Henry Lee
1756=1818.
Henry Lee, “Light-Horse Harry,” of the Revolution, and father of General R. E. Lee, was born at Leesylvania, Westmoreland County, Virginia. His father was also named Henry Lee, and his mother was Lucy Grymes, the famous “lowland beauty,” who first captured Washington’s heart. Her son was a favorite of his, and it is an interesting fact that it was this same Henry Lee who delivered by request of Congress the funeral oration on Washington. In it he used those now well-known words, “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
He was educated at Princeton, and joined the American army in 1777, with his company, as Captain Lee. He rose successively to be major, colonel, general; and after the war he served in the Continental Congress and in the Virginia Legislature. He was injured in a riot at Baltimore, while trying to defend a friend, and went to Cuba for his health; but he died on his way home, at Cumberland Island on the coast of Georgia, at the home of General Greene’s daughter, Mrs. Shaw.
With his first wife, his cousin Matilda Lee, he obtained Stratford House, where R. E. Lee was born; whose mother however, was the second wife, Anne Hill Carter of Shirley.