Henry Lee (January
29, 1756 - March
25, 1818), American general,
called Light Horse Harry, was born near Dumfries,
Virginia. His father was first cousin to Richard
Henry Lee. With a view to a legal career he graduated (1773)
at Princeton,
but soon afterwards, on the outbreak of the War
of Independence, he became an officer in the patriot forces. He served with
great distinction under Washington,
and in 1778 was promoted major
and given the command of a small irregular corps,
with which he won a great reputation as a leader of light troops. His services
on the outpost line of the army earned for him the soubriquet of "Light Horse
Harry." His greatest exploit was the brilliant surprise of Paulus Hook, N.J, on
August 19, 1779;
for this feat he received a gold medal, a reward given to no other officer below
general's rank in the whole war. He was
advertisement
promoted lieutenant-colonel1780, and sent with a picked corps
of dragoons to the southern
theatre of war. Here he rendered invaluable services in victory and defeat, notably
at Guilford
Court House, Camden
and Eutaw Springs. He was present at Cornwallis's
surrender at Yorktown,
and afterwards left the army owing to ill-health. From 1786
to 1788 he was a delegate to the
Confederation
Congress, and in the last-named year in the Virginia
convention he favoured the adoption of the Federal
constitution. From 1789 to
1791 he served in the General
Assembly, and from 1791 to
1794 was Governor
of Virginia. In 1794 Washington
sent him to help in the suppression of the "Whisky
Insurrection" in western Pennsylvania.
A new county
of Virginia was named after him during his governorship. He was a major-general
in 1798-1800.
From 1799 to 1801
he served in Congress.
He delivered the address on the death of Washington which contained the famous
phrase, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
Soon after the War of
1812 broke out, Lee, while helping to resist the attack of a mob on his friend,
A. C. Hanson, editor of the Baltimore Federal Republican, which had opposed
the war, received grave injuries, from which he never recovered. He died at the
house of General Nathanael
Greene on Cumberland Island, Georgia, on March 25, 1818.
Lee wrote valuable Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department (1812; 3rd ed., with memoir by his son Robert E. Lee, 1869).
