Henry Lee

Background

Henry Lee was the son of Henry, "Light-Horse Harry, " Lee and his first wife, Matilda Lee. He was born at "Stratford, " Westmoreland County, Virginia, some twenty years before the birth of his half-brother, Robert Edward Lee.

Education

He was graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1808.

Career

Lee had early displayed keen literary interests but he entered upon a political and military career. From 1810 to 1813 he represented Westmoreland County in the Virginia House of Delegates. In April 1813 he was appointed major of the 36th Infantry. Attached to the staff of Gen. James Wilkinson and later to that of Gen. George Izard, he saw active service on the Canadian border.

From 1824 to 1826 he held a minor position in the Post Office Department and was employed as a political writer by Calhoun. Adams suspected him of disloyalty to his administration and about 1826 Lee definitely went over to the Jacksonian party. He was an active pamphleteer and writer for newspapers in Jackson's behalf. During the campaign of 1828 he lived at "The Hermitage" with the General and is credited with the literary form of Jackson's inaugural which he helped to write. As a reward for his services Jackson named him consul-general to Algiers with the others in the "batch of editors" to whom he gave recess appointments in 1829. The Senate in March 1830 failed to confirm these appointments, by a unanimous negative vote in Lee's case. While his campaign writings for Jackson were offensive to some, he was also opposed because of moral charges of a personal nature. Lee had already journeyed to his post when news of the Senate's action reached him.

He spent the remaining years of his life abroad, chiefly in Paris, and died in that city on January 30, 1837. He had literary talent, though his writings were tedious and have proved ephemeral because of their controversial tone. In a notice of his work, the Southern Literary Messenger accused him of a spirit of captiousness. His first volume, The Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas (Philadelphia, 1824), was intended "to expose and to frustrate the attempts of William Johnson of South Carolina in his Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of General Greene, to defame the late General Henry Lee" (p. 2). He again wrote a lengthy volume to defend his father, this time against what he deemed the aspersions cast upon him by Jefferson on the publication of that statesman's writings (Observations on the Writings of Thomas Jefferson, New York, 1832, Philadelphia, 1839).

He admired Napoleon extravagantly. This he evidenced by a gift to Napoleon's mother of an autograph letter that George Washington had written his father, "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, and by writing a biography of Napoleon. This too was pitched on a controversial note, as he set out to defend Napoleon's name against Walter Scott's unfavorable treatment in the latter's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. He planned a two-volume work on Napoleon. The first volume, The Life of the Emperor Napoleon, was published in 1835, but on Lee's death in Paris in 1837 it was republished with the added material he had prepared under the title: The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte down to the Peace of Tolentino and the Close of his First Campaign in Italy.

Achievements

• Henry Lee was known for his service as a speech writer for the statesman John C. Calhoun as well as Andrew Jackson. His major literary works included "Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas" (1824), "Observations on the Life of Thomas Jefferson" (1832), "Life of the Emperor Napoleon" (1834).

Works

More photos

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  • The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte: Down to the Peace of Tolentino and the Close of His First Campaign in Italy (Classic Reprint)

    (Excerpt from The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte: Down to the ...)

  • The life of the emperor Napoleon : with an appendix, containing an examination of Sir W. Scott's

    (This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

  • Observations on the Writings of Thomas Jefferson: With Particular Reference to the Attack They Contain on the Memory of the Late Gen. Henry Lee; In a

    (This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before ...)

  • The Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas: With Remarks, Historical and Critical, On Johnson's Life of Greene. to Which Is Added an Appendix of Original ... Relating to the History of the Revolution

    (This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• He has been described by Henry A. Wise, a contemporary, as being "rather ugly in face" but "one of the most attractive men in conversation we ever listened to" (Wise, post, p. 99).

Connections

Lee was married in March 1817 to Anne, daughter of Daniel McCarty of Westmoreland County.

Father:

Henry Lee

Mother:

Matilda Lee

Spouse:

Anne McCarty

Brother:

Robert Edward Lee