THE BOY GENERAL - The Story of Marquis de Lafayette E-Book

Edward Cary

• Herausgeber: Abela Publishing
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

For any readers who have visited Union Square in New York, maybe you have seen a bronze statue standing among the trees of the park. It represents a tall young man, in the close-fitting uniform of an American General of the Revolution. He is erect and with his right hand he clasps a sword against his breast. His left hand is stretched out toward the statue of Washington. His name was Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, better known as Marquis de Lafayette. The story of his whole life is one of the most interesting and pleasing that has ever been written. This short volume will give only the story of his services to the United States of America, and of his life during the few years in which those services were rendered. The statue was set up in honor of these great services. If you ever embark upon reading the history of the USA, his name will forever be linked with that of General Washington. They were both brave, faithful, just, and generous, and both honored the name of American citizen—a name which Lafayette proudly claimed so long as he lived. =========== KEYWORDS/TAGS: 73, 77, Boy General, action, adventure, admiration, America, André, army, Arnold, attack, Austria, battalion, battle, Boston, brave, British, campaign, Canada, cannon, capture, Carlisle, cause, character, Clinton, command, commander-in-chief, Commissioners, Congress, Cornwallis, Count, countrymen, courage, Deane, Declaration, d'Estaing, Emperor, enemy, England, English, expedition, fight, fleet, France, freedom, French, gallant, garrison, General, government, gratitude, hero, honor, honour, horseback, independence, injustice, Island, Jersey, King, Lafayette, Lee, liberty, Lord, Louis, love, Major-General, march, Marquis de Lafayette, Monmouth, Napoleon, Newport, northward, officers, oppressed, overthrow, Paris, Paul, Philadelphia, Philippe, prison, prisoner, quarters, reconnaissance, reconnoissance, revolution, Revolutionary, River, Rochambeau, services, seventy-seven, seventy-three, soldier, statesman, statue, Sullivan, surrounded, three-cornered, Union, United States, Valley Forge, veteran, victory, Virginia, war, Washington, wound, York, Yorktown, young adult, YA

Leseprobe

The Boy-General The Story of Marquis de Lafayette

BY Edward Cary

An extract from

Vol. II.—Nos. 53 through 57.

[1880]

Resurrected by

Abela Publishing, London

[2018]

The Boy General

Typographical arrangement of this edition

© Abela Publishing 2018

This book may not be reproduced in its current format in any manner in any media, or transmitted by any means whatsoever, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, or mechanical ( including photocopy, file or video recording, internet web sites, blogs, wikis, or any other information storage and retrieval system) except as permitted by law without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Abela Publishing,

London

United Kingdom

2018

ISBN-13: 978-X-XXXXXX-XX-X

email

[email protected]

Website

Abela Publishing

Acknowledgements

The Publisher acknowledges the contribution of

Edward Cary

and

Harper’s Young People

in writing and publishing this story in a time well before electronic media was in use.

Chapter I

If any of my readers who live in the city of New York happen to be passing the lower end of Union Square some day, they will see, standing among the trees of the little park, a bronze statue. It is nearly opposite the corner of Broadway and Fourteenth Street, and is turned a little to one side, toward the noble statue of Washington on horseback, which is in the centre of the three-cornered space between the park, Fourteenth Street, and Union Square East. It represents a tall young man, in the close-fitting uniform of an American General of the time of the Revolution. With his right hand he clasps a sword against his breast. His left hand is stretched out toward Washington; his figure is erect, and inclined forward, as if about to spring from the prow of a boat, which the base of the statue is made to represent. This is a statue of the beloved and gallant Frenchman whom we commonly call Lafayette, whom the people of the Revolutionary days delighted to name "the young Marquis," and whose real name was Marie Jean Paul Roch Yves Gilbert Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. The story of his whole life is one of the most interesting and pleasing that has ever been written; but for the present I am to give you only the story of his services to America, and of his life during the few years in which those services were rendered. The statue that I have spoken of was set up in honor of these great services, in order that the young Americans who live in the full enjoyment of the blessings of freedom and order for which he fought may not forget him.

