Peter Charles L'Enfant: Vision, Honor, and Male Friendship in the Early American Republic

By Kenneth Russell Bowling

Published by the Friends of the GW Libraries, October 2002

This richly-illustrated biography of the French-born American Peter L'Enfant is the first to look at its subject from the perspective of his times and contemporaries. It focuses on the years before and after his famous plan for the city of Washington and on his relationships with such male friends and patrons as George Washington (whom L'Enfant made grovel), Alexander Hamilton (whom L'Enfant challenged to a duel), the Swedish Consul Richard Soderstrom (whom L' Enfant lost everything to in a “palimony” suit), and the retired spy Thomas Atwood Digges (in whose home L'Enfant at last found sanctuary). The book concludes with L'Enfant's resurrection and reburial at the turn of the Twentieth Century as a Frenchman name Pierre Charles L'Enfant and with the role those events played in bringing the United states in World War I on the side of France rather than Germany .

Cost of Book: $15.00