George Washington met the nineteen-year-old Marquis de Lafayette on August 5, 1777, less than a week after the Continental Congress appointed the young Frenchman to be a volunteer Major General in the Continental Army. Lafayette was assigned to serve on Washington's staff. Lafayette, one of the richest young men in France, left his home country on March 25, 1777, filled with desire to fight against the British in the American Revolution. His father, also known as the Marquis de Lafayette, had been killed in the Battle of Minden fighting the British in 1759, two years after the young Lafayette was born. He was raised to despise the British and to revere his father and other military forbearers.The Marquis was recruited to serve in the American cause by Silas Deane, who headed an American effort in Paris to enlist French Army officers in the cause. Lafayette was not recruited for his military acumen—the young man had yet to see combat. Instead, Deane believed that Lafayette would be valuable to the American cause because of his connections to the Court of Louis XVI.
Lafayette—going against the wishes of the king and of his father-in-law, the Duc D'Ayen—purchased his own ship for the voyage, which he named the Victoire. The ship landed off the coast of Georgetown, South Carolina, on June 13, 1777, after fifty-six days at sea. Lafayette and the other French officers on board then rode to Philadelphia to volunteer for the Continental Army. The nineteen-year-old received his Major General's sash on July 31. Five days later, he met George Washington who travelled to Philadelphia to brief members of Congress on the precarious state of military affairs at a dinner; the British were on the move toward the city.
The two men bonded almost immediately. The forty-five-year-old Washington, who had no natural children of his own, was taken by the young man's ebullience and profounddedication to the American cause, as well as by the fact that he was a fellow Mason. Lafayette simply stood in awe of the American commander-in-chief. Writing in his memoir about the pair's first encounter, Lafayette explained, "Although he was surrounded by officers and citizens, it was impossible to mistake for a moment his majestic figure and deportment; nor was he less distinguished by the noble affability of his manner."1
After dinner Washington, to Lafayette's delight, asked the young Frenchman to accompany him on an inspection of the city's defenses, and welcomed him to the cause. Lafayette later wrote in his memoir about that moment in the third person: "The majesty of his figure and his height were unmistakable. His affable and noble welcome to M. de Lafayette was no less distinguished, and M. de Lafayette accompanied him on his inspections. The General invited him to establish himself in his house
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