by Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
There’s an opportunity on Thursday to attend not one, but two free lectures on Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette—better known as the Marquis de Lafayette or, as he would prefer to be called, General Lafayette.
On Thursday morning at 10 a.m., Craig Vasey will speak on “Lafayette’s Return to Fredericksburg,” and at 7 p.m., Tim McGrath, the author of “James Monroe: A Life,” talk about Lafayette’s friendship with James Monroe, the fifth U.S. president.
McGrath’s lecture, which, like Vasey’s, will be held at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library’s downtown branch, is sponsored by the James Monroe Museum and Memorial Library.
Monroe lived in Fredericksburg in 1786 and practiced law in a building that was located where the museum is now on Charles Street. As a young man, he fought in the Revolutionary War, and he met and became friends with Lafayette at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777.
Monroe was president in 1824 and it was at his request that Lafayette returned to the U.S. for a “Farewell Tour.”
McGrath’s lecture is one of more than a dozen offerings presented in Fredericksburg this year, leading up to the anniversary of Lafayette’s visit to the City in November.
More information about the Lafayette Bicentennial Commemoration is available at fxbg.com/lafayette.
