by Jack Kelly
Traveling down the Hudson, the Frenchmen passed Saratoga, where Horatio Gates had achieved his supreme victory. That general’s gratification in the successful conclusion of the war was marred by the 1783 death of Elizabeth, “my Companion of Nine and Twenty years,” at age forty-seven. He later married a wealthy spinster who was happy to listen to the war stories of the Victor of Saratoga. Gates left his Virginia estate for the social life of New York. He was always willing to lend money to “the poor fellows who have been our faithful companions in the war.”11
Back in New York City, the indefatigable Lafayette found himself troweling mortar for yet another cornerstone, this for the Apprentices’ Library in Brooklyn Heights, not far from the spot where Washington had slipped his defeated army across the East River. A group of children was on hand and Lafayette helped lift each of them to a safe spot to watch the ceremony. One he took in his arms and kissed on the cheek was a six-year-old named Walt Whitman, who would one day write: “I understand the large hearts of heroes, / The courage of present times and all times.”
Large hearts.
On a hot day in June, Lafayette eagerly showed his son George the scene near Brandywine Creek, outside Philadelphia, where he had first experienced the delicious, horrible intensity of battle. His memories still vivid, he pointed to the spot where a British musket ball had pierced his leg. Yes, here was where his blood had soaked American soil.
On September 6, 1825, Lafayette celebrated his sixty-eighth birthday at the White House. He was an old man—few of his comrades had lived so long. The Revolution, the war he had fought, had been an affair of youth. Nathanael Greene was thirty-two when it started, Anthony Wayne thirty, Henry Knox twenty-four, Alexander Hamilton twenty. They had fought with the intensity of youth. They had taken the risks that come easily to the young, had seen with the clarity of youth, had dreamed the dreams of youth. They had beheld the phantasmagoria of possibilities that is visible only to the young. They had persevered. They had won. They were, as Lafayette had long ago marveled, “a band of giants.”
Now Lafayette, the youngest of them all, was about to take his leave. A dazzling sun shone on the crowd that gathered around the president’s mansion and lined the route to a wharf along the Potomac. Under the portico of the house now occupied by John Quincy Adams, the president spoke the nation’s farewell. “You alone survive,” he told the aging warrior. He spoke of a “tie of love, stronger than death.”12 You alone—Lafayette was almost too moved to utter a word. He blessed his adopted country and embraced its president. Both men wept.
Twenty-four cannon fired salutes, signaling the time for departure. Lafayette climbed into a carriage. Children perched on shoulders to watch him pass. The crowd of spectators at the river front “remained in the most profound silence.”
The deep significance of the moment, of the Revolution and those who had fought for it, of the men and women who had accomplished extraordinary things, of the debt owed, of the fleeting nature of history, of the mortality of heroes, all these ideas clenched throats, watered eyes, and touched with awe the crowd of watchers.
Lafayette climbed aboard a launch that would take him down the river to the Brandywine. The warship, commissioned in his honor, would carry him home, never to return.
He waved to the quiet crowd and was gone.
Notes
Chapter 1: Knowledge of the Military Art, 1754
1.Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), xix.
2.Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington: A Military Life (New York: Random House, 2005), 39.
3.Ibid., 32.
4.Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York: A.A. Knopf, 2000), 59.
5.Chernow, Washington, 45.
6.Thomas E. Crocker, Braddock’s March: How the Man Sent to Seize a Continent Changed American History (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2009), 242.
7.Lengel, General George Washington, 51.
8.Crocker, Braddock’s March, 100.
9.Ibid., 125.
10.Don Higginbotham, Daniel Morgan, Revolutionary Rifleman (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 5.
11.Crocker, Braddock’s March, 90.
12.Ibid., 134.
13.Arthur Quinn, A New World: An Epic of Colonial America from the Founding of Jamestown to the Fall of Quebec (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1994), 458.
14.Anderson, Crucible of War, 95.
15.Crocker, Braddock’s March, 129.
16.Ibid., 121.
17.Winthrop Sargent, ed., The History of an Expedition Against Fort du Quesne, in 1755 (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1856), 201.
18.Crocker, Braddock’s March, 226.
19.Ibid., 231.
20.Chernow, Washington, 61.
21.Crocker, Braddock’s March, 232.
