That transatlantic relationship has several distinct phases which explains why President James Monroe asks Congress to invite Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis De La Fayette to be the “Nation’s Guest” in 1824 – and why Lafayette comes to Beaufort in 1825.
Please note: This post is a supplement to my post "Lafayette Visits Beaufort." Even so, this a very abbreviated version of events and intellectual history that omits a lot of the nuances and subtleties - but you can use my source list and additional resources available through the SCLENDS and Hoopla catalogs and some of our database subscriptions in DISCUS to explore the topic more deeply. You can also read more about the resources we have in the Research Room on the topic in the "Reading Room Display - "Hero of Two Worlds" written by Sydney Whiteside earlier this month.
PHASE 1: AMERICAN REVOLUTION
James Monroe is a Patriot. He quit college to join the Continental Army in 1776. He’s badly wounded at the Battle of Trenton in early 1777. In fact, in Emanuel Leutze's painting "Washington Crossing the Delaware" James Monroe is depicted as the man holding the American flag upright on his way to the fight. [The painting cannot be considered historically accurate but it is among the most recognizable images we associate with the American Revolution.]
In April 1777, a young, wealthy French aristocrat with an impressively lengthy name defied his own king to fight in the American Revolution. This is what most Americans know about Lafayette: He came to fight with the Americans against the British King.
George Washington is the initial connection between Monroe
and Lafayette. When Lafayette arrived unannounced but keen to help, Washington
decided to make use of him – first for his publicity value -- as the 19
year-old French nobleman had no combat experience.
Lafayette gets that wartime experience at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. He shows extreme courage under fire. In some accounts, Lafayette
is standing between Patriot Major General, William Alexander, AKA Lord Stirling
and James Monroe when Lafayette takes a bullet in his leg. Monroe keeps company
with Lafayette while he’s recovering – and thus the roots of a lifelong
friendship is formed. Soon afterwards Lafayette is given command as a Major General in the Continental Army. From this point onwards, Lafayette prefers to be
addressed as “General.”
Monroe and Lafayette were both encamped at cold, miserable, and disease-ridden Valley Forge with Washington from December 19, 1777, to June 19, 1778. Both men fought at the Battle of Monmouth. Thus by 1778 Monroe and Lafayette have become friends - based on their shared military service in the cause of American independence and their shared belief in American principles of liberty and equality.
But their personal paths diverge in 1779. Monroe is
frustrated by his lack of military recognition and becomes a civilian. He studies law with Thomas Jefferson to support himself and to prepare for political office. Lafayette continues his military career and gets Louis XVI to provide official military support and troops to the American cause of
Independence from Great Britain.
Lafayette fights during the Siege of Yorktown and returns to France at
the end of 1781.
It takes a bit for peace talks to start but once underway, the negotiation goes rather quickly. The Treaty of Paris ending the American Revolution is signed September 3, 1783. This painting is unfinished because the British delegation refused to sit for the artist Benjamin West.
The 5 years from 1784 to 1789 is something of a lull before the storm. These flags are emblematic of the political whiplash over the course of Lafayette’s life. After 1788, Lafayette is in and out of politics in France – sometimes in support of the government, at other times out of favor with the powers of the day.
PHASE 2: FRENCH REVOLUTION
Lafayette becomes one of the leaders of the early phases of
the French Revolution with a goal to reform France’s government. He co-authors
the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in late July 1789 and
becomes head of the National Guard tasked to maintain order in Paris.
Unfortunately, the King is reluctant to ratify the abolition of noble
privileges. This angers the mob – and though Lafayette manages to save Queen Marie Antoinette at this time -- the mob forces the royal family to
relocate to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Louis XVI bides his time under house
arrest for a time but tries to escape in June 1791. The family is quickly recaptured.
A month after that, Lafayette orders National Guard soldiers to open fire at an anti-monarchy demonstration in Paris and French citizens die. Lafayette is torn between support of the King and his reformist impulses. Lafayette’s reputation in revolutionary France falters even as threats from Prussia and Austria are growing.
Lafayette and his National Guard troops are repositioned to defend against Prussian and Austrian forces gathering near the border. Louis XVI is deposed by the Jacobin faction in August 1792 – and the faction declares Lafayette an enemy of the State. The General knows that it’s flee or die.