Lafayette was born in the province of Auvergne, France, on the 6th of September, 1757, shortly after the death of his father, who was an officer in the French army, and was killed at Minden. His own family was poor, but the death of his mother's father made him, while yet a child, very rich. As the custom was in those days in France, he entered the army while scarcely in his teens, and before he had left the Academy of Versailles, where he was educated. As was also the custom, he was married very young—while only sixteen—to a daughter of the house of Ayen and Noailles, who herself was only thirteen; but children though they were, they were possessed of strong natures, and their union was a very loving and happy one. Lafayette describes himself in boyhood as "silent because he neither thought nor heard much which seemed worth saying," and as having "awkwardness of manner, which did not trouble him on important occasions, but made him ill at ease among the graces of the court or the pleasures of a Paris supper." He was an ardent lover of freedom in the midst of an aristocratic society, and when his family wanted to attach him to the court he managed by a witty but offensive remark about the royal family to break up the arrangement. "Republican stories," he says, "charmed me," and he heard of the Declaration of American Independence with "a thrill of sympathy and joy."

He was just nineteen when, over a dinner given by an English Duke to the French officers of the garrison of Metz, he first learned of the Declaration. "My heart was instantly enlisted," he wrote, "and I thought of nothing but joining my flag." From that moment he regarded himself as a soldier in the army of American freedom. He knew his family would oppose him. "I counted, therefore, only on myself, and ventured to take for my motto cur non?" (why not?). He had great trouble in getting away. Going to Paris, he first obtained from the American agent there, Silas Deane, a promise of a commission as Major-General; but he had to keep everything very secret, to blind his family, his friends, the government—to avoid French and English spies. Only his girl-wife and two of his cousins knew what he was doing. Just as he had completed his plans, news came of the terrible defeats which Washington had suffered on Long Island and in the neighborhood of New York. The "arch-rebel," as the English called General Washington, was fleeing across the New Jersey plains, with only a handful of men, and the insurrection was believed to be nearly over. The American agent in Paris was dismayed and cast down. He told Lafayette that he could furnish him no vessel to go to America, and tried to persuade him to give up his project. Thanking Mr. Deane for his frankness, the brave young fellow answered, "Until now, sir, you have seen only my zeal; perhaps I may now be useful. I shall buy a ship which will carry your officers. We must show our confidence in the cause; and it is in danger that I shall be glad to share your fortunes." To cover his designs, he joined his uncle, the Prince of Paix, on a visit to London, where he was much courted. "At nineteen," he wrote, "I liked perhaps a little too well to trifle with the King I was about to fight, to dance at the house of the English Colonial Minister, in the company of Lord Rawdon, just arrived from New York, and to meet at the opera the General Clinton whom I was to meet the next time at the battle of Monmouth." Finally his arrangements were all made, and he came back to France to join his vessel. To his dismay, he was met by an order from the King to report, under arrest, at Marseilles. He pretended to start for that city, but on the way, disguised as a postilion, he turned aside, and after nearly being caught while sleeping on some straw in the stable of a post inn, he finally boarded his ship, with Baron De Kalb and others, and set sail for America. It was the 26th of April, 1777, "six months, filled with labor and impatience," since he had formed his plan. He was seven weeks on the sea. His ship was clumsy, and, armed with "only two bad cannon and a few muskets, could not have escaped the smallest English cruiser." Of these he encountered several, but lucky winds bore them away from him. He slipped between the ships guarding the coast, and landed in the night near the city of Charleston, South Carolina. "At last," he says, "I felt American soil beneath my feet, and my first words were a vow to conquer or perish in the cause."

He straightway set out for Philadelphia, where Congress was in session, and near which the army of Washington was encamped. The journey was long and fatiguing. From Petersburg, Virginia, he wrote to his wife: "I set out grandly in a carriage; at present we are on horseback, having broken my carriage, according to my admirable habit; I hope to write you in a few days that we have arrived safely on foot." The fatigue of the journey could not repress his constant gayety. When he reached Philadelphia, Congress was greatly bothered with foreign adventurers more anxious for rank and pay than to fight for America. Lafayette perceived the coolness of his reception, but far from being discouraged, he wrote to the President of Congress, "By the sacrifices that I have made I have a right to demand two favors: one, to serve without pay; the other, to begin my service in the ranks." Carried away by such generous devotion, Congress immediately gave Lafayette a commission as Major-General, and Washington placed him on his own staff.

Chapter II

It was shortly after his reaching Philadelphia that Lafayette met Washington for the first time. "Though surrounded by officers and citizens," writes the young Frenchman, "his majestic face and form could not be mistaken, while his kind and noble manners were not less unmistakable." The veteran commander and the boyish lover of liberty and adventure were instantly drawn to each other. Washington invited Lafayette to join him at a review of the American army—"eleven thousand men, only fairly armed, and worse clothed, their best clothing the gray hunting shirts of the Carolinas." "We cannot but feel a little abashed," remarked Washington, "in the presence of an officer who comes to us from the army of France."

