Henry Lee III

Lee was born on Leesylvania Plantation in Prince William County in the Colony of Virginia. He was the son of Col. Henry Lee II (1730–1787) of "Leesylvania" and Lucy Grymes (1734–1792). His father was the first cousin of Richard Henry Lee, twelfth President of the Continental Congress. His mother was an aunt of the wife of Virginia Governor Thomas Nelson Jr. His great-grandmother Mary Bland was also a grand aunt of President Thomas Jefferson. Lee was the grandson of Henry Lee I, a great-grandson of Richard Bland, and a great-great-grandson of William Randolph.[1] He was also a descendant of Theodorick Bland of Westover and Governor Richard Bennett.

Lee graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1773 and began pursuing a legal career.

He asked President James Madison for a commission at the onset of the War of 1812 but without success. In 1812 he published his Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States, where he summarized his military experiences during the Revolutionary War. During the civil unrest in Baltimore, Maryland in 1812, Lee received grave injuries while helping to resist an attack on his friend, Alexander Contee Hanson, editor of the Baltimore newspaper, The Federal Republican on July 27, 1812. Hanson was attacked by a Democratic-Republican mob because his paper opposed the War of 1812. Lee, Hanson, and two dozen other Federalists had taken refuge in the paper's offices. The group surrendered to Baltimore city officials the next day and was jailed. Laborer George Woolslager led a mob that forced its way into the jail and removed the Federalists, beating and torturing them over the next three hours. All were severely injured, and one Federalist, James Lingan, died.[12][13]

Lee suffered extensive internal injuries and head and face wounds, and even his speech was affected. His observed symptoms were consistent with what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder. After an unsuccessful recovery at home, he sailed to the West Indies to recuperate from his injuries. On his way back to Virginia, he died on March 25, 1818, at Dungeness, on Cumberland Island, Georgia, cared for by Nathanael Greene's daughter Louisa. "Light-Horse Harry" was buried with full military honors, provided by an American fleet stationed near St. Marys, Georgia, in a small cemetery at Dungeness. In 1913, his remains were moved to the Lee family crypt at University Chapel, on the campus of Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia.[14]

Between April 8 and 13, 1782, at Stratford Hall, Lee married his second cousin, Matilda Ludwell Lee (1764–1790), who was known as "the Divine Matilda". She was the daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee Sr. and Elizabeth Steptoe. Matilda had three children before she died in 1790:

• Philip Ludwell Lee (1784–1794)
• Lucy Grymes Lee (1786–1860)
• Henry Lee IV (May 28, 1787 – January 30, 1837) was a historian and author who also served as a speechwriter for both John C. Calhoun and presidential candidate Andrew Jackson, also helping the latter to write his inaugural address.

On June 18, 1793, Lee married the wealthy Anne Hill Carter (1773–1829) at Shirley Plantation. Anne was the daughter of Charles Carter, Esq., of Shirley, and his wife Ann Butler Moore. According to Winston Fontaine's research, Anne Moore's paternal pedigree dates back to Sir Thomas More. Her mother, Anne Katherine, was the daughter of Virginia Governor Alexander Spotswood, who was the great-grandson of John Spotswood and Rachel Lindsay; Rachelle's ancestors were David Lindsay, 1st Earl of Crawford, and Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of King Robert II of Scotland.[15] They had six children:

• Algernon Sidney Lee (April 2, 1795 – August 9, 1796), died at Sully Plantation, buried there in an unmarked grave[16]
• Charles Carter Lee (1798–1871)
• Anne Kinloch Lee (1800–1864)
• Sydney Smith Lee (1802–1869)
• Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870), the fifth child of Henry and Anne, served as Confederate general-in-chief during the American Civil War.
• Mildred Lee (1811–1856)

According to screenwriter Robert Rodat, the fictional character of Colonel Harry Burwell in the 2000 film The Patriot was inspired by the historical exploits of Henry Lee.[17]

In the 1969 musical 1776, Lee's nickname is mentioned (anachronistically) during the song "The Lees of Old Virginia," sung by the character of his older cousin Richard Henry Lee.

Henry Lee III was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of Virginia.[18]

• Lee, Henry, and Robert E. Lee. Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States. Eyewitness accounts of the American Revolution. Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1812. (3rd ed. published in 1869, with a memoir by his son Robert E. Lee.)

• Lighthorse Harry Lee Cabin

• Boyd, Thomas A. (1931). Light-Horse Harry Lee. New York: C. Scribner's Sons.
• Cecere, Michael (September 19, 2019). "The Court Martial of Major Henry Lee". Journal of the American Revolution.
• Dillon, John Forrest, ed. (1903). "Introduction". John Marshall. Vol. I. Chicago: Callaghan & Company. pp. liv–lv. ISBN 9780722291474.
• Gamble, Robert S. (1973). Sully: Biography of a House. Chantilly, Va.: Sully Foundation Ltd.
• Gilje, Paul A. (1980). "The Baltimore Riots of 1812 and the Breakdown of the Anglo-American Mob Tradition". Journal of Social History. 13 (4): 547–564. doi:10.1353/jsh/13.4.547. JSTOR 3787432.
• Haythornthwaite, Philip J.; Hook, Adam (2013). Napoleonic Light Cavalry Tactics. Botley, Oxford: Osprey Publishing.
• Hinde, Captain Robert (1778). Discipline of the Light-Horse. London: W.Owen. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
• Hogeland, William (2006). The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty. New York: Scribner's. ISBN 978-1-4391-9329-7.

• A Guide to the Governor Henry Lee Executive Papers, 1791–1794. The Library of Virginia.
• Herrera, Ricardo A. (2015). "(T)he Zealous Activity of Capt. Lee: Light-Horse Harry Lee and Petite Guerre". Journal of Military History. 79: 9–36.
• Royster, Charles (1978). Light-Horse Harry Lee and the Legacy of the American Revolutionary War. Williamsburg, Va.: Institute of Early American History and Culture.
• Sherman, William Thomas (ed.). Lee's Legion Remembered: Profiles of the 2d Partisan Corps.
• Gerson, Noel B. (1966). Light-Horse Harry: A Biography of Washington's Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Press.
• Lee, Henry; Lee, Charles Carter (1839). Observations on the writings of Thomas Jefferson, with Particularx reference to the attack they contain on the memory of the late Gen. Henry Lee.
• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Lee, Henry" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 361.

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• United States Congress. "Henry Lee III (id: L000195)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

William Sturgis Thomas, Members of the Society of the Cincinnati, Original, Hereditary and Honorary; With a Brief Account of the Society's History and Aims (New York: T.A. Wright, 1929) page 93.