Lee Family Digital Archive

Home | About | Documentary Legacy | Digital Legacy | Friends | FAQs

Light-Horse Harry Lee
Click for larger view (opens new window)

Henry Lee III, although as an adult Lee routinely signed his name Henry Lee, Jr. His earned his famous moniker “Light-Horse Harry” for his Revolutionary War cavalry exploits.

Light-Horse Harry Lee was born on 29 January 1756 at Leesylvania, an estate of 3,500 acres in Prince William County, Virginia.

Henry Lee II (1730–1787) of Leesylvania, and Lucy Grymes (1734–1792), the “lowland beauty” who had enfatued a young George Washington.

Light-Horse Harry Lee was tutored until age fourteen when he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Lee, whose classmates included James Madison, James Monroe, and Aaron Burr, graduated from college in 1773. Although he planned to travel to London to study law, the threat of hostilities between the colonies and Great Britain caused Lee to abandon the idea.

Light-Horse Harry Lee married his second cousin Matilda Ludwell Lee (1764–1790) in April 1782. The daugther of Philip Ludwell Lee (1727–1775) and Elizabeth Steptoe, Matilda was known as the “Divine Matilda” and called the “Queen of Stratford” by Lee. Three children were born to Light-Horse Harry and Matilda: Philip (1784–1794), Lucy (1786–1860), and Henry Lee IV (1787–1837). Three years after Matilda’s death Lee married Ann Hill Carter (1773–1829) of Shirley. Residing at Stratford Hall, which Matilda had inherited before her death, Lee and his second wife had six children: an infant who was born and died in 1796, Charles Carter (1798–1871), Anne Kinloch (1800–1864), Sydney Smith (1802–1869), Robert Edward (1807–1870), and Mildred (1811–1856).

Although Light-Horse Harry Lee tried to enter the military in 1775, it was 1776 before he joined the Virginia Light Dragoons as a captain in the regiment of his kinsman, Colonel Theodorick Bland. His company was taken into the Continental line in September 1777. In 1778 he was promoted to major and given command of one of two independent cavalry companies authorized by the Continental Congress. Known as Lee’s Legion, it became the most legendary cavalry corps of the Revolutionary War.

Lee was court-martialed twice before being given command of his legion. Both trials arose from disputes with fellow officers, and both times he was acquitted with honor. Lingering jealousy and suspicion among some in the army marred his subesequent service, and, he thought, his chance for military glory.

On 19 August 1779 he led the suprise assault against Paulus Hook, New Jersey, for which he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and awarded a gold medal by Congress.

Lee was sent to the Carolinas in 1780 to served with Major General Nathanael Greene. There Lee distinguised himself by attacking the British during Greene’s famous retreat through through the Carolinas into Virginia. Discontentment led Lee to resign his commission in 1782.

In 1794 President George Washington called Lee out of military retirement to command the forces gathered to suppress the Whiskey Rebellion. When President John Adams asked George Washington to organize the army during the so-called Quasi-War with France, Washington said Lee was the best military figure in the country, but not liked by his fellow officers.

Light-Horse Harry Lee served in the Confederation Congress from 1785 to 1788. He also served three one-year terms as governor of Virginia, from 1791 to 1794. He was a member of the United States Congress from 1799 to 1801. Lee was an avid federalist and as a member of the Virginia Ratifying Convention supported the adoption of the United States Constitution. In 1808 and 1812 Lee unsuccessfully sought James Madison’s assistance in finding him a federal appointment outside of the United States.

Yes, immediately upon hearing of his former commander’s death. John Marshall is sometimes mistakenly credited with writing the eulogy because he used Lee’s famous words, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,” when introducing a memorial resolution to Washington in the United States Congress on 16 December 1799. But Lee wrote the eulogy several days earlier and delivered it in person to a joint session of Congress in Philadelphia on 26 December.

No. Light-Horse Harry Lee tended to be an overly optimistic visionary proned to take extraordinary risks that had little chance of success, especially given his inexperience in business matters. Lee’s deficiencies in managing his financial affairs apparently did not go unnoticed by Lee’s fathers-in-law, for although each made substantial bequeaths to their daughters, both excluded Lee from controlling those inheritances. Lee tended to speculate in land schemes at the expense of running the Stratford plantation. In 1790 Lee attempted to establish a community at the Great Falls of the Potomac River, named Matildaville in honor of his first wife, but a lack of capital and the slowness of constructing the Potomac Canal ultimately led to its failure. In 1795 Lee contracted to purchase George Washington’s holdings in the Dismal Swamp Company and entered partnerships to purchase 200,000 acres of Potomac River land and a million acres of cheap backcountry land. Despite his unbounded optimism and energy, and another decade of enterprizing land schemes, he ultimately defaulted. By April 1809 Lee was bankrupt and considered by many to be a cheat and swindler, and he was forced into debtors prison. He was placed in the Westmoreland County, Virginia, jail, and later transferred to the jail in Spotsylvania County, where he remained until March 1810.

Not as a military officer, as Light-Horse Harry Lee’s military commission had expired a decade earlier. Lee did, however, freely write letters to President James Madison filled with advice about the conflict. Lee spent most of the period of the war in the West Indies, and in 1813 he drafted a peace treaty which he sent to the British governor of Barbados, Sir George Beckwith, and to United States Secretary of State James Monroe.

Yes, while trying to protect his friend, Alexander Contee Harrison, editor of The Federal Republican, from a pro-war mob in 1814. Light-Horse Harry Lee received severe injuries from which he never recovered.

Yes, while in prison for debt Light-Horse Harry Lee wrote his Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States (2 vols.; Philadelphia, 1812), considered at its publication and ever since to be one of the best military histories written by a Revolutionary War participant. Lee’s work was republished by Peter Force in 1827, and in 1869 Confederate General Robert E. Lee prepared a new edition that included a biography of his father. In 1808 Lee also wrote a pamphlet, published anonymously the following year, attacking Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, and in 1814 an account of the Baltimore riot in which he was injured was published under his name but apparently not authored by him.

Light-Horse Harry Lee died on 25 March 1818 at Cumberland Island, Georgia, while visiting Dungeness, the home of the widow of his former Revolutionary War commander, Nathanael Greene. Lee was on his way home to Virginia from the West Indies, where he had been for several years.

Light-Horse Harry Lee was buried on Cumberland Island, Georgia, with military honors provided by an American fleet stationed nearby. His remains were moved to the Lee Family crypt at the Lee Chapel, Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Virginia, in 1913.

Thomas Boyd’s Light-horse Harry Lee (New York, 1931) remains the fullest biographical account of Lee’s life. Charles Royster’s Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolution (New York, 1981) explores how the Revolutionary War affected Lee’s career and character.

Thomas E. Templin’s fine Ph.D. thesis, Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee: A Biography (University of Kentucky, 1975), remains unpublished.