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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 November 18, 1824.

Taylor Swift is a PageantMaster.  She has produced a three-and-one-half hour spectacle of costume, music, and choreography, a vortex which keeps 60000 fans on their feet till numbness sets in and creates a numen of harmony and unity.  It wears off, but the thrill is obviously worth the price of a ticket.  PageantMasters were commonplace at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, when Progressivism prompted parades, historical dramas, and tableaux vivants in service to entertainment, boosterism, and social and political transformation.  Lafayette was a PageantMaster, uncontrived, whose only spectacle was the image he evoked of America as a haven of liberty.  He forged a unity and a national pride not seen since George Washington, 57 at the time, visited all thirteen states during his first term as president.

Lafayette took leave of James and Dolly Madison after four days at Montpelier.  At Orange County Courthouse, on his way to Fredericksburg, he passed through a triumphal arch, met with former Virginia Governor Barbour, and, with all of town turned out, praised the courage of the men whom he commanded as major general during the Virginia Campaign.  It would have been impolite, and to no useful purpose, to have mentioned that desertions were so bad he resorted at first to the drastic measure of hanging one deserter, thought better of such extremes, and instead offered free passes to anyone who wanted to go home.  “The shaming worked and desertions stopped,” says Mike Duncan in “Hero of Two Worlds.”

Fredericksburg turned out in mass.  Forty years before, Lafayette had made a courtesy side trip to visit Mary Ball Washington, General Washington’s imperious mother, who lived at Fredericksburg; she made him a mint julep and warm gingerbread.  Now, led by “Lafayette’s Cadets,” a corps of twelve- to sixteen-year-olds, Lafayette rode down Hanover Street to Caroline Street.  Reception, ball, and finally, rest at Farmer’s Hotel.

George Washington became a Freemason at Fredericksburg; Lafayette was likely inducted when he was a captain in the French Army at Metz.  Masons from Fredericksburg Lodge #4 escorted Lafayette to Sunday service at St. George’s Episcopal Church.  To avoid contention, given Lafayette’s known abolitionist opinions, and unknown to Lafayette, the Virginia Herald published a strongly worded request: “Owners of slaves are respectfully solicited to keep their slaves within their lots.  All colored people are warned that they are not to appear on any of the streets through which the procession will pass.”

Monday, November 22, after a reception at Gray’s Tavern, Lafayette boarded a steamboat to travel overnight on the Potomac River back to Washington, D.C.

Waiting for him at Gadsby’s Hotel were invitations to visit all the other states.  This Farewell Tour was to have been a four-month affair.  Lafayette decided to stay on and see the rest of the United States.  He would spend winter in Washington and make the Southern-to-Midwest loop come spring.  He discussed his plans with President Monroe at dinner that evening.

The next day, November 24 he met with a delegation of Choctaw and Chickasaw at Gadsby’s Hotel.  Native Americans admired Lafayette.

At 1 PM Lafayette left the Gadsby Hotel for a four-and-one-half day side trip to Baltimore.  He arrived at 10PM.  He was interested in attending the Baltimore State Cattle Show where livestock and the latest agricultural methods would be on display.  Lafayette was now France’s First Farmer.  He saw in efficient farming how France could raise its standard of living, the same sentiment shared by Washington for the United States.

On the 25th Lafayette proceeded to the Maryland Agricultural Society grounds, near Maryland Tavern, five miles outside Baltimore.  As honored guest he bestowed prizes for horses, cows, and sheep.

That evening at the Baltimore Theater he attended “The School for Scandal,” written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, which critic William Hazlitt called “the most finished and faultless comedy.”  Besides, it was one of George Washington’s favorites.