Lafayette Monument

See the White House Grounds Tour web page for a map and links to other attractions on the grounds of President’s Park.

The Marquis Gilbert de Lafayette Monument is located on the southeast corner of Lafayette Park. The land was originally an extension of the North Lawn of the White House until Pennsylvania Avenue was cut through the area in 1804. Though disconnected, it remained part of President’s Park. It was renamed for Lafayette in 1824 when he visited Washington on his tour of the United States.

Lafayette was a French nobleman who joined the American Revolution, contributing large sums of his own money to the cause. Unlike Comte de Rochambeau, who was sent by the French as the commander of the French Army, Lafayette fought to seek glory and was essentially a mercenary soldier, except that he paid to fight. He was a general in George Washington’s Continental Army, and was therefore not under the command of Rochambeau. He fought in the Battle of Yorktown and helped defeat British General Charles Cornwallis. Lafayette would later go on to be the first foreign dignitary to address Congress (1824).

The statue of Lafayette was sculpted by Alexandre Falquiere and dedicated in 1891. It was the second monument in the park, and the first of eventually four memorials to foreigners who helped fight in the American Revolution. The monument was originally to be located at the central entrance to the park on Pennsylvania Avenue, but its presence would have blocked the view from the White House of the Andrew Jackson Memorial, so it was erected on the southeast corner.

In addition to the main statue of Lafayette are sculptures at the base of the monument. On the west side are two men, with the one on the right being Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse (aka Comte de Grasse, Comte being French for Count). De Grasse was the French naval officer who successfully defeated the British Navy that set sail from New York with supplies and reinforcements for Cornwallis at Yorktown. This was the key event in Cornwallis’s defeat.

The figure on the left with the anchor at his feet is Admiral Charles Hecktor (Comte d’Estaing), another French naval officer who fought with the Americans, though his efforts were largely unsuccessful (New Port, Rhode Island, and Savannah, Georgia). In Savannah, he was wounded twice and soon afterward retired from the war. Loyal to Marie Antoinette, he was eventually sent to the guillotine in 1794.

On the east side of the monument are figures of two men who fought in the land battles of the Revolution. One man is Comte de Rochambeau, who has his own monument on the southwest corner of Lafayette Park. The other is Louis Lebègue Duportail. He began in the Continental Army as a colonel, but was eventually promoted to the rank of general and commander of the Corps of Engineers. He was instrumental in designing American defensive structures and siege works. Unlike Comte d’Estaing, Duportail escaped France during the French Revolution and settled at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. He died in 1802 when the ship on which he was traveling back to France was lost at sea.

At the central section of the monument is a female figure who offers her sword to Lafayette. On the opposite side are two cherubs sitting at the base of an inscription in which Congress thanks Lafayette for his help during the Revolution.

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