Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution

by David A. Clary

Book Overview

They were unlikely comrades-in-arms. One was a self-taught, middle-aged Virginia planter in charge of a ragtag army of revolutionaries, the other a rich, glory-seeking teenage French aristocrat. But... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553804359
• ISBN13: 9780553804355
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 564 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.7" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

OUTSTANDING

In an age when we talk about 'freedom fries" as opposed to frech fries, one should read this book. You will get a true, concise picture of just how much we owe to the French during the Revolution! The book is thoroughly researched and will keep your interest chapter to chapter. As a history teacher, I can honestly say that I actually learned inportant information from this book that will benefit the students in my classes. A truly materfully written book that will not dissapoint the reader!!

Beautifully written, thoroughly researched

This beautifully written book vies with the best novels of our time for the ability to engross a reader. It's one of the best examples of writing I've ever seen. Most authors are either good with style or good with the mechanics, but Clary is clearly a master of both. The unusually high quality of the writing led me to think perhaps he was weak on fact. That's not the case, though, as you can see after reading through the nearly 20 pages of biography and nearly 100 pages of backnotes. The detailed chronology also shows the writer's devotion to getting his facts right. And the facts he dug up are amazing. Far from a dry recitation of events, Clary's narrative delves deeply inside the minds of Lafayette and Washington. We see not just what made them great historical figures, but what made them human. Gone are the stereotypes and cardboard characters often presented in historical accounts. This book doesn't follow the "good guys vs. bad guys" formula. It shows the complex interaction of these men with each other and with others. It also shows their failings, insecurities, and weaknesses. In an age where authors typically have a personal agenda and cherry pick facts to fit it, Clary's work stands out. His only agenda is to help us understand two great historical figures through an undistorted lens. Clary's nimble use of excerpts from personal letters gives the kind of insight that historical texts should provide, but seldom do. He also provides explanation where needed. For example, letters of that time used saccharin language that we don't use today. It would be easy to misconstrue what's actually being conveyed, but Clary provides enough background so the reader doesn't get confused. The riveting account of Lafayette's wife Adrienne's efforts in France during and after the French Revolution was nail-biting material in itself, but Clary wove that into the larger narrative. She profoundly changed Lafayette, and we see this not through a disinterested historical narrator but through Lafayette's own eyes. Personally, I've always enjoyed the subject of history. Consequently, I consider myself knowledgeable in the subject. When I saw the cover of this book, I thought, "Well, yeah, I've heard of Lafayette. There are many American cities named after him and he did something in the American Revolution. But he was a friend of Washington's? Nah, that must be hyperbole." The idea of reading this book intrigued me, because I thought the author must be making some obscure connection and I wanted to see what his leap of logic was. As it turns out, my historical education was lacking. Especially about Washington and Lafayette. I'm going to offer the excuse that the available information sources tend to frustrate the casual student of history. Figuring out what went on in a given period or with a given historical figure has often been a choice between suffering through boring academic tomes (with their passive voice and other distractions) and a decently-wri

Masterful Narrative History

As a practitioner of the craft of narrative history--that is, history for the lay reader that wins praise from academia--I can hardly add to the encomiums of the preceding reviewers. This book indeed captures both Lafayette and Washington, together with all their associates, in terms that make them real people rather than names on the page. Clary's skill at characterization is matched by his mastery of crisp, readable prose; of his characters and their interaction; of the dynamics and progress of the American Revolution; of the 18th-century French environment that shaped the young marquis; and of the manifold original sources and their balanced interpretation. I knew something of the Revolution, but I had no idea what a bond of affection, effusively poured out in frequent and very long letters, united the American commander and the youth of twenty whom he made a major general. This is history at its best, highly recommended to lay and academic readers. -- Robert M. Utley

