Light Horse
The political climate in the United States of America today is the most divisive and turbulent that I can remember having experienced. However, there have been times when the country has been just as much, and maybe even more, at odds. This trend started even before our states were united. The revolution wasn't an overwhelmingly united effort. It's said only about 40% of the colonists were patriots (supporters of the revolution) while 20% were loyalist (wanting to remain under Britain's rule) and the other 40% took neither side, waiting to see which way the wind would blow. To understand how divided the colonies were, William Franklin, the (illegitimate, though recognized) son of the uber-patriot Ben Franklin, was a loyalist.
After that drawn-out war which the patriots of course won while the loyalist fled the country in droves, the creation of a union proved just as divisive. A new line of demarcation was drawn between federalist (who wanted a strong central government) and anti-federalists (who wanted almost independent states bound in a sort of confederation). Most notable among the federalists were George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and John Jay, while prominent among the anti-federalists were Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. James Madison had a unique hybrid and sublimely rational position that combined the two philosophies.
This particular division was prevalent during the creation of both the Constitution - which was a product of compromises - and the Bill of Rights, but even after these monumental events that actually established the U.S. as a nation, the struggle between the factions continued relentlessly.
The following story talks about a man who.was a federalist, possibly not as much in philosophy as in practice, but paid dearly for that right of choice.
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Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee by Alonzo Chappell
The above etching is from "National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Americans," vol.1. 1862. with the following caption:
"Henry Lee, the brilliant partisan officer of the Revolution, popularly known for his dashing exploits at the head of his brigade as "Light Horse Harry," and subsequently in connection with the civil history of Virginia, was born in Westmoreland County in that State, January 29, 1756."
Probably the most memorable line ever given in an American eulogy was delivered to the joint House and Senate, and then to the American people, by Maj. Gen. Henry Lee for George Washington:
"First in war; first in peace; first in the hearts of his country(men). "
Lucy Grymes
Henry Lee's mother, Lucy Grymes, thought by some to be Washington's "low land beauty" (see: here), had been courted by George Washington in his youth, but each married someone else (Lucy married Henry Giles Lee II, while Washington, of course, married Martha Custis, née Dandridge). Later however, Lucy did take advantage of her closeness to Washington to help advance her son's career.
After graduating from Princeton in 1773, which he attended along side of James Madison, James Monroe and Aaron Burr, Henry Lee's intended career was in law. However, at age 22 Henry eschewed law school in England to take part in the war for independence from that very same government. Due to his prowess, leadership and adventurous exploits as a cavalry raider, he quickly reached the official rank of Major (later the brevet rank of Lieut. Colonel) and earned the nickname "Light Horse Harry.." Lee was one of only seven recipients - and the only one below the rank of general- of the Congressional Gold Medal for that war. After the war, in 1894, he was re-commissioned by Washington with the rank of Maj. General. Washington, at one point, called him his best but least liked general and from many accounts he seemed to possess an arrogant, grating personality.
Henry Lee III's Congressional Gold Medal (reproductions)
In spite of his allegedly unappealing demeanor, he managed to marry a highy acclaimed beauty and heiress with her very own nickname - "The Divine Matilda." She was also his second cousin. He started courting her when she was but 16 and married her when she was 18. Together they had 3 sons and a daughter.
Unlike Washington, Henry wasn't a farmer. It's said that Henry Lee possessed so many natural talents and things came so easily to him that he never had to challenge himself. He sought the recreational life of a country squire, devoid of physical work or tedious accounting. Having gotten a taste of politics as a delegate to the Congress of the Confederation after the war, he decided to enter that field and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Lee also tried to emulate Washington, who was a surveyor with an intimate knowledge of real estate as well as finances, as a land speculator. Lee didn't share Washington's skills however. Lee also lacked the political acumen to appreciate the nuances of his chosen profession.
Young Henry Lee
by
Charles Willson Peale, 1782
portrait of Governor Lee by
The Divine Matilda died at age 26 and Henry Lee inherited use of Matilda's Stratford Hall, a very large plantation house. surrounded by 1900 acres of land (the property itself had wisely been put into a trust for Henry and Matila's eldest son to protect it from what was perceived to be Lee's financial recklessness). He was soon elected governor of Virginia. Three years after Matilda's death, Lee married Ann Hill Carter. Gov. Lee had been courting Maria Farley, a relative and friend of Ann. Maria rebuffed his attentions, but Ann fell in love with this larger-than-life personality (she forever addressed him as "Mr. Lee."). Lee, aware of Ann's infatuation, soon proposed and they were married in June of 1793.
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Although Ann came from a prominent family, her dowry was meager. She did, however, bear Lee four sons and two daughters. Unfortunately, Lee's fortunes, due to his poor business sense, would soon spiral downward.
