The Last Adieu: Lafayette’s Triumphant Return, the Echoes of Revolution, and the Gratitude of the Republic

In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the Revolution, returned to America. It was the grandest celebration the young republic would ever stage, blazing from the coast of the Atlantic Ocean to the banks of the Mississippi River. As one eyewitness recorded: “Lafayette passed though the 24 states of the Union in a sort of triumphant procession, in which all parties joined to forget their dissentions.”