An engrossing and entertaining portrait of Washington and Lafayette

The friendship and professional military collaboration of George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette is a commonplace of American historical scholarship. Most historians doubt that the disorganized and inexperienced Continental army could have won the war without the help of Lafayette and the aid that he coaxed from the French government. David A. Clary, who teaches at Eastern New Mexico University, has set forth the whole story in engrossing detail in this book. His portrait of Washington does not stray far from the marble-statue heroic figure we have known all these years, but his Lafayette will surprise many. Driven by dreams of military glory from his childhood in the Auvergne region of France, orphaned early in life, married at 16 and prematurely wealthy, he arrived in America a young upstart with "more money than sense" and set out to learn the American way of war from Washington, his senior by 25 years. It turned out that the learning flowed both ways. Lafayette's passionate hatred of slavery infected Washington fully as much as Washington's ideas about warfare influenced him. Lafayette was a quick study. He learned from Washington that when you command a small, ill-trained, poorly equipped and undisciplined army against a powerful foe, you play a cat-and-mouse game, avoiding large-scale battles, chasing your foe around, nipping at his heels, wearing him down. Lafayette applied this lesson brilliantly, first against Lord Cornwallis in New Jersey, and triumphantly later against the same general in Virginia. It was Lafayette's mobile hit-and-run harassment that finally led Cornwallis into the fatal trap at Yorktown, effectively ending the war. But military tactics are not the main thrust of Clary's story. He concentrates on his two main characters, perhaps even too much so, filling his book with page after page of the mushy letters that passed between them protesting their eternal admiration for each other in flowery prose. The French "boy general" must have been one of the most prolific letter-writers of all time; Clary says more than 30,000 of his letters are known. The acreage of them in his book can be a bit wearying. Clary does bring a lively writing style and much thorough research to his task. We read of Lafayette "blowing his own horn," and having a "ringside seat" for battle, as well as being in "the royal doghouse" back home in France. There are also vastly entertaining physical descriptions and character sketches of an enormous supporting cast, American, French and British. His portrait of the German general Von Steuben, another Washington ally, stands out as a tiny gem. Knowing no English, Von Steuben was at pains to learn how to cuss at his troops in English. The first English word he learned was "goddam," and he would call upon aides to swear for him in English when the right oath was not at his tongue's tip. I'll bet you never learned that in high school history class. With the war over, Clary follows Lafayette back

Absolutely Must Reading for All American History Buffs...

This new century of ours has been blessed in these early years with a sudden deluge of excellent books dealing with America's founding years and with the characters involved in creating what can only be described as the "world's greatest and -- so far -- most successful experiment in Constitutional Democratic Republicanism." A few come readily to mind: Stacy Schieff's impressive "A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America"; Darren Staloff's very illuminating "Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and The American Founding"; Walter Isaacson's intimate portrayal of probably the most fascinating founding father, "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life"; and, of course, David McCullough's recent study of George Washington and the early revolutionary-war days in his stirring "1776." Now we can add to this list of excellent works another one: David A. Clary's new book, "Adopted Son: Washington, Lafayette, and the Friendship That Saved the Revolution." Clary documents (and, does he ever document!) the surprisingly intimate relationship between the "father" of our country, the commanding general of the Revolutionary War, with a heritage firmly in the English tradition, and the very young Marquis de Lafayette, a nineteen-year-old wealthy French aristocrat who comes to America, becomes a major general in the Continental Army, and a national hero in both America and in France. Washington had no sons and Lafayette was an orphan; the confluence of these two situations led to a bond between the two men unheard of in the annals of the American Revolution. Furthermore, this bond of friendship, although frequently interrupted by periods when they were apart in both space and time, continued throughout their lives. The story is essentially a biography of two heroes set within the context of a country's struggle for political independence against the background of a long, exhausting, and almost lost war which was both unconventional and unique. Thanks to the author's narrative style, the story is never dull and is, in my opinion, as close to a "thriller" as any work of nonfiction can become. One of the engaging features of Clary's book is the publication of many of the personal letters exchanged between Washington and Lafayette, as well as correspondence and conversations between some of the other characters who played an important part in this American drama, such as John Laurens and Alexander Hamilton. Some of the language of these letters will likely raise the eyebrows of the contemporary reader. For instance: Laurens, Hamilton, and Lafayette, says the author, "wrote gushy letters to each other. Hamilton routinely addressed Laurens as 'my dear' and vowed his 'love'." Then Clary goes on to explain: "Such language was usual in their time, the age of 'Sentiment.' Letter writing was almost a sport and flowery talk was the norm, especially for young fellows burning with passions for war and politics." Much of the correspo