Welcome! Friend of America! 1824-25
It was twenty-five years after the death of Washington. It was 1824. In New York City, joy bells were ringing, bands playing, cannon saluting, flags waving, and two hundred thousand people wildly cheering.
The Marquis de Lafayette was visiting America. He was landing at the Battery. He was no longer the slender, debonair, young French officer who, afire with ardent courage, had served under Washington, but a man of sixty-seven, large, massive, almost six feet tall, his rugged face expressing a strong noble character, his fine hazel eyes beaming with pleasure and affection. But his manner was the same courtly, gracious one of the young man of nineteen who so long ago had exclaimed, “I will join the Americans—I will help them fight for Freedom!”
Since the American War for Independence, Lafayette had been through the terrible French Revolution, and had spent five years in an Austrian prison. Now, as he landed once more on American soil, he was the honoured and idolized guest of millions of grateful citizens of the United States.
As he stepped from a gayly decorated boat, and stood among the throngs of cheering New York folk, his eyes filled with tears. He had expected only a little welcome; instead he found the whole Nation waiting expectant and eager to do him honour.
His tour of the country in a barouche drawn by four white horses, was one continuous procession. Enormous crowds gathered everywhere to greet him as he went from city to city, town to town, and village to village. He passed beneath arches of flowers and arbours of evergreens. Children and young girls welcomed him with songs, and officials with addresses. He was banqueted and fêted. “Lafayette! Lafayette!” was the roar that went up from millions of throats.
At Fort McHenry, he was conducted into the tent that had been Washington’s during the War for Independence. There, some of Lafayette’s old comrades-in-arms, veteran members of the Society of the Cincinnati, were awaiting him.
Lafayette embraced them with tears of joy. Then looking around the tent, and seeing some of Washington’s equipment, he exclaimed in a subdued voice:—
“I remember! I remember!”
Later in the day, a procession was formed, which as it passed through the streets of Baltimore, displayed in a place of honour the crimson silk banner of Count Pulaski, embroidered for him by the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
In Boston, Lafayette in a barouche drawn by four beautiful white horses, was escorted by a brilliant procession through the streets. At the Common, he passed between two lines of school-children, girls in white, and boys in blue and white; and a lovely little girl crowned him with a wreath of blossoms.
Across Washington Street, were thrown two arches decorated with flags, and inscribed with the words:—
WELCOME, LAFAYETTE!
The Fathers in glory shall sleep,
That gathered with thee to the fight,
But the Sons will eternally keep
The Tablet of Gratitude bright.
We bow not the neck, and we bend not the knee,
But our hearts, Lafayette, we surrender to thee.
And when he entered Lexington, he passed beneath an arch on which was written in flowers:
Welcome! Friend of America!
To the Birthplace of American Liberty.