"It is to learn, not to teach, that I am here," was the modest reply. "This way of talking," adds Lafayette, "made a good impression, for it was not common among the Europeans."

On the 11th of September, 1777, Lafayette saw his first battle. The English had landed at the Capes of the Delaware, and marched on Philadelphia. Washington was deceived by bad scouts, and before he knew it the British had got past his army; and though the Americans fought bravely, they were obliged to give way. In trying to rally them, Lafayette was badly wounded by a musket-ball in the leg. For some time, in his zeal, he did not notice the wound, until an aide-de-camp saw the blood, which had filled his boot, and was running over the top. Hastily dismounting to have the wound bandaged, Lafayette instantly took to his saddle again; and it was only at midnight, a dozen miles from the battle-field, and when a stand had at last been made, that he consented to give up and be properly cared for. For six weeks he was kept in bed; and it was not until the latter part of November that he again entered active service, which he did before his wound was fully healed. On the 25th of that month, at the head of three hundred and fifty men, he was making a "reconnoissance," i. e., trying to find where the enemy were, and how many there were of them, when he suddenly came upon the British advance guard, strongly placed, with cannon. With a daring joined with prudence which was very rare in one so young, he attacked the enemy with such spirit that they thought he must have a large force with him, and retreated. Lafayette, who knew he might soon be surrounded with his little band, withdrew rapidly to a place of safety. "My experiment would have cost me dear," he writes, "if those who might have destroyed me had not counted too much on those who ought to have captured me." The British General was Lord Cornwallis, who then took the first of many lessons which Lafayette, "the boy," as he called him, was to teach him in the art of war.

This little fight had quite important results. It gave Washington time to get his army safely back into the country, and to take up quarters for the winter at Valley Forge. Congress was greatly pleased, and passed a vote asking Washington to give Lafayette command of a division, which was done. Scarcely turned twenty, the young soldier found himself at the head of a body of picked men, mostly Virginians, whom he tried hard to make the flower of the army in activity, discipline, and courage. He shared all the hardships and miseries of the terrible winter at Valley Forge, where the army underwent untold sufferings. From 18,000 men it was reduced to 5000.

The British lay well housed and idle in Philadelphia. There was no fighting going on, and the country simply forgot and neglected its gallant soldiers. These were camped in a wooded hollow among the hills, and during that winter deeper snow than had been seen for many years buried the country.

Lafayette writes that "in his night visits about the camp" he found the sentinels with bare feet frozen at their posts, and men without coats, often without shirts, huddled on beds of branches about the camp fires, unable, from hunger and cold, to sleep. For days together one scant meal a man was all that could be had. In the midst of such suffering the noble boy lived as his men did, fasting as they fasted, and denying himself everything. "Ill at ease" as he had been "among the pleasures of a Paris festival," he was at home on that cold hill-side, and attracted universal admiration by his simple self-denial, his cheerful and constant devotion.

Meanwhile Congress was divided into two quarrelsome parties; and while it had not time to attend to Washington's earnest prayers for relief for his starving army, it found plenty of time to plan to put another General over his head, and to try to carry on the war without him. To aid in this mad scheme they sought to win Lafayette by offering him a separate command of an army that was to march into Canada.

Faithful in his duty to his commander and his friends, Lafayette refused to take the place unless he could receive all his orders direct from Washington. This could not be refused, but it cooled the zeal of Congress, and when Lafayette arrived at Albany, where he was to have found men and means for the invasion of Canada, he found neither one nor the other. Seeing that it was too late to wait long for them, he promptly gave up the plan. He took a long journey northward to try to make friends with the Indians, whom he managed with great skill, and then came back to camp with Washington. He was very glad to rejoin his beloved General, who immediately gave him command of his old division, and sent him out, as he had done in the fall, to get news of the enemy.

Clinton, the English commander, learned of the movement, and resolved to capture the daring "youngster." Lafayette had only 2000 men and no cannon; Clinton sent out 7000 with fourteen cannon after him. Some militia placed to guard a road that led around Lafayette's little army fled when the enemy came up, and before he knew it Lafayette was surrounded. Clinton, delighted with the prospect, sent an invitation to his lady friends in Philadelphia to meet Lafayette at supper that evening, so sure was he of capturing him; and the Admiral of the fleet was directed to set apart a vessel to take the prisoner to England. But they were reckoning without their host. Lafayette never lost his cool head for a moment. Arranging his men in the woods so as to make them seem many more than they were, he marched with such order that the English were deceived, and feared to attack him, and while they hesitated he got his men out of the trap into which they had fallen, and returned to the main camp.