LET’S TALK ABOUT JAMES ARMISTEAD LAFAYETTE
This is the best photo I can find of him, you guys. I’m sorry. You should all draw fanart of him because he’s the best. And you know I wouldn’t make such a claim without hard evidence to back it up.
He was born a slave on a Virginia plantation. The year was either 1748 or 1760. Seriously, fans of Hamilton think they have it hard with his age having two years of uncertainty. Try TWELVE.
The name Armistead came from his owner, William Armistead. William Armistead was apparently “a man of strong peculiarities, a gentleman of the old school, wearing knee buckles and retaining English tastes.” (source) Despite his English tastes, several of his sons fought in the Revolution; one of them was killed at the Battle of Brandywine.
We don’t know very much about Armistead’s youth, but I think it’s fair to say it sucked. However, we also know that he learned how to read and write at some point. This would come in handy later.
In 1781, the war came to Virginia. Cornwallis was wreaking havoc and Lafayette, outgunned outmanned etc., was desperately attempting to annoy him without being captured or crushed. It was apparently at this time (at the age of either 21 or 33) that James Armistead asked for and received permission to join Lafayette’s command.
Conditions for former slaves under the British were significantly better than under the Americans. (Witness, John Laurens’ extreme difficulties trying to get a black battalion approved by South Carolina’s legislature. Meanwhile, the British were offering emancipation to slaves who would fight for them. They were using them as cannon fodder and manual laborers, but still.)
James and Lafayette hit it off. Lafayette was an abolitionist, and he quickly realized that James had qualities (e.g. he was literate and quick-witted, but, being black, was also likely to be overlooked) that made him suitable for intelligence work. And, as he wrote to Hamilton around that time, “I shall work devilish hard for intelligences.” (source)
James crafted a plausible story for himself: that he had escaped a cruel owner and wanted to join the British for a shot at freedom. The first person he convinced of this story? BENEDICT FUCKING ARNOLD.
Let that sink in. Benedict Arnold, infamous turncoat, who knew exactly what to look for in a double agent because he had been one himself for two years. Who was only caught because John Andre got himself captured! And Arnold never suspected a thing. And I QUOTE, “Arnold was so convinced of Armistead’s pose as a runaway slave that he used him to guide British troops through local roads. Armistead often traveled between camps, spying on British officers, who spoke openly about their strategies in front of him. Armistead documented this information in written reports, delivered them to other American spies, and then return to General Cornwallis’s camp.” (source)
Are you impressed yet? I know I am. IT GETS BETTER.
At this time, Lafayette’s forces were extremely underfunded and bedraggled, and the state of Virginia wasn’t exactly doing its part to supply food/ men (thanks, Governor of Virginia at the time Thomas Jefferson). There were times when it got precarious. Good intel helped Lafayette stay a step ahead.
After Arnold got reassigned James started spying on Cornwallis instead. You know where this is going, right? Cornwallis decided to encamp on this peninsula called Yorktown that is totally not famous at all and wait for the British fleet to come up and take him and his troops away. Lafayette encircled him by land.
This whole time, James was sending Lafayette intelligence about Cornwalls; his mood, his supply situation, morale in camp, the health of the men, how the fortifications were arranged. How did he send his messages, you ask? Dead drop? Smoke signals? Strategic petticoat patterns?
He. Fucking. Walked. From camp to camp. Time after fucking time. (source) How he talked the British into being okay with this, I have no idea, but he somehow did it. Presumably, it was his hard and incredibly risky work that let Lafayette know that Cornwallis was determined to wait for the British fleet to arrive (hint: it wasn’t coming) and that many of his men were sick with malaria (which Lafayette also caught because this part of Virginia was swampy af) and various other fevers. In other words, they were sitting ducks.
Furthermore, Armistead was the ONLY SUCCESSFUL SPY in Yorktown. All the others were either a) caught or b) unable to get good information. (source)
Seriously, if we were making Hamilton lines more accurate, we should change it to, “How did we know that this plan would work? We had a spy on the inside, that’s right JAMES ARMISTEAD!!!”
After the war James wound up a slave again, because life is incredibly unfair. There was a bill that allowed emancipation of slaves who served as soldiers during the Revolution. Can you believe the sheer levels of dickery it must have required for people to argue that this didn’t apply to James, because he had been a spy and not technically fought? He’d put his life on the line every damn day!
James petitioned for his freedom. Lafayette wrote him a letter of reference to support his case, because really, it was only fucking fair. He won his freedom, changed his name to James Armistead Lafayette, and settled down on a farm, where he had a giant family and died in 1830 (or 1832?) at the ripe old age of 70, or 72, or 82, or 84.
OH WAIT I ALMOST FORGOT THE CUTEST PART, although this story is apocryphal and I can’t find a good source. Lafayette returned to the U.S. in 1824 as an old man to tour around, visit old buddies like wacky ol’ TJeff, preside over shit being named after him, and generally be applauded and gushed over and adored from all sides. Apparently he was sitting in a carriage, in the middle of a parade in his honor, when he spots James in the crowd and LEAPS out of the carriage and hauls the guy into a bear hug. Which, okay, maybe it never happened, but my heart wants to believe it’s true.
1. James Armistead Lafayette was an utter badass
2. Lafayette could have been captured playing cat-and-mouse with Cornwallis in Virginia without him.
3. The Patriots might not have recognized Yorktown for the golden opportunity it was without him
4. The Battle of Yorktown could have been lost without him.
5. Tell your friends, tell your family.
6. If he’s not in Turn eventually I will lose my shit.
7. You should all write fic and draw art about him and then tag me in it so I can reblog it
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