The hope that potentates and governments might take up the cause of Lafayette began to fail and other plans were made. Chivalric dreams of going to seek the place where he was confined and effect what seemed the impossible--a personal rescue--began to haunt the minds of daring youths. A letter is on record from a young man who wrote to Washington to ask if he might not have permission to go and seek Lafayette, and, if possible, conduct him and his family to America. Washington told him that all was being done that could be done, and that personal attempts would only result in failure. But there was another enterprising soul who did not wait for permission--he acted upon his own initiative. The story of that splendid young American must now be told.
Francis Kinloch Huger was the first child that Lafayette saw after he landed in America. It will be remembered that the little company of adventurers first touched shore on the country estate of Major Benjamin Huger, at Prospect Hill, near Charleston, South Carolina. Here Lafayette was received hospitably and sent on in his host's carriage to Charleston.
The child Francis was then five years old and was the young representative of a remarkable family of Huguenot extraction. The first Daniel Huger came from Loudon, France, soon after the Edict of Nantes, and his descendants to-day number six thousand; among them are found a large number of distinguished names. Five Huger brothers held important positions in Revolutionary times. Three served in the war; Brigadier General Isaac Huger was second in command to General Greene at Guilford Court House; Lieutenant Colonel Frank Huger was promoted from Moultrie's Regiment to be Quartermaster General of the Southern Army of the Revolution; and Major Benjamin Huger, Lafayette's host and the father of the child Francis, was killed in 1780 before the lines at Charleston. Of the other two brothers in this remarkable family group, Daniel was one of Governor Rutledge's Privy Council and later a member of Congress, and John was on the Council of Safety and Secretary of State.
The boy Francis thus came from a stock of stalwart men. He was eight years old when his father was killed at Charleston. The pity of it was driven into his young soul when the ignominy of that defeat was accomplished.