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Editor’s Note: This year marks the Bicentennial, 2024-2025, of Lafayette and his farewell tour, “Guest of the Nation”, which took place August 15, 1824-September 7, 1825. To commemorate the occasion, the LaGrange Daily News will be publishing a series of columns by Richard Ingram, a longtime resident of LaGrange and Chair of Friends of Lafayette.

Week of March 3, 1825

The Farewell Tour

Lafayette this week paid his respects to a friend who at first took him for a dupe, but without whom Lafayette likely would never have come to America.

The week began at Raleigh, breakfast with Colonel Polk, and a farewell reception before boarding his carriage for Fayetteville.

Fayetteville, founded in 1783, was the first to name itself in Lafayette’s honor, and the only place in which Lafayette set foot that was named after him.  It is on the west bank of Cape Fear River made famous by the 1962 movie with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, although many scenes were shot in Savannah.  The “Liberty Resolves” were signed in Fayetteville in June 1775, a year before the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution ratified on November 21, 1789, its endorsement delayed, as it was for the last of the ratifiers Rhode Island, until a bill of rights was added.  Fayetteville lost its bid to be the state capital to Raleigh, which was more centrally located.   

“The weather was dreadful, the rain fell in torrents,” said Levasseur, but throngs lined the streets anyway.  Lafayette was met by the militia at Clarendon Bridge, escorted to a raised platform in front of City Hall where he was lauded by North Carolina Supreme Court Justice John Louis Taylor, followed by a reception at City Hotel.  Lafayette lodged with John McRae, whose five-year-old son Duncan delivered a welcoming speech.

He left Fayetteville on March 5 at 4 PM, travelling through Cheraw, South Carolina, to Camden.  At 10 PM, in a bog, before reaching Camden, Lafayette’s carriage broke an axle.  The other carriages in the train had gotten far ahead, leaving Lafayette and son George behind, escorted by two dragoons who insisted that Lafayette and George mount their horses.  The two protested, but the dragoons insisted.  Lafayette had a lame left leg from a fall on a sheet of ice in 1803; this is a rare instance where he is said to have mounted a horse since the fall.

Busy day when he arrived at Camden, according to John Becica in “Trail Tales.”  The militia escorted him to a field where Lord Cornwallis pitched his headquarters for the Battle of Camden, August 16, 1780.  Following a reception there, Lafayette was taken to Lafayette Hall; serenaded by schoolgirls with an “Ode to Lafayette”; dinner at 5 PM at Kershaw Masonic Lodge #99; and a ball at the Camden Hotel till 11 PM.

The following day was solemn.  Lafayette would pay his respects to Major General Johann DeKalb.  DeKalb was German, married a French heiress, settled into a chateau near Versailles.  He spoke German, French, and English.  In 1768 he was tapped by French foreign minister Choiseul to go to America for four months and assess her readiness to declare independence; he did not find her ready.  When Silas Deane arrived in Paris and began recruiting French officers for the Continental Army, DeKalb asked for and was given rank of major general.  It was DeKalb who, knowing his desire to fight with Americans for their independence, introduced Lafayette to Silas Deane.  On December 7, 1776, Lafayette commissioned as a major general in the Continental Army, nineteen years old.  DeKalb was aboard “La Victoire” April 20, 1777, when it sailed for America.  He was at Valley Forge, one of those who, along with Lafayette, Alexander Hamilton, and John Laurens, translated Von Steuben’s heartfelt cuss words into English for the troops.  DeKalb thought, when they first met, that Lafayette was naïve and starry-eyed; he changed his mind.

At the Battle of Camden, as the Continental Commander Horatio Gates galloped off, DeKalb held his ground.  His horse shot out from under him, he was shot three times, some reports say bayoneted eleven times.  Lord Cornwallis ordered his surgeons to do their best for him: “I am sorry, sir, to see you, not sorry that you are vanquished, but sorry to see you so badly wounded.”  He died three days later, buried nearby.

DeKalb’s remains had been exhumed, to be placed beneath a new monument which Lafayette would dedicate.  The monument was an obelisk, its architect South Carolinian Robert Mills who also designed the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.  It was placed in front of Bethesda Presbyterian Church, also designed by Mills, at 502 DeKalb Street.  The base of the monument has 24 granite blocks, each stippled with the name of one of the 24 states.  The last block was engraved: “This stone was placed over the remains of Baron DeKalb by Gen. Lafayette, 1825.”

At noon, Lafayette, well-wishers, a band, Masons, and six officers as pallbearers made their way to Bethesda Presbyterian.  Reverend Robert M’Leod prayed.  The vault was sealed with its last stone, Lafayette’s hand touching the stone as it was lowered into place.

On to Columbia.