He decides to flee and live to fight another day. Lafayette plans to get to the Dutch Republic, sail to Britain, try to help his relatives escape, and then head to the United States where he and his male heirs had been awarded honorary citizenship in several states in 1784. But his plan fails. He gets captured by Austrian troops at Rochefort [in present-day Belgium] and jailed. Upon news of this, Adrienne, his wife, sends their young son, Georges Washington, into hiding; she and their daughters remain on their estate.
In December 1792 Louis XVI is convicted by the Jacobins. He dies at the guillotine on 21 January 1793. His wife, Marie Antoinette is beheaded 9 months later. The bloodbath accelerates after the deaths of the King and Queen. After being held at several prisons, Gen. Lafayette becomes “State Prisoner #2” at Olmutz in Austria in 1794. The Jacobins led by Maximilien Robespierre confiscate Lafayette’s fortune and imprison his wife and young daughters.
All this underlines just how dangerous France is when Monroe arrives as Minister to France in August 1794 with his wife Elizabeth Kortright Monroe and their children. Monroe was brave and daring in military matters; he’s brave and daring in his first ministerial posting. He continues advocating for the release of Lafayette just as his predecessor had done ; but he ups the ante. He learns that Lafayette’s wife, Adrienne’s mother, grandmother, and sister have died by guillotine. He acts to help the imprisoned Adrienne and her girls. Monroe finds one of the few carriages left in Paris, gussies it up, stocks it with food and clothing, accepts his own wife’s offer to act in his stead and off the La Belle Americaine goes to pay a social call to Adrienne in prison. Adrienne is set to die the following day – but Elizabeth Monroe makes it clear that she will be visiting Adrienne on the morrow. It was a gutsy move. Not wanting to endanger ties with the United States, France abruptly reversed its verdict and did not execute Adrienne or her daughters though they would keep them in prison until January 1795. When they are released, they shelter in the American Minister’s home in Paris. Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense, is also sheltering with the Monroes.
This is an excerpt of the letter from Monroe to his boss,the Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph in February 1795. Monroe says Adrienne is with them and in dire financial straits. At his own discretion, Monroe advanced her
about $1000 from an account appropriated by Congress for the General in 1794.
A few weeks later an almost unrecognizable Georges appears on the doorstep of the Monroe’s house with his tutor, Felix Festrel who had kept him safe since the time of the General’s capture. Monroe facilitates Georges and Festrel’s escape to America. Monroe issues Georges an American passport in the name of George Motier.
In this letter to President Washington, Mme. Lafayette places her son under the protection of the United States. She says that the letter carrier will share information about Lafayette’s circumstances in person with the President. Mme. Lafayette closes by imploring GW to accept her trust, respect, and attachment. Bear in mind: These two people have never met. Georges becomes a House guest of President Washington and Georges attends Harvard University during his 3 years sojourn in the USA.
The Monroes were very popular in France. Both of them spoke French well, and they adopted some French mannerisms. n the words of the historian Harlow Giles Unger, “La Belle Americaine was a goddess, and Monroe was as close to becoming a god in French officialdom as it was possible for any foreigner to be." However, President Washington decides that Monroe is too close to the French and re-assigns him to England and Spain. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, Eliza Lucas Pinckney’s son, replaces Monroe.
BTW: Peggy Pickett will channel Eliza’s life during the Revolution as she oversees her sons’
plantations on March 25 in a local history program co-sponsored by the Beaufort History Museum and the BDC at the Beaufort Library.
American diplomats continued to push for Lafayette’s release
after Monroe was removed by Washington. But it took Napoleon to free Lafayette.
When Napoleon Bonaparte and his revolutionary armies conquered Austria in 1797,
a clause in the Treaty of Campo Formio released Lafayette. They left Olmutz prison on September 19 and moved to La Grange, Adrienne’s estate east of Paris.
Monroe and Lafayette were comrades in arms in the American
Revolution; During the French
Revolution, the Monroes save Lafayette’s family.
Lafayette may be free but his reputation remains tarnished
in his native country. He has financial problems. His wife developed health
issues during her imprisonment. The General’s support of liberal democratic
causes in France, Greece, Italy and Poland makes his suspect in Europe.
