Road to Liberty: Lafayette Comes To Help America

At the age of 19, the Marquis de Lafayette crossed the Atlantic and joined General Washington’s Continental Army. Inspired by the promise of liberty made by the new nation’s Founding Fathers, and despite a royal decree prohibiting French officers from serving in America, Lafayette purchased his own ship, La Victoire, and landed on the coast of Georgetown, South Carolina  on June 13, 1777, despite objections from his family and King Louis XVI. Three months later, Lafayette offered his service to the United States without pay, and Congress named him a major general. By the end of the year, Lafayette was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine in southeastern Pennsylvania near the Delaware border. Washington, who recognized Lafayette’s courage and genius for strategy, entrusted him with a major role in the Battle of Yorktown. Years after his victory in the battle that won the War of Independence, Lafayette returned to America and visited every state in the nation he helped preserve.