While in office as Governor, Lee was called upon by President Washington to help quell what is now called the Whiskey Rebellion. This turned out to be almost a forced issue for Washington who felt obliged to assert the authority of the federal government, but also a bit of a fiasco. Alcoholic beverages were being taxed as part of the effort to pay the expenses for actions against the Indians in the western areas. The taxation was unpopular particularly since it targeted groups such as farmers and store owners, who were historically anti-federalist, that is, against a strong central government and felt the tax seriously infringed on their ability to conduct commerce. Highly publicized failed campaigns against the Indians also instilled distrust in the ability of the federal government to protect their interests. The tax had been in place several years but collecting the taxes proved difficult and finally led to increased violence and organized resistance in western Pennsylvania. The western parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia were wildernesses compared to the more "civilized" eastern areas and there was a severe disconnect physically, politically, philosophically and in practicality. Washington himself led the army, made up of militias from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia (the Virginia militia of 3,300 was organized, uniformed and led by Henry Lee) at the start (the only sitting president ever to do so) but dropped out after being assured the rebellion had ceased on it's own, leaving Henry Lee in full charge. The army mostly rounded up stragglers who had little to do with the rebellion and from which two were convicted of treason but pardoned by Washington. The troops that scooped up these stragglers weren't well provided for and took what they wanted or needed from the local farmers. They were given the derisive name, "Watermelon Army."
Lee was probably thrilled to get back into uniform, but this campaign had dire consequences for him. In a state such as Virginia, anti-federalism was the norm. Pursuing working men, citizens, under the auspices of the federal government stereotyped Lee as a confirmed federalist. By the time Lee returned from Pennsylvania, his term as governor had expired and his successor, an anti-federalist was already in office. Lee also made the mistake of getting on the blacklist of the anti-federalist, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was both a Francophile and a populist while Lee was probably more an Anglophile and branded a federalist. Being associated with Washintgon secured Lee's political ambitions but only until the eventuality of Washington's death. Two years before Washington's death, fellow federalist John Adams was elected but he was a one term president and two years after Washington's death, the election of Jefferson effectively killed any political aspirations Lee may have had still entertained and he retired from politics in 1801.
Lee's irresponsibility in business —his land speculations as well as his failure in properly operating a plantation— his lavish lifestyle (both in entertaining and in giving loans and hand-outs to his former military colleagues to whom he always remained loyal) and the reversals from the Panic of 1797 all caught up with him and he was sent to debtors' prison in 1809. During the year or so in this 12' x 15' cell he was finally able to impose upon himself the discipline he needed to pen his autobiographically based history of the revolution, "Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States."
Released from prison in 1810, he returned the Stratford Hall. Henry Lee IV, his 23 year old son by his first wife, after graduating from William and Mary later in 1810, claimed his inheritance of Stratford Hall, leaving Henry, Ann and the rest of the family to move to a rented house on Cameron Street in Alexandria where Henry finished his memoirs, to be published in 1812, while they lived on Ann's comparatively modest trust set up for her by her father.
Around this time, the U.S. and England were once again facing war. A rather complex affair, America's official reasons for the war of 1812 was the British interference with American-French trade and impressment of American citizens into the Royal Navy. England was in a dire conflict with France's Napoleon Bonaparte and needed to cut off any outside support. England, for the most part, only impressed (in their words, "reclaimed") sailors from captured American ships who were originally British citizens. Less obvious but highly suspected reason to the U.S. to go to war with England included land-grabs of remaining British territory in North America in what is now northern United States and Canada.
James Madison was president. While philosophically a federalist, he was opposed by the Federalist Party which beyond sharing Madison's ideal of a strong central government, was also extreme, embracing many policies of which Madison couldn't accept. The Federalist Party termed the War of 1812, "Mr. Madison's War" and opposed it vehemently.
War was declared on June 18, 1812. Madison re-commissioned Henry Lee (ironically, an anti-war federalist), as Major General in the forthcoming hostilities. Meanwhile, in Baltimore, Maryland, Alexander Contee Hanson, a lawyer, former member of the Maryand House of Delegates and publisher of the "Federalish Rebublican" newspaper incurred the wrath of an anti-federalist mob by printing an anti-war/anti-Madison treatise and saw his offices and press destroyed just 4 days after the war was declared. Emboldened with righteousness of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press (ironically, the Bill of Rights had been demanded by the anti-federalists) he moved his operation to a friend's press and continued his publications. After serious threats and intimidations, he wrote to fellow federalists, beseeching them to back him up.
The federalists who came to his aid included William Schroeder, John Thompson, William B. Bend, Henry Kennedy, Henry Nelson, John E. Hall, George Winchester, George Richards, Edward Gwinn, David Hoffman, Horatio Bigelow, Jacob Schley, Mark U. Pringle, Daniel Murray John Howard Payne, Otho Sprig, Ephraim Gaither, Dr. Peregrine Warfield, Charles J Kilgour, Captain Richard S. Crabb, General James M. Lingan and General Henry Lee (who had not yet taken up his army commission).
