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South Carolinians were in a tizzy exactly two centuries ago today. A VIP visitor was coming to hang out with them, and they were ready to roll out the red, white and blue carpet for him. Not just any old celeb, either, but a genuine, bona fide hero.
In order to understand why there was so much excitement surrounding this visit, it’s important first to understand the atmosphere in which it happened.
The U.S. was sinking into a funk in early 1824. President James Monroe’s second term was in its final year, and the battle to succeed him was already shaping up to be bitterly divisive. Think the 2024 presidential contest was ugly? It couldn’t hold a candle to 1824 when John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson set new standards for political nastiness.
Then they shattered it by going even deeper into the mud in 1828’s grudge match.
Monroe was a bit of an oddball. The last president to have served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, he made himself into a kind of living relic of that era. Monroe was also the last president to wear a powdered wig. He stubbornly clung to outdated 18th-century fashion by also wearing long white stockings and a tricorn hat – the latter earning him the nickname the “Last Cocked Hat.”
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But Monroe was no fool. He was a Patriot, both as an actual veteran of the Revolution and as one devoted to his country. With 1776 receding ever farther in the country’s memory, he worried Americans were losing the Revolutionary spirit. It needed resuscitation, stat!
The president couldn’t travel around the country himself, reviving national pride. Transportation was still very limited and time-consuming two centuries ago. Monroe couldn’t afford to be away from Washington for months at a time. So, he did the next best thing.
On February 4, 1824, he wrote to one of the few remaining towering figures of the conflict, inviting him to come to the U.S. and tour the country.
“A public ship shall be immediately ordered to the port which you may designate, to carry you to the country of your adoption in early life, and which has always cherished the most grateful recollection of your important services,” Monroe’s letter read.
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At age 67, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette, was one of the last living links to not only the War of Independence but to that greatest Founding Father of all, George Washington. The young French nobleman was a fair-haired boy to the Continental’s commanding general, who looked upon him almost as the son he never had. Shot in the leg during the 1777 Battle of Brandywine, he had literally bled for the Patriot cause. The two generations raised after the Revolution viewed him as an authentic hero.
Lafayette leapt at the chance to take the sentimental journey. Having returned home following the victory at Yorktown in 1781, he survived the chaos of the French Revolution and navigated his way through Napoleon’s reign. But now King Louis XVIII was back on the throne, and his spies were quietly keeping close tabs on the aristocrat’s activities, persuading him it was a good idea to get out of Dodge for a while.
Frequent members of our audience will recall an earlier story about how a 19-year-old Lafayette first set foot on American soil at Georgetown, S.C., on June 13, 1777 – where he stayed for two weeks before continuing his journey to Philadelphia. He spoke little English, didn’t know anyone in the Colonies and at the time had only the unbridled enthusiasm of youth going for him.
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RELATED | A VIP ARRIVES IN SOUTH CAROLINA
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It was a far different story when Lafayette landed in New York City on Monday, August 16, 1824. Though he had arrived on Staten Island the day before, the pious noble didn’t feel it appropriate to taint the Sabbath with a celebration. So, he waited a day.
And what a celebration it was, too. It’s believed 50,000 people (about one-third of the city’s population at the time) lined the streets, chanting his name and cheeringly wildly in the forerunner of the Big Apple’s ticker tape parades.
It was one gigantic rolling party from there on. For the next sixteen months, Lafayette was wined and dined, feted and honored, paraded and saluted like nobody ever before in the young nation’s history. There was an elaborate dinner at the White House – which was finally regaining its glitter after the Brits burned the place in 1814, calls on the elderly John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, cannon salutes and picnics, and, well, just about anything else folks could think of to make the occasion special.
As the triumphant progression made its way south, cities and towns were actually competing with one another to see who could put on a bigger welcoming show. Having Lafayette stay in your home was the highest honor of all – and is still proudly recorded on dozens of bronze markers outside historic residences.
The party continued unabated into 1825. By March, it was South Carolina’s turn to play host.
Late on the night of March 6, 2025 – exactly 200 years ago today – the hero arrived at Cheraw, S.C. and was formally greeted by a welcoming party. Fifteen cannons fired a salute in his honor. People shouted, “Welcome, Lafayette!” as he passed through town. After spending the night, it was on to the next stop on his Palmetto itinerary.
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Charleston threw open its arms when he arrived there on March 15, 1825, launching three days of balls, fireworks, and get-togethers with old veterans and pals (including a reunion with Francis Huger, son of South Carolina Revolutionary War figure and Lafayette’s friend Benjamin Huger).
The South Carolina leg of his tour wrapped up in Beaufort on March 18, where a 13-gun salute was fired. Lafayette made a speech at the John Mark Verdier House, known thereafter as the Lafayette Building.
By the time the marquis set sail for the trip home, he had visited all 24 states in the union. He had been seen by several hundred thousand people and had left an indelible impression on the young republic. Just as President Monroe had hoped, Lafayette’s triumphant tour had rekindled a sense of self-pride in the American people.
Much the way the U.S. Bicentennial helped revive flagging spirits in 1976, Lafayette’s visit taught third-generation Americans that the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness unleashed by the Revolution weren’t limited to the country’s founding days but rather were living principles that must be defended and passed on intact to from generation to generation.
A lesson we would be wise to remember two centuries after he departed our soil…
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Editor’s Note: A group called The Friends of Lafayette is staging a bicentennial tribute to Lafayette’s tour. South Carolina stops are planned for Cheraw on March 6, Camden March 7, Columbia March 10, Charleston March 12-17, and Beaufort March 18. Details are available at www.lafayette200.org.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
J. Mark Powell is an award-winning former TV journalist, government communications veteran, and a political consultant. He is also an author and an avid Civil War enthusiast. Got a tip or a story idea for Mark? Email him at mark@fitsnews.com.
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