Silas Deane enlists Lafayette as a major general
- When
- December 7, 1776
- Where
- site of Deane's enlistment of Lafayette (not specified in sources)
On December 7, 1776, American agent Silas Deane enlisted the nineteen-year-old Lafayette as a major general, though he initially received no American troops to command.
The year 1776 saw delicate negotiations between American agents, including Silas Deane, and Louis XVI and his foreign minister, the Count of Vergennes. Within that context, Deane enlisted Lafayette as a major general on December 7, 1776. Lafayette was made a major general at age 19 but was initially not given American troops to command. The supplied passages do not specify the city where the enlistment took place, so the legacy row's Paris attribution is left unresolved; Paris is retained only as the broader setting where the American cause was popular and public support for Lafayette considerable.
Sources
- Marquis de Lafayette Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-28
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.