La Fayette and the Battle of Brandywine
On September 11, 1777, things were not looking well for the Continental Army. They were engaged in a battle that would later be known as the Battle of Brandywine. They faced the British army under the command of General Lord Cornwallis and soon the American troops were retreating in an unorderly fashion. Enter the youngest Continental general, the Marquis de La Fayette. He had just turned 20 a few days before the battle and had virtually no experience on the battlefield. He was determined though to do something and to rally the retreating soldiers. He was shot in the leg trying to achieve this and his injury was only one of the ways he would eventually cemented his place in the heart of a whole nation. Let us have a closer look at La Fayette’s wound on this anniversary of the battle.
La Fayette wrote in his Memoirs about his wound:
(…) the confusion became extreme; and it was whilst M. de Lafayette was rallying the troops that a ball passed through his leg; -- at that moment all those remaining on the field gave way. M. de Lafayette was indebted to Gimat, his aide-de-camp, for the happiness of getting upon his horse. General Washington arrived from a distance with fresh troops; M. de Lafayette was preparing to join him, when loss of blood obliged him to stop and have his wound bandaged; he was even very near being taken. Fugitives, cannon and baggage now crowded without order into the road leading to Chester. The general employed the remaining daylight in checking the enemy: some regiments behaved extremely well, but the disorder was complete. During that time the ford of Chad was forced, the cannon taken, and the Chester road became the common retreat of the whole army. In the midst of that dreadful confusion, and during the darkness of the night, it was impossible to recover; but at Chester, twelve miles from the field of battle, they met with a bridge which it was necessary to cross; M. de Lafayette occupied himself in arresting the fugitives; some degree of order was re-established; the generals and the commander-in-chief arrived, and he had leisure to have his wound dressed. (…) M. de Lafayette having been conveyed by water to Philadelphia, was carefully attended to by the citizens, who were all interested in his situation and extreme youth. That same evening the congress determined to quit the city: a vast number of the inhabitants deserted their own hearths -- whole families, abandoning their possessions, and uncertain of the future, took refuge in the mountains. M. de Lafayette was carried to Bristol; in a boat he there saw the fugitive congress, who only assembled again on the other side of the Susquehannah; he was himself conducted to Bethlehem a Moravian establishment, where the mild religion of the brotherhood, the community of fortune, education, and interests amongst that large and simple family formed a striking contrast to scenes of blood, and the convulsions occasioned by a civil war.
A few things to add to this little excerpt. La Fayette was quite lucky, because the musket ball had hit the fleshy part of the calf without damaging nerve or bone. In the medical world of the 18th century, especially a damaged bone would have led to a certain amputation of the limp. But La Fayette was indeed quite lucky. There is a bit of a discussion about the “true” extend of La Fayette’s injury because he tended to drastically downplay serious illnesses and injuries (while he would do the exact opposite with minor illnesses and injuries). Later in life, he also mentioned that without the good care of the Moravian sisters, he would have lost his leg - thus leading some people to believe that the injury was worse than he presented it. There is however no real evidence to support this theory, neither coming from La Fayette nor from anybody else.
Another interesting side note, the founders of the Moravian settlement came from the same region that La Fayette was later imprisoned in - from the region were Olmütz was at.
The sash that was used for the initial dressing of the wound has survived and is now displayed in the Fraunces Tavern Museum. I wrote about the sash here.
On the day of the battle, George Washington send some sort of “after action report” to John Hancock, who was then the President of the Continental Congress. In his letter, Washington also mentioned La Fayette:
The Marquis La Fayette was wounded in the leg, & General Woodford in the hand. Divers other officers were wounded, & some slain; but the numbers of either cannot now be ascertained.
But Washington was not the only one who wrote letters, La Fayette wrote letters as well that detailed his wound. He wrote his wife Adrienne a day after the battle on September 12, 1777:
While I was trying to rally them, the English honored me with a musket shot, which wounded me slightly in the leg. But the wound is nothing, dear heart; the ball hit neither bone nor nerve, and all I have to do for it to heal is to lie on my back for a while-which puts me in very bad humor. I hope, dear heart, that you will not worry; on the contrary, you should be even less worried than before, because I shall now be out of action for some time. I intend to take good care of myself; you may be sure of that, dear heart. This battle will, I fear, have unpleasant consequences for America; we must try to repair the damage, if we can. You must have received many letters from me, unless the English are as hostile to my letters as to my legs. I have received only one from you so far, and I long for news.
He wrote his wife again on October 1, 1777 from Bethlehem:
To put the best face on it, I could tell you that mature reflection had induced me to remain in my bed for several weeks, sheltered from all danger. But I must admit that I was invited to stay there because of a very slight wound in the leg. I do not know how I received it; in truth, I did not expose myself to enemy fire. It was my first battle, so you see how rare battles are. It is the last of this campaign, or at least the last big battle, it appears. If any other action occurs here, you see that I could not be present. Consequently, my dear heart, I take pleasure in reassuring you that you have no need to worry. While I tell you not to worry about me, I tell myself that you love me, and this little conversation with my heart pleases it very much, for it has never loved you more tenderly.
The day after that battle, my first thought was to write to you. I told you then that the wound was nothing, and I was right. The only thing I fear is that you have not received that letter, for if, when General Howe gives his master the king some slightly inflated details about his exploits in America, he reports me wounded, he could just as well report me killed. That would cost him nothing. I hope that my friends, and you especially, my dear heart, will never believe the reports of those people who last year even dared to print a story that General Washington and all his general officers were in a boat that capsized and all of them were drowned.
But we were speaking of my wound; the ball passed through the flesh and touched neither bone nor nerve. The surgeons are astonished by the rate at which it heals; they are in ecstasy every time they dress it, and maintain that it is the most beautiful thing in the world. I myself find it very foul, very tedious, and rather painful; there is no accounting for tastes. But, finally, if a man wished to be wounded just for his own amusement, he should come and see my wound and have one just like it. There, dear heart, you have the story of what I pompously call my wound, to give myself airs and to make myself interesting.
Now, since you are the wife of an American general officer, I must give you some instructions. People will say to you: “They have been beaten.” You will reply: “That is true, but between two armies of equal size, in open country, old soldiers have the advantage over new ones; besides, the Americans had the satisfaction of killing many more of the enemy than they lost.”
This letter is just so quintessential La Fayette! The way he wrote that he did not know how he even was injured in the first place, his statement that battles are oh so rarely and that he is perfectly safe, him getting completely side-tracked in the middle of the letter and finishing with his “instructions” to Adrienne (who still went on after that). But best of all is the opening line of the letter:
I wrote to you, dear heart, on the twelfth of September; the twelfth is the day after the eleventh
Yes La Fayette, that is true - but also very obvious, but thank you for pointing that out again :-)
He wrote his wife a last time regarding his injury on November 6, 1777. By that time he had actually already returned to the army (October) and had resumed active service.
You may receive this letter, my dear heart, in five or six years, for I am writing you by an indirect route, which I don't know much about. (…) All my other dispatches have informed you of the remaining events of the campaign. The Battle of Brandywine, where I cleverly left a little bit of my leg; the occupation of Philadelphia, which is so far from having the ill consequences of which they are persuaded in Europe; an unsuccessful attack on the camp at Germantown, in which I didn't participate because I had very recently been wounded (…)
I again included the opening sentence, not because it is of any merit for the topic, but because he is simply too good to be left out.
