HENRY

See also:

• LEE
• LEE (or LEGIT) ROWLAND (d. 1543)
• LEE, ANN (1736–1784)
• LEE, ARTHUR (1740–1792)
• LEE, FITZHUGH (1835–1905)
• LEE, GEORGE ALEXANDER (1802-1851)
• HENRY LEE (1756-1818)
• LEE, JAMES PRINCE (1804-1869)
• LEE, NATHANIEL (c. 1653-16g2)
• LEE, RICHARD HENRY (1732-1794)
• LEE, ROBERT EDWARD (1807–1870)
• LEE, SIDNEY (1859– )
• LEE, SOPHIA (1950-1824)
• LEE, STEPHEN DILL (1833-1908)

LEE (1756-1818)  , American general, called " Light Horse Harry," was born near Dumfries, Virginia, on the 29th of January 1756 . 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 . Heserved 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 the 19th of August 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 promoted lieutenant-colonel 1780, 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 after-wards 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 18o1 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 the 25th of March 1818 . Lee wrote valuable . Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department (1812; 3rd ed., with memoir by Robert E . Lee, 1869) .