Lafayette

(1757–1834), often simply known as Lafayette, a French military officer, was a general in the Continental Army. Wounded during the Battle of Brandywine, he still managed to organize a successful retreat. In the middle of the war, he returned to France to negotiate an increased French commitment. On his return, he blocked the British troops at Yorktown until reinforcements, led by Washington, arrived. This resulted in the British surrender in 1781. After the American Revolutionary War, he returned to France, where in 1789 he tried to introduce a ‘Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’. Lafayette was the first person to be granted honorary US citizenship.