about to ride on when Lafayette reminded him of Mrs. Arnold’s invitation. The commander-in-chief laughed. “Ah, Marquis,” he said, “you young men are all in love with Mrs. Arnold. I see you are eager to be with her as soon as possible. Go and breakfast with her, and tell her not to wait for me. I must ride down and examine the redoubts on this side of the river, but will be with her shortly.”

Lafayette and Knox, however, preferred to ride on with the General, and the message was sent to the Robinson house by Colonel Hamilton and Major McHenry. Mrs. Arnold, who had lately joined her husband there with her baby, welcomed her guests and entertained them at breakfast. It was a trying situation for her husband, for it happened that that was the very day on which he was to make his final arrangements with the British.

While they sat at the breakfast-table a messenger galloped up to the door with a letter for Arnold. He opened it and read that André had been captured, and the secret papers found upon him had been sent to Washington. Arnold rose from the table and beckoned his wife to follow him to her room. There he told her that he was a ruined man and must fly for his life. Leaving her fainting on the floor, he left the house, mounted the messenger’s horse, and dashed down to the river through a ravine. There he boarded his boat, and was rowed rapidly down the river to the English ship _The Vulture_.

Almost immediately after Arnold’s hurried departure Washington, Lafayette, and Knox reached the Robinson house. The commander supposed that Arnold had gone to West Point to prepare for his reception, and, having eaten a hasty breakfast, Washington and his companions crossed the river. No salute, however, was fired at their approach, and Colonel Lamb, the officer in command, came and apologized, saying that he had received no information of Washington’s visit.

“Is not General Arnold here?” Washington inquired.

“No, sir,” said Lamb. “He has not been here for two days, nor have I heard from him in that time.”

Somewhat surprised, but still unsuspicious, Washington and the others spent the morning examining the works.

As they rode back to the Robinson house about noon they were met by Colonel Hamilton, who took Washington aside, and handed him the secret papers that had been found on André. At once the whole plot was clear. Washington sent Hamilton immediately to arrest Arnold, but the Colonel found that the man had already flown. Then the commander-in-chief told the news to Lafayette and Knox, and, saying how much he had always trusted General Arnold, added, “Whom can we trust now?”

It was Lafayette who later tried to comfort Mrs. Arnold, when the full realization of her husband’s disgrace almost drove her to despair. And he sat with the other general officers at a court-martial in the headquarters at Tappan on the Hudson when John André, adjutant-general of the British army, after a fair trial, was convicted of being a spy and was sentenced to be hung. But Lafayette was a very generous judge, and wrote of André later, “He was a very interesting man; he conducted himself in a manner so frank, so noble, and so delicate, that I cannot help feeling for him an infinite pity.”

The treason of Benedict Arnold prevented the invasion of Canada, and Lafayette saw no active service for some time. He spent the autumn in camp on the Hudson and in New Jersey, and part of the winter in Philadelphia. A number of French officers had gathered here, and they, used to the gayeties of the most brilliant court in Europe, added much to the amusements of the American capital. Every one liked the French guests, and the foreign officers, on their part, liked and admired their new allies. Sometimes the self-denying seriousness of the Americans, which was an element of their national strength, amused and surprised the gayer Frenchmen. One of the latter, the Marquis de Chastellux, told a story about Philadelphia in his volume of “Travels.” He said that at balls in Philadelphia it was the custom to have a Continental officer as the master of ceremonies, and that at one party he attended that position was held by a Colonel Mitchell, who showed the same devotion to duty in the ballroom that he showed on the field of battle. This Colonel saw a young girl so busily talking that she could pay little attention to the figures of the quadrille, so he marched up to her and said to her severely, “Take care what you are doing; do you suppose you are there for your pleasure?”

Naturally the Marquis de Chastellux and his friends, fresh from the world of Marie Antoinette, where pleasure was always the first aim, had many a laugh at the people of this new world. But with the laugh there always went respect and admiration.