HENRY LEE.

gaged in negotiating a treaty with some Indian tribes on the frontier, on the part of the colony, and was intrusted with the management of his affairs in his absence-a duty of considerable

HENRY LEE, the brilliant partisan | Breckinridge, the author of "Modern officer of the Revolution, popularly Chivalry," left the institution. On his known from his dashing exploits at the return home, he found his father enhead of his brigade as "Light Horse Harry," and subsequently in connection with the civil history of Virginia, was born in Westmoreland County in that State, January 29, 1756. He was related by birth to the eminent family responsibility, which marked him as a bearing his name, which lent so many of its sons to the public service of the country, his father, Henry Lee, being the first cousin of Richard Henry Lee, the mover of the Resolution of Inde pendence in the Provincial Congress. His mother was Mary Bland, daughter of Colonel Bland, of Jordans, in Prince George County, Virginia.

youth of promise. Two years later, he received the appointment, at the sug gestion of Patrick Henry, then engaged in the military defence of the province, of captain in a company of cavalry, under the command of Colonel Theodoric Bland, and in the summer of 1777 joined the camp of Washington, in Pennsylvania, on the eve of the battle Lee, who had good reason in after of Brandywine. He appears at once life, when he became an historian, to to have brought himself into notice by pride himself among his fellow officers the excellence of his discipline, and his on his education, received his prepara- dashing bravery in harassing the outtory instruction, according to the cus- posts of the enemy and capturing pritom of good families of Virginia in his soners. Captain Lee continued with day, from a private tutor, from whose the little army of Washington, and in hands he passed to Princeton College, the winter encampment at Valley Forge, where, it will be remembered, Madison in 1778, elicited the warmest commen. and the other notable men of the coun- dations of the commander-in-chief for try were diligently taught, and, what his gallantry in baffling an attack in is more, patriotically inspired by the quarters of a superior force of the zealous President Witherspoon. He enemy. He was also rewarded by Conreceived his degree in 1774, three years gress with an independent command after Madison, the poet Freneau, and of horse, and the rank of major.

It

gence of the assault in the "forlorns plunging into the canal." A firing of musketry ensued from the works, but the movement was not impeded. The fortress was entered and taken posses sion of before a single piece of artillery could be discharged. Not a single musket was fired by the assailants; their whole dependence was on the bayonet. All that was now to be done was to secure the prisoners and conduct them to the American lines; for holding the fort was impossible, and had been strictly forbidden by Washington. was no easy work to accomplish, but it was done in spite of the alarm given to the soldiery in New York, and the attempts to cut off the rear on the backward march. The prisoners, one hundred and fifty-eight, were safely carried off, though at one time the Americans were so hardly pressed on their retreat, that, as Lee himself says, " self-preservation strongly dictated putting the pris soners to death," adding, "British cruelty fully justified it, notwithstanding which, not a man was wantonly hurt." The American loss in this brilliant affair, which pairs off with Stony Point, as Princeton and Trenton kept one another company in the previous year's campaign, was but two killed and three wounded. Washington, in communicating Lee's report of the affair to Congress, commended his remarkable degree of prudence, address, enterprise, and bravery," and Congress, in its resolves, echoed the eulogy of the commander-in-chief. A gold medal in his honor was ordered on the occasion.

The following summer Lee was stationed in the neighborhood of the Hudson, below the Highlands, and Washington at his headquarters at New Windsor, was planning the attack upon Stony Point. He consulted Lee in his preparations, and directed him to cooperate with Wayne, for whom that gallant action was reserved. It was not long, however, before Lee found the opportunity of gaining for himself as enviable a distinction. He had his eye fixed on the British post immediately opposite New York, at Paulus Hookthe site of the present Jersey Citywhere there was a fort with outhouses, somewhat carelessly guarded by some four or five hundred men. Thinking that it might be captured by the same spirited activity which Wayne and his men had exhibited, he made his arrangements, and set out on the afternoon of the 18th of August, moving from the New Bridge, on the Hackensack, along the Bergen road towards the scene of operations. With some defections of his men on the way-partly by separation in consequence of an ignorant or unfaithful guide in the hilly country, partly by withdrawal of a portion of Virginians on a question of rank-he arrived with the remainder of his force at the creek separating the peninsula from the mainland, at the approach of daylight, and after a brief reconnoissance, ordered the attack. "Not a moment being to spare," says he in his dispatch to Washington, "I paid no attention to the punctilios of honor or rank, but ordered the troops to advance in their then disposition." The garrison, The next military mention of conse taken by surprise, had the first intelli-quence of Lee, we find in Washington's