PHASE 3: MONROE BECOMES 5th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
James Monroe spends the years from 1796 raising his political profile. He serves as Governor of Virginia three times. He suppresses a slave rebellion; his only son dies; He helps negotiate the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. He goes on diplomatic missions to France, England and Spain. He serves as Secretary of State and Secretary of War and for a few days was heading both of those departments in 1814. He is a very popular man in the US. Great Britain was defeated, Monroe and the Jeffersonian Republican party enjoyed a clear victory in the 1816 Presidential Election. The electoral count was 183 for Monroe, 34 for his Federalist party opponent Rufus King of New York. But it was during the "Era of Good Feelings" that political issues arose that would dominate American politics for the next 40 years.
Unfortunately, the women in his life were not as well liked. “The Beautiful American” of France was not popular in Washington, DC. Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison, was a hard act for brave, reserved, formal and sick Elizabeth to follow. On account of her nature and health, she didn’t make social calls to the wives of government officials which annoyed those wives. Monroe’s eldest daughter, Eliza, became the unofficial White House hostess during her father’s two terms. But Eliza Monroe Hays was considered acerbic and rather imperious. She did not let others forget that her childhood best friend was Hortense, Queen of Holland, Napoleon’s step-daughter by his first wife Josephine and his sister-in-law as she married Louis Bonaparte in 1802.
Monroe was a great admirer of George Washington. Just as George Washington had done, Monroe took to the roads and waters to unify the nation. He broke his tours into 3 segments covering over 2000 miles in all. He was the first president to ride a steamboat (from Baltimore to Philadelphia) and the first sitting president to travel as far west as the Michigan territory.
Monroe had several unique problems during his first term as
President. The Panic of 1819 was
the first widespread and durable financial crisis in
the United States that
caused a general collapse of the American economy that lasted through 1821.
Geographic expansion during Monroe’s first term exposed latent tensions over the morality of slavery and the balance of economic power. In 1819 there were 22 states in all - 11 states with slavery and 11 states where slavery was not allowed. But Missouri wanted to become the 23rd state. The carefully maintained balance was in jeopardy. There was a Congressional bruiser of a political fight that was resolved by Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a non-slave state at the same time, so as not to upset the balance between slave and free states in the nation. The Compromise also outlawed slavery above the 36º 30' latitude line in the remainder of the Louisiana Territory.
A few days later after the compromise was signed, Monroe’s youngest daughter Maria married her first cousin in a White House ceremony – the first Presidential child to do so. The wedding was a small family affair with a guest list of only 42 people. Lauren McGwin's article about the wedding and the reception afterwards is a fascinating read. The article's summary on the White House Historical Association website says "Although offended when not invited to the wedding, high society was welcomed to a reception at Stephen Decatur's house on the eve of the duel that would take his life."
Despite the financial Panic of 1819 and the Missouri Crisis, James Monroe was re-elected unopposed in the election of 1820. Monroe won his second term by a true landslide - 231 to 1 in the electoral college. The hold-out was William Plumer, an elector from New Hampshire who casts his vote for John Quincy Adams.
From 1793 until 1933, presidents of the United States were inaugurated on March 4. Monroe's second inauguration was the first time that March 4 happened to fall on a Sunday. After consulting with Supreme Court justices on the matter, Monroe decided to hold the Inaugural ceremony on Monday, March 5. It was the first oath taking outdoors. According to witnesses, “The occasion was “simple, but grand, animating and impressive.” (p. 324). Following Washington’s example, Monroe makes it clear that he will not run for a third term. The most significant policy to emerge from Monroe’s 2nd term was the Monroe Doctrine warning European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. By late 1822 four main candidates are hoping to be America’s next President.
Left to right: John Quincy Adams, son of former President John Adams; Andrew Jackson, Hero of New Orleans; a prominent politician from Georgia who had held a number of positions in the Federal government William H. Crawford; and the architect of the Missouri Compromise and Speaker of the House Henry Clay.
Lafayette is 67 years old, largely unappreciated and ignored by the French, and in financial difficulties. He is accompanied by his middle-aged son, Georges, his secretary and a valet. From his arrival in New York on August 16, 1824 to his embarkation to return to France on September 7, 1825, presentations, plays, feasting, balls, and pageants greeted him wherever he traveled. His 13 month marathon trip to all 24 states is a triumph!
