Lafayette was ultimately permitted to command Continental Army troops in the decisive Siege of Yorktown in , the Revolutionary War's final major battle that secured American independence. After returning to France , Lafayette became a key figure in the French Revolution of and the July Revolution of and continues to be celebrated as a hero in both France and the United States.
Lafayette was born into a wealthy land-owning family in Chavaniac in the province of Auvergne in south-central France. He followed the family's martial tradition and was commissioned an officer at age He became convinced that the American revolutionary cause was noble, and he traveled to the New World seeking glory in it.
He was made a major general at age 19 but was initially not given American troops to command. He fought with the Continental Army at the Battle of Brandywine near Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania , where he was wounded but managed to organize an orderly retreat, and he served with distinction in the Battle of Rhode Island. In the middle of the war, he returned home to France to lobby for an increase in French support for the American Revolution.
He returned to America in and was given senior positions in the Continental Army. In , troops under his command in Virginia blocked a British army led by Lord Cornwallis until other American and French forces could position themselves for the decisive siege of Yorktown.
Lafayette returned to France and was appointed to the Assembly of Notables in , convened in response to the fiscal crisis. He was elected a member of the Estates General of , where representatives met from the three traditional orders of French society: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. This document was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence , which was authored primarily by Jefferson, and invoked natural law to establish basic principles of the democratic nation-state.