Lee,

order dated Morristown, 30th March, of the British commander, Colonel 1780, enjoining him "to take the most Campbell, and which failed of entire expeditious measures for putting the success, Lee intimates, only through the whole corps, both horse and foot, in humanity of himself and his brother readiness to march," adding, "if you officer, who spared the lives of their men move, your destination will be South in ordering an assault upon the fort after Carolina." It was not, however, till the the rest of the place had been occupied. following year that he was to enter on The retreat of Greene next followed, the southern field. In the meantime, with the rapid pursuit of Cornwallishe added to his laurels by his gallant a chapter in the war of perilous adven conduct in the defence of Springfield, ture and no ordinary heroism. and, in the autumn of this year, 1780, who had joined his superior, had comby his conduct of one of those strata- mand of the rear-guard, a position, in gems of war which he has made memo- point of honor, equivalent to the enerable by his excellent manner of telling my's van, for it was, of course, the first the story in his "Memoirs." exposed to attack, and the redoubtable Tarleton was at his heels. The termination of the flight was presently reached in the passage of the Dan, and the army of Greene was saved to return for speedy revenge on the track it had left behind. The adventure of Lee, in his adroit surprise and capture of Colonel Pyle and his Royalists, may be taken as a prelude to this new movement.

We

allude to his selection and employment of Sergeant Champe, a soldier in his camp in New Jersey, in an attempt to bring off the traitor Arnold from his British friends in New York for condign punishment in the American

army.

Lee did not enter upon the southern field till the appointment of Greene to the command, after the defeat of General Gates at Camden. Washington General Greene himself was now detached him for the service, with his across the border again in North Carocorps “an excellent one," he wrote, lina, and reinforced by a considerable "and the officer at the head of it has body of militia, awaited the attack of great resources of genius." Lee, with Cornwallis at Lee, with Cornwallis at a spot near Guilford the title of Lieutenant Colonel, joined Court-house. Lee's Legion, in the disGeneral Greene on the Pedee with his positions of the day-he had, in the legion—two hundred and eighty, horse early part of it, met Tarleton's advanced and foot-and was at once set in mo- guard with his accustomed energy tion to harass the enemy. He was was placed on the left flank, and of associated, in this work, with the gal- course had his work to do on that dislant Marion, and the two, hesitating at astrous day, when the safety of the nothing in the way of adventure, army, after the misconduct of the miliplanned a bold night attack upon tia, depended upon such tried soldiers Georgetown on the seaboard, which as he commanded. When Greene, was partially successful, in the capture patient of defeat, by a masterly move

ment advanced into South Carolina, intimacy, the friends freely interchang

ing their views on government. It was Lee's mournful privilege to communicate in a letter to Mount Vernon the news of General Greene's sudden death near Savannah. "Your friend and second," he wrote, "the patriotic and noble Greene, is no more. Universal grief reigns here. How hard is the fate of the United States to lose such a son in the middle of life!" The intelligence called forth a few words of Washington's resigned philosophy— the expression of a man who put no trust in fortune. "Life and the concerns of this world," he wrote, one, would think, are so uncertain, and so full of disappointments, that nothing is to be counted upon from human actions."

Lee was again detached to act with Marion, in concert with whom he captured Forts Watson and Motte. He also captured Granby, aided in the attack on Augusta, and took part with Greene in the attack on Ninety-Six, gallantly leading a storming division. Greene, meanwhile, encamped, during the summer months, on the high hills of Santee, waited his opportunity to engage the remaining forces of the enemy, now commanded by Colonel Stuart, and stationed at no great distance from his position. The parties met in battle at Eutaw Springs; Lee, with his legion-he was in command of the left of the first line-as usual distinguishing himself by his bravery and skill in the various fortunes of that bloody day. Like many of Greene's In Lee, Washington had one who reverses, it was a victory in the end. could sympathize with his views in In this same month of September, Corn-regard to the new Federal Constitution, wallis surrendered at Yorktown, and which was so vehemently opposed by the great southern struggle approached other statesmen in Virginia. Lee gave its end. Lee was sent to the North it his support, and sat in the State with a message from Greene to Wash- Convention for its adoption. In a letington, asking aid of the French navy ter to Washington, in September, 1788, in the reduction of Charleston, and announcing the steps taken for the again took part in the operations on organization of the new Government his return. He resigned his command in the coming election, he intimated the from ill health, before the conclusion choice of the country for its first Exof the war, and retired to his family ecutive in words of mingled friendship seat at Stratford, soon after being mar- and anxiety. ried to his cousin, the daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee.

In 1792 he was elected Governor of Virginia, and, during his term of office, Thenceforth it is mainly in civil, was called upon by Washington to rather than in political life that we find take command of the troops sent to him engaged. He was appointed a suppress the Whisky Insurrection in delegate to Congress in 1786, and is in Pennsylvania. He marched with fif correspondence with Washington, in teen thousand men into the western the continued enjoyment of his former counties; but fortunately the difficulty