22.Benson Bobrick, Angel in the Whirlwind: the Triumph of the American Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 125.
23.Lengel, General George Washington, 62.
Chapter 2: Blows Must Decide, 1774
1.Russell Bourne, Cradle of Violence: How Boston’s Waterfront Mobs Ignited the American Revolution (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 90–91.
2.Richard Archer, As If an Enemy’s Country: The British Occupation of Boston and the Origins of Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 25.
3.Bourne, Cradle of Violence, 116.
4.Ibid., 109.
5.Harlow G. Unger, Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2010), 61.
6.Gerald M. Carbone, Nathanael Greene: A Biography of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 10.
7.Ibid., 11.
8.North Callahan, Henry Knox, General Washington’s Genera (New York: Rinehart, 1958), 25.
9.Carbone, Nathanael Greene, 16–17.
10.Benson Bobrick, Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 111.
11.John W. Shy, A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), 104, 115.
12.Arthur Bernon Tourtellot, Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution (New York: Norton, 1963), 133.
13.Theodore Draper, A Struggle for Power: The American Revolution (New York: Times Books, 1996), 502.
Chapter 3: The Predicament We Are In, 1775
1.Arthur Bernon Tourtellot, Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution (New York: Norton, 1963), 234.
2.Willard Sterne Randall, Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor (New York: Morrow, 1990), 83.
3.Willard Sterne Randall, Ethan Allen: His Life and Times (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), 290.
4.Ibid., 37.
5.Ibid., 419.
6.Christopher Ward, The War of the Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 86.
7.John E. Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 56.
8.James L. Nelson, With Fire & Sword: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Beginning of the American Revolution (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2011), 282.
9.Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 201.
10.Bruce Chadwick, The First American Army: The Untold Story of George Washington and the Men Behind America’s First Fight for Freedom (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2005), 29.
11.Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 77.
12.John Richard Alden, General Charles Lee, Traitor or Patriot? (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,1951), 8.
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13.Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (New York: Walker, 2002), 69.
14.David G. McCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 64.
15.Page Smith, A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), 648.
16.McCullough, 1776, 79.
Chapter 4: Learning to Be Soldiers, 1775
1.Michael A. Bellesiles, ed., Lethal Imagination: Violence and Brutality in American History (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 94.
2.Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 34.
3.Benson Bobrick, Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 169.
4.Willard Sterne Randall, Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor (New York: Morrow, 1990), 155.
5.North Callahan, Daniel Morgan, Ranger of the Revolution (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961), 65.
6.Randall, Benedict Arnold, 167.
7.Justin Harvey Smith, Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony: Canada, and the American Revolution (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907), 568.
8.Randall, Benedict Arnold, 171.
9.Thomas A. Desjardin, Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold’s March to Quebec, 1775 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 62.
10.Isaac Senter, The Journal of Isaac Senter (New York: New York Times Books, 1969), 27.
11.Randall, Benedict Arnold, 182.
12.Kenneth Lewis Roberts, March to Quebec: Journals of the Members of Arnold’s Expedition (New York: Doubleday 1938), 320.
13.Hal T. Shelton, General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution: From Redcoat to Rebel (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 67, 78.
14.Bobrick, Angel in the Whirlwind, 168.
15.Randall, Benedict Arnold, 208.
16.Desjardin, Through a Howling Wilderness, 166.
17.Michael P. Gabriel, Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002), 134.
18.Page Smith, A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), 615.
19.George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin, Rebels and Redcoats (Cleveland: World Pub., 1957), 125–26.
20.Roberts, March to Quebec, 538.
21.Callahan, Daniel Morgan, 109.
22.Shelton, General Richard Montgomery and the American Revolution, 158.
Chapter 5: Precious Convoy, 1776
1.Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 35.
2.Ibid., 40.
3.Ibid., 38.
4.David G. McCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 83.
5.Ibid., 83.
6.Puls, Henry Knox, 41.
7.John P. Becker, The Sexagenary: Or, Reminiscences of the American Revolution (Albany, NY: J. Munsell, 1866), 34.
8.McCullough, 1776, 86.
9.Ibid., 87.
10.Ibid., 90.
11.Richard Wheeler, Voices of 1776 (New York, Crowell, 1972), 101–102.
12.Page Smith, A New Age Now Begins: A People’s History of the American Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), 650.