While Lafayette’s in the country he is witness to an unusual Presidential election. Andrew Jackson received the most popular votes and the most electoral votes in the Presidential election of 1824. But because of the crowded field of candidates, Jackson fell 32 electoral votes short of election – which throws the election into the House of Representatives.
But before the House of Representatives can consider the matter, at Speaker of the House Henry Clay’s invitation, Gen. Lafayette addresses a joint session of Congress on December 10, 1824. He makes a short speech thanking the country for its efforts on his family’s behalf during the French Revolution. He declared his faithfulness to American ideals of "liberty, equality, and true social order, and so it shall continue to be to my latest breath.’ Lafayette was the first foreign representative to address both houses of Congress. He spoke to both houses on the same day but not in a joint meeting. Therefore, Lafayette's speeches fail to meet the criteria according to the "History, Art & Archives: United States House of Representatives" website. Lafayette, however, was the subject of one of the only two addresses by a foreign representative to a Joint session of Congress: French Ambassador Andre de Laboulaye spoke before the assembled Congress to mark the centennial of the death of the Marquis de Lafayette on May 20, 1934.
The House chooses the next president on a snowy February 9, 1825. Lafayette is present for the official count of the electoral college vote, then leaves with the Senators while the representatives do their duty. John Quincy Adams is chosen on the first ballot. With the Presidential election settled, Lafayette heads south in February 1825.
He gets to Beaufort South Carolina on March 18, 1825. We
know that he was here – we know that he arrived after dark, but other details
remain a bit murky.
According to an account in the Southern Patriot newspaper of Charleston the week after Lafayette's visit: Upon his arrival he was met by a committee who led a procession to a reception room where citizens were gathered for opening remarks. Nearby was a ballroom. This specific source states that he remained in the ballroom for three hours and was then led back to the landing point. The implication of the text is that the Ball was held in the same building as the reception room.
Lafayette’s private secretary Auguste Levasseur provides this account in Lafayette in America, 1824 - 1825:
During the rest of our sail to Savannah, we skirted the islands of Hunting, Beaufort, Port Republican, Hilton Head, etc., and often by such narrow passages that the sides of our ship nearly touched the land on each side, and it had rather the look of rolling on the grasslands that surrounded it than that of gliding on the water which disappeared beneath it. It was nearly midnight when we passed in front of Beaufort, and everyone on board was sleeping, but we were soon awakened by the shouts of the citizens who had waited up to then on the bank, and General Lafayette, having gotten up, gave in to their entreaty that he spend some moments among them.
A woman purportedly named Hetty Barnwell - but whose identity cannot be verified – is purported to have been present at Lafayette’s arrival. But problems arise: The tale does not surface until almost 100 years after the event in a book not known for its accuracy. Furthermore, the account that was published in Historic Houses of South Carolina by Harriett Leiding (1921) is not the same as the typed transcript of the letter that is in our LAFAYETTE, MARQUIS DE vertical file and in the Barnwell Family Papers posted online.
Leiding's account is found on pages 245-246. She begins by writing that Lafayette came to Beaufort on March 2, 1805 - which is simply not accurate - and spoke from the balcony of the John Mark Verdier house. Leiding says that the ball was held at Barnwell Castle that unfortunately had "burned about 1879. An authentic account taken from an old letter written by a member of the Barnwell family, who entertained him, reads:"
We went into Beaufort last Thursday evening expecting LaFayette would come there on Friday. We had lent our house to give the ball in. The ball committee requested us to dress the rooms, as he was expected at two o'clock. We were obliged to leave the rooms half dressed, to go down to the bay to see the procession. We had a very good position as we went to McNeston's Balcony where the arch was erected, but all our trouble was in vain, for after waiting there about an hour we returned to our home. We were afraid that he would not come at all. However, at about twelve notice was given that he had come. We were, of course, deserted by the Guards, who went to conduct him to the house. The procession was then so handsome that I scarcely regretted his not coming in the day. All the boys in the town had lights in their hands, which had a beautiful effect, shining on the long, white plumes of the Guards. He stayed just long enough to shake hands all around and eat supper. As it was the first time that LaFayette had entered any place at night at least it had the effect of novelty!
