Lafayette in the Somewhat
United States
Sarah Vowell (Riverhead,
2015)
Sarah Vowell claims that
she is not so much a historian as a 'historian-adjacent, nonfiction
wise guy', and she's probably right; but perhaps her books are all
the more deliciously readable for it, at least in this moment when
her vernacular is fresh. She may also be overstating the case,
because there's a real historical argument being made in this book,
placing the American Revolution in the context of the long-running
rivalry between Great Britain and France.
What we know as the
French and Indian War was the American chapter of the Seven Years
War, which might have been termed the first World War, stretching as
it did across parts of four continents. In the concluding peace
treaty of 1763, the French were humiliated. "Thus the massive
chunk of North America for more than two centuries–from the
Atlantic to the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico–was downsized to
scraps." Another, more personal consequence was that the future
Marquis de Lafayette lost his father. "The death of his father
at the hands of British forces merely provided the boy with a
specific target at a young age. Soldiering in general was his
destiny, just as it had been for his father before him..."
Vowell describes how
Lafayette absconded to Philadelphia when he was only nineteen.
Orphaned but wealthy, he left behind a wife who would shortly bear
their first child; evidently he was more interested in finding a
father than in being one, and he adopted George Washington to fill
the role. It helped that he paid his own way to America, and offered
to serve without pay. "On July 31 [1777] Congress commissioned
him as a volunteer major general, which is to say, he was basically
an unpaid intern wearing a general's sash."
In his first action, at
the battle of Brandywine, Lafayette sustained a musket-ball wound in
his leg, which he bore with "pride and delight"–here,
indeed, was a young man who "tended to confuse glory with love."
In due course, Lafayette became of military use to Washington,
heading up a division of Virginians; his unquenchable loyalty may
have been even more welcome, as Washington was being second-guessed
by the Continental Congress and members of his own staff. The heroic
stature both men would later attain was no sure thing in the winter
of 1777-1778.
Vowell marches us about
from Boston to the Carolinas, following the fortunes of the
revolutionaries, and the diplomatic and naval goings-on that would
ultimately decide their fate. Only in 1781, when at last they had the
French navy coordinating to deny the British supplies and
reinforcements, did the Americans gain the upper hand in their
negotiations with the King.
The book abounds with
thought-provoking irony. If we had stayed in the British Empire,
would slavery have ended sooner, as it did in the British West Indies
in the 1830's? Americans went to war protesting taxes levied to pay
for the last war; the French government later lost its head, at least
partly over taxes it raised to fight in that cause. The shelves may
not have needed another volume about the American Revolution, but now
it has one more you can take to the beach, and you'll probably stay
awake reading it.
May 2017, by email.
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