When the nation marked its 250th anniversary, our attention turned naturally to Philadelphia and July 4, 1776. We remember the ringing Declaration and the promise that a new nation could be founded on equal rights. But declaring a nation and keeping it alive are very different things. Just ten weeks later, the American experiment came perilously close to ending in the fields and woods of Upper Manhattan.
I am reminded of this whenever I walk 10 blocks from my home along Morningside Park. At 114th St. and Morningside Ave. stands a monumental bronze sculpture by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, creator of the Statue of Liberty. It depicts George Washington clasping hands with the Marquis de Lafayette beneath the intertwined flags of France and the United States. It is a heroic sculpture. It is also a temporal illusion.
Lafayette was not here in September 1776. He was an 18-year-old officer across the Atlantic, months away from sailing for America. There was no French fleet coming to Washington’s rescue, no French gold sustaining his army, and no alliance recognizing the fledgling nation. On Sept. 16, 250 years ago today, Washington was on his own. And he was losing.
Three weeks earlier, h...