Date/Time
Date(s) - 11/11/2025
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Location
Campus Martius Museum
In the summer of 1824, the aging Marquis de Lafayette, defeated politically and distraught over the fate of liberty in Europe, set sail one last time from France for America after an absence of forty years.
The Last Adieu narrates Lafayette’s farewell tour, capturing both its spectacular pageantry and emotional impact—not only from Lafayette’s perspective, but through eyewitness accounts and recollections of the everyday Americans who participated in the great celebration. Co-starring the swarm of fascinating characters Lafayette encountered across the American landscape—elderly founding fathers, populist politicians, idealistic reformers—this is not simply the record of an incredible journey, but a panorama of a rising America and a chronicle of a time when, as Lafayette wrote, memories of its Revolution came back to life, and its citizens were united in gratitude to the men who had won it.
Ryan L. Cole is the author previously of “Light-Horse Harry Lee: Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero.”
This event is sponsored by the Washington County Public Library, and is FREE and open to the public.