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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 24, 1825

The Farewell Tour

Georgia was prepared for Lafayette’s visit.  Governor Troup extended the invitation to Lafayette on January 19, and Lafayette accepted February 20, just before starting the southern leg of the Farewell Tour.  On March 2, from the capital at Milledgeville, Governor Troup issued the following order, distributed throughout the state: “The Governor invites the surviving soldiers of the revolution to pay their respects to General Lafayette at the places most convenient for them.  They will find quarters provided for them.”

Savannah and Augusta had gone all out.  After visiting Hamburg, Lafayette crossed the Savannah River back to Augusta, and departed early the morning of March 25 to Warrenton, fifty miles distant.  The roads, athletically pockmarked, prompted most to horseback, except Lafayette because of his lame left leg; the carriage ride was so violent he had a “fit of vomiting.”  He spent the night at Warrenton, too ill to participate in much celebration.

At 4 PM the next day and twenty-five miles west, Lafayette was met by General Abercrombie and escorted into Sparta through a triumphal arch, followed by a reception, a masonic ceremony, and a public dinner.

Early the next morning on to Milledgeville.  He arrived at noon, freshened up, and it being Sunday, attended services at the Methodist Church at 3 PM.  From 5 to 10 PM he received visitors at the Government House, where he lodged.

On the 28th he reviewed the militia, met with Masons, had dinner with veterans at 3 PM in the State House yard, and capped the day with a ball where he is said to have been “mobbed by 300 ladies.”  The Georgia Journal reported six pocketbooks picked, one containing $4500; the perpetrator of the major theft was apprehended, confessed, and sentenced to four years in prison.

The following morning Lafayette left Milledgeville for Fort Mitchell, Alabama, 120 miles away.  At noon he arrived at Macon, which had not existed eighteen months before.  A brief hello and by mid-afternoon back on the road, Lafayette by carriage and everyone else on horseback.  At 9 PM they reached an Indian agency with 100 Indians scattered about and spent the night.  Next day they travelled thirty-two miles over “a dreadful wood road.”  They got caught in a storm “such as is never seen in Europe,” and took refuge in an old shanty which was already occupied by a couple of Indian hunters none too hospitable but non-threatening.  The storm passed after a few hours and the troop travelled to Moss’ Trading Camp where Lafayette met Hamley, a college educated Indian who gave him a tour of the gardens, the hens, and an enclosure housing deer.  Here they spent the night.

At 11 AM next morning they arrived at the Chattahoochee River, at what is today Lawson Field at Fort Moore, in a crook of the river known as Engineer’s Landing.  This spot today is easily accessible, once you have cleared security onto the base.  Lafayette was met by a crowd of Creek Indians, men, women, and children, who whooped and hollered an enthusiastic welcome.  Once ferried across the river, Lafayette was carried bodily up the bluff, as the Indians did not want him to so much as get his shoes soiled in mud.  He was greeted by Indian Chief Chilly McIntosh, whose father William was executed earlier in the year for signing the Treaty of Indian Springs granting Indian lands to the United States government. 

The Creeks prepared a feast in Lafayette’s honor, and played a rough-and-tumble game of stick-ball, in a way like lacrosse, which understates the ferocity of the competition.  Chilly McIntosh’s side won; Chilly scored seven points and was one of the most aggressive on the field.  Lafayette was liked and admired by the Indians, dating back to 1778 when he met with the Six Nations of the Iroquois, and they named him “Kayewla,” or “Brave Warrior.”  Fort Mitchell would become the starting point of the Georgia “Trail of Tears.” 

That afternoon Lafayette toured Fort Mitchell, escorted by the Alabama Committee of Arrangements.  Then to Haynes Crabtree Tavern, three miles west of Uchee Creek, where he spent the night.