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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Henry Lee Biography LEE, Henry (1756-1818). An American soldier and statesman, a member of the famous Lee family of Virginia, born at Leesylvania, one of the family estates on the Potomac. He graduated at Princeton in 1773 and soon after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War obtained a captaincy in Col. Theodoric Bland's cavalry legion. In 1777 he joined Washington just before the battle of Brandywine and from that time on for three years was employed in scouting and outpost duty, in which his restless activity earned him the nickname of Light Horse Harry. He assisted General Wayne at the capture of Stony Point and soon afterward commanded an expedition of his own which surprised and captured the British post at Paulus Hook (see Jersey City) in 1779, an exploit which won for him the thanks of Congress and the commendation of Washington. In 1780, having been promoted lieutenant colonel, his legion was sent to the Southern States to aid in retrieving the disaster at Camden and, during General Greene's skillful retreat through the Carolinas, formed the rear guard of the American forces. After the tide had turned and Greene was once more advancing southward, the legion took an important part in the recovery of places held by the British and did brilliant service at Eutaw Springs (q.v.). Early in 1782 Lee resigned his commission because of ill health and retired to Virginia, where, after the conclusion of peace, he interested himself in politics. In 1786 he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress and two years later representative of Westmoreland County in the Virginia convention which ratified the Federal Constitution. From 1789 until 1791 he was a member of the State Legislature and from 1792 till 1795 was Governor of Virginia. While he was still an incumbent of this latter office (1794), Washington appointed him to command the 15,000 troops whose mere presence quelled the Whisky Insurrection. Five years later he entered Congress and there, after Washington's death, delivered the funeral oration which contains the familiar phrase, "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." In 1801 he retired to private life, to appear again on the stage of public affairs only for a brief moment in 1812, when, after the first disasters to the American arms in Canada, he accepted an appointment as major general. But before he could enter upon his new military duties he was wounded while aiding a friend, Alexander Contee Hanson (q.v.), editor of the Baltimore Federal Republican, whose property was attacked by a mob of political opponents. Lee never recovered from this injury and died while on his return from a voyage to the West Indies, taken in the hope that a change of climate might prove beneficial. He wrote Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States (1812), to the new edition of which (1869) is prefixed a biography by his son, Robert E. Lee (q.v.). Consult also J. T. Morse, Memoir of Col. Henry Lee, with Selections from his Letters and Speeches (Boston, 1905). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 705. |