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Lafayette's Return to America: Yorktown

A few weeks after his arrival, Lafayette went to Yorktown to attend the celebration of the anniversary of the surrender of Cornwallis, which had occurred forty-three years before. He was entertained in the house which had been Cornwallis's headquarters. Lafayette was provided with a bed; but many distinguished persons had to sleep in tents or on straw upon the floors of the houses, so great was the crowd.

A laurel wreath was offered to Lafayette at Yorktown; after wearing it on his head for a short while, he gave it to his friend, Colonel Nicholas Fish, who had helped him take a fort at Yorktown. "You must wear this also," he said. "It belongs to you more than it does to me."

As these two old comrades later on sailed up the Hudson River, Lafayette turned to Colonel Fish, and said, "Nicholas, do you remember when we were young, how we used to slide down those hills in an ox-sled with the girls from Newburgh?"

Then they fell to talking about the old times during the Revolution; often they would laugh over some remembered incident, and then again their eyes would fill with tears.

In Nashville, Tennessee, the hero was given a rousing welcome. In New Orleans, a band of Choctaw Indians, who had been camped there for a month, awaiting his arrival, marched before his carriage to see "the great warrior, brother of our good father, Washington."

Lafayette visited Mt. Vernon, the home of Washington. He went through the rooms, the halls, and over the grounds, with which he had been so familiar. He went to the tomb of his good chief, and stood with bowed head before the stone coffin. Reverently, he kneeled and kissed the last resting-place of the great man he had served so well and loved so truly. Tears were in his eyes as he rejoined his waiting companions.

Many other places did Lafayette visit in America. He was present at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument; he visited the aged Jefferson in Virginia; he went to Philadelphia.

In September, 1825, he was given a farewell dinner at the White House, by the new President, John Quincy Adams, and, shortly afterwards, sailed for France, amid the blessings and prayers of a grateful nation.