Now compare the above account with this letter ascribed to Hetty Barnwell that's posted online in the Lowcountry Digital Library and that we have copies of stored in the BDC vertical files:
There is the inconsistency of the balcony's name "McNeston's" in the Leiding transcription; "Wescot's" in the Barnwell typescript. A quick search of the 1820 and 1830 Federal Censuses shows some men surnamed Wescot in other parts of South Carolina - but none in Beaufort. A quick search of the 1820 and 1830 Federal Censuses shows some men surnamed "Neston" in other parts of South Carolina but no "McNeston" at all. That, of course, does not mean that perhaps a Mr. Wescot or a Mr. McNeston was living in Beaufort in 1825 and that he had a balcony and that Lafayette may have stood upon said balcony and addressed Beaufortonians. Miss Barnwell also claims that the Ball was held in her aunt’s ground floor basement – without specifying the name of that aunt or the location of her aunt's house.
Francis Richard Lubbock, a native of Beaufort who became Governor of Texas, states in Six Decades in Texas or Memoirs of Francis Richard Lubbock (1900) that "At the time of La Fayette's visit I fairly effervesced with delightful enthusiasm. It was a holiday for everybody. Our guest was a hero. He came in my father's boat." He describes the scene 75 years after the occasion this way on page 5:
Lubbock was 9 years old when Lafayette came to Beaufort and thus 84 years old when his memoir was published. The Henry Shultz was a steamboat owned and operated by his father, Dr. Henry Thomas Willis Lubbock. A typo in the excerpt gives the year of Lafayette's arrival as "1824" rather than 1825. Several sources indicate that James Hamilton was indeed accompanying Lafayette on his travels in South Carolina and Georgia. The reason given for Lafayette's late arrival is that the steamboat got stuck on a sandbar and had to wait for the incoming tide to float it. Lubbock also says that the ball was held at "Mrs. Elliott's, [at which] I had the honor of being presented to the illustrious general, and complimented by him for my manliness and patriotism." We knot that the Intendent of Beaufort (read that as "mayor") was William Elliott, III and his family lived in what we call The Anchorage now in 1825. But there were a lot of Mrs. Elliotts in Beaufort in 1825.
This little newspaper article printed in the Tampa Tribune & Sun covers a lot of ground re: a Verdier-Lafayette connection.
Unfortunately, so far there is no corroborating evidence in other sources for the Verdier family's specific claims. You will notice in the newspaper article that some of the details are not consistent with other accounts: There is no mention of the grand procession. Lafayette just walks a several hundred feet from the steamer to the portico of the John Mark Verdier house at 801 Bay Street. This article gives the name of the steamship as "William Seabrook." But the Southern Patriot newspaper issue of March 17, 1825 clearly puts Lafayette travel on the Henry Shultze steamship to Edisto, Beaufort, and Savannah.
This article has the sequence of Lafayette’s journey backwards as well. Lafayette was in Charleston, then Edisto, then Beaufort, and left here for Savannah. The account also refers to a "sumptuous banquet" held in Lafayette's honor at the family home. It behooves us to take note that Verdier's daughter Mrs. I.V. Scull talked with the newspaper reporter but was not present at the 1825 Red Letter Local History day event.
Our LAFAYETTE vertical file contains some correspondence between Dr. E. H. Anderson of Beaufort and administration at the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library about sources in those institutions about Lafayette's visit to Beaufort in 1825. Their research was inconclusive beyond the Southern Patriot article quoted above.
Evan Thompson, former Executive Director of Historic Beaufort Foundation, references an unpublished "Reminiscences of Mary Barnwell Elliott Johnstone" from 1894 that we do not have in our holdings. In his "Lost & Found" column entitled "Where was Lafayette's famous visit?" in the short-lived Beaufort Today newspaper April 4, 2008 issue, he dismisses Johnstone's account out of hand. Drawing from her memories as a one year old toddler, Johnstone claims that Lafayette's reception was at the Barnwell house [ i.e., Barnwell Castle].
Thompson writes that none of the “witnesses” are particularly reliable – and I agree with him. So as it turns out, here are the facts that I can substantiate:
Kind of like Julius Caesar: Lafayette Came. Lafayette Saw. Lafayette conquered -- the hearts of Beaufortonians and Americans. Everything else related to his visit to our fair city remains the stuff of local legend.
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