Perhaps the massing of these men further agitated the mob that had been gathering around the new press venue. Lee supervised the fortifications of the house, but they proved insufficient to resist the mob. Against their better judgment, the men agreed to be led by Baltimore mayor, Edward Johnson, and Brig. Gen. Stricker who commanded the town's militia, to the local jail at which place they were vowed to be protected. The mob ostensibly promised to disperse and Gen Sticker dismissed his troops and went home, apparently leaving the men to their fate. Learning that the men were unguarded, the mob regrouped and made a furious attack upon the jailhouse. Frantic attempts to find and recall Stricker and his militia all went unheeded.
During the attack the men were thrown down a flight of stairs, then beaten with fists and sticks, stabbed with penknives in their faces and hands and had candle grease dripped into their eyes. An attempt was made to cut off Henry Lee's nose but proved only partially successful as was an attempt to stab his eye with a knife which instead glanced off his cheekbone. He was then kicked and left for dead. The only actul death was that of Gen. Lingan. Lee survived but only marginally.
Light Horse Harry never really recovered. To quiet rumors of his death, he wrote a pamphlet called, "Correct Account of the Conduct of the Baltimore Mob," published in 1814 "by a friend," which was "sworn to by Peregrine Warfield and others, reprinted from 'an exact and authentic narrative of the events which took place in Baltimore, on the 27th and 28th of July last.'". In this pamphlet he claimed to believe that the attack was politically motivated and inferred that Madison's administration itself had orchestrated it.
In 1813 he sailed to the West Indies hoping the climate would prove beneficial to his declining health. Experiencing little benefit and feeling his death was imminent, in 1818 he tried to return to Arlington. The available ship was going from Nassau to Boston, but let Lee off on Cumberland Island, Georgia at his request. His fare was waived out of respect. He stopped at the plantation of his old friend, Nathanael Greene. Actually, Greene's plantation had been Mulberry Grove. After his death, his wife Catherine married Phineas Miller, her children's tutor —whose job was then taken over by Eli Whitney who invented the Cotton Gin at Mulberry Grove. She lost Mulberry Grove to creditors but built a new estate on land granted to Nathanael Greene by the Georgia General Assembly and named it Dungeness. Although Greene himself had died in 1786 Lee had been close to both him and his wife Catherine Littlefield Greene. Catherine was incapacitated by this time. Nathanael's daughter Louisa Shaw, a noted botanist and horticulturist, was overseeing the Dungeness plantation. She and her husband James welcomed Lee into their home and took care of the ailing General. Two weeks after arriving at Cumberland Island, Lee passed away and was buried in the plantation plot. Catherine herself died the following year.
an 1870 photo of Dungeness - which had been burned in 1866
Out off all of Henry Lee's contributions to this country, possibly his greatest was fathering Robert Edward Lee, an army engineer, hero of the Mexican War, Superintendent of West Point, first choice for commander of the Union forces at the outset of the Civil War (which he didn't accept), famed commander of the Confederate forces and president of what is now Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.
Robert E. Lee visited his father's grave in both 1862 and 1870, seeing to the placement of a headstone (shown below) on it. Henry Lee's remains were removed to Lexington, Va. in 1913.
the inscription reads:
"Sacred to the memory of Gen. Henry Lee, of Virginia, Obitt 25 March, 1818, aeter 63 years"
Lee Family Vault in the Chapel of
Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia
From the "Reminiscenses of the Last Days, Death and Burial of General Henry Lee" by Charles C. Jones, Jr. in 1870 (as related by "P. M. Nightingale of Georgia, a grandson of General Nathanael Greene, who was an eye-witness of the final scenes in the life of General Henry Lee and present at his death") :
There is something deeply affecting in this picture of the loneliness and pain, weakness and poverty, of this gallant soldier of the revolution. It is hard to recognize in the person of this weary, decrepit old man, the brilliant colonel commandant of the Partisan Legion,—the beloved of Washington and the right arm of his immediate commander Greene,—the best military writer of his army,—the honored of Congress, the trusted delegate, the successor of Beverly Randolph as governor of Virginia,—the accomplished orator from whose lips, when pronouncing the funeral oration, at Washington, on the occasion of the death of our first president, fell that memorable tribute which has ever since found emphatic response in every patriotic breast, “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” Shifting fortunes, wounds, age and disease have wrought sad changes, and he is but the wreck of former greatness;—alone, destitute, away from home and family, and yet soon to be the recipient of the kindest attentions from those who know and honor him for the deeds he has wrought, and for the signal services he has rendered the cause of truth and country and liberty in the darkest hour of danger and oppression."