13.Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 226.
14.McCullough, 1776, 91.
15.Chernow, Washington, 226.
16.Henry Steele Commager, ed., The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 180.
17.George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin, Rebels and Redcoats (Cleveland: World Pub., 1957), 107.
18.Wheeler, Voices of 1776, 103.
19.Richard M. Ketchum, Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1999), 219.
20.Christopher Ward, The War of the Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 132.
21.McCullough, 1776, 110.
22.Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington: A Military Life (New York: Random House, 2005), 133.
Chapter 6: Sudden and Violent, 1776
1.David G. McCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 118.
2.Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington: A Military Life (New York: Random House, 2005), 129.
3.David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 148.
4.Dominick A. Mazzagetti, Charles Lee: Self Before Country (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013), 108.
5.Paul David Nelson, William Alexander, Lord Stirling (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987), 2.
6.Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (New York: Walker, 2002), 84.
7.Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 82.
8.Richard M. Ketchum, Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1999) 70.
9.McCullough, 1776, 123.
10.Terry Golway, Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution (New York: H. Holt, 2005), 78.
11.Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 52.
12.McCullough, 1776, 136.
13.Ibid., 136.
14.Schecter, The Battle for New York, 106.
15.Puls, Henry Knox, 56.
16.Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 46.
17.William Patterson Cumming, The Fate of a Nation: The American Revolution through Contemporary Eyes (London: Phaidon, 1975), 102.
18.Ibid., 104.
19.George Athan Billias, ed., George Washington’s Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership (New York: Da Capo Press, 1964–1969), 141–42.
20.McCullough, 1776, 159.
21.Billias, George Washington’s Generals and Opponents, 142.
22.Schecter, The Battle for New York, 131.
23.Nelson, William Alexander, 85.
24.Schecter, The Battle for New York, 146.
25.Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 97.
26.George F. Scheer and Hugh F. Rankin, eds., Rebels and Redcoats (Cleveland: World Pub., 1957), 167.
27.Schecter, The Battle for New York, 150.
28.Nelson, William Alexander, 88.
29.Gerald M. Carbone, Nathanael Greene: A Biography of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 37.
30.McCullough, 1776, 180.
31.Cumming, The Fate of a Nation, 106.
32.McCullough, 1776, 179.
33.Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 248.
Chapter 7: Valcour Island, 1776
1.Benson Bobrick, Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 176.
2.Ibid., 176.
3.George Athan Billias, ed., George Washington’s Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership (New York: Da Capo Press, 1964–1969), 171.
4.Frederic Franklyn Van de Water, Lake Champlain and Lake George (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1946), 180.
5.Willard Sterne Randall, Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor (New York: Morrow, 1990), 260.
6.Ibid., 242.
7.Ibid., 262.
8.Eliot A. Cohen, Conquered into Liberty: Two Centuries of Battles along the Great Warpath that Made the American Way of War (New York: Free Press, 2011), 185.
9.Richard Wheeler, Voices of 17
76 (New York: Crowell, 1972), 150.
10.James L. Nelson, Benedict Arnold’s Navy: The Ragtag Fleet that Lost the Battle of Lake Champlain but Won the American Revolution (Camden, ME: International Marine, 2006), 318.
11.Thomas J. Fleming, 1776, Year of Illusions (New York: Norton, 1975), 397.
12.Randall, Benedict Arnold, 317.
Chapter 8: An Indecisive Mind, 1776
1.Henry Steele Commager, ed., The Spirit of ’Seventy-Six (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 460.
2.David G. McCullough, 1776 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 207.
3.Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York: The City at the Heart of the American Revolution (New York: Walker, 2002), 183.
4.McCullough, 1776, 211.
5.Ibid., 212.
6.Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 254.
7.David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 95.
8.McCullough, 1776, 215.
9.Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 62.
10.John E. Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 142.
11.Chernow, Washington, 258.
12.Charles Bracelen Flood, Rise, and Fight Again: Perilous Times along the Road to Independence (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1976), 102.
13.Ibid., 103.
14.Ibid., 118.
15.Ibid., 123.
16.Schecter, The Battle for New York, 255.
17.Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 114.
18.Schecter, The Battle for New York, 256.
19.McCullough, 1776, 247.
20.Ibid., 244.
