#hamblogging

To Washington, who made apologies for exhibiting his troops before a French officer, he replied with interesting simplicity, "I have come here to learn and not to teach." The Commander-in-Chief, usually so grave, was won at once to that perpetual friendship, which endured unbroken as long as life, showing itself now in tears of joy and then in tears of grief; watching the youthful stranger with paternal care, sharing with him table, tent, and on the field of Monmouth the same cloak for a couch, following his transcendent fortunes, now on giddiest heights and then in gloom, with constant, unabated attachment, corresponding with him at all times, addressing him in terms of unwonted endearment as "the man he loved," and saying again that he "had not words to express his affection were he to attempt it," sending kindly sympathy to that devoted wife in her unparalleled affliction, and pleading across sea and continent with the Austrian despot for his release from the dungeons of Olmutz. It is much to have inspired the most tender friendship which history records in the life of Washington. There were other strangers, scarcely less brilliant than Lafayette (...) but Lafayette alone obtained place in his heart. Friendship is always a solace and delight; but such a friendship was a testimony. Let it ever be said that Washington chose Lafayette as friend, while Lafayette was to him always pupil, disciple, son.

When you really think about it, Benjamin “My own troop was composed entirely of dapple gray horses, which, with black straps and black bear-skin holster-covers, looked superb.“ Tallmadge has nothing on George Washington:

I shall never forget my leaving at an inn in France the beautiful sword which Baron Steuben had presented me with at Paris. He took it from his side telling me "my dear Duponceau, please to accept this sword, I shall teach you how to make use of it." The sword was silver hilted, damasked with gold. On my way to Marseilles to embark for this country, I left it at the inn at Macon in Burgundy, and never perceived it until it was too late to retrace my steps. Eighteen months afterwards it was brought to me in this city, while I was at work with Mr. De Francy by a gentleman just arrived from France who knew the Baron, and who also knew the sword, had seen it at the inn and claimed it. The landlord, a conscientious man, had left it in the very place where I had deposited it. You may suppose I was very glad to recover it; I kept it several years: at last, after the peace, it was stolen, during my absence from the boarding-house where I lodged. All my efforts to recover it were vain.

The Marquis and the Baron (Lafayette and Steuben) were great favourites with the army, and were called by no other names. A woman went once to the latter to ask him permission to call her child after him. "How will you call him?" said Steuben. "Why, to be sure," replied she, "I'll call him Baron."

On October 1, Lafayette mailed Adrienne a bubbly update about the progress of his apparently adorable wound. “The surgeons are astonished by the rate at which it heals,” he cooed. “They are in ecstasy every time they dress it, and maintain that it is the most beautiful thing in the world.”

Lafayette was recalled to Valley Forge. “My only desire is to join you,” he purred in a letter to Washington.