Part 48

LEE, FITZHUGH (1835-1905), American cavalry general, was born at Clermont, in Fairfax county, Virginia, on the 19th of November 1835. He was the grandson of "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and the nephew of Robert E. Lee. His father, Sydney Smith Lee, was a fleet captain under Commodore Perry in Japanese waters and rose to the rank of commodore; his mother was a daughter of George Mason. Graduating from West Point in 1856, he was appointed to the 2nd Cavalry, which was commanded by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston, and in which his uncle, Robert E. Lee, was lieutenant-colonel. As a cavalry subaltern he distinguished himself by his gallant conduct in actions with the Comanches in Texas, and was severely wounded in 1859. In May 1860 he was appointed instructor of cavalry at West Point, but resigned on the secession of Virginia. Lee was at once employed in the organization of the forces of the South, and served at first as a staff officer to General R. S. Ewell, and afterwards, from September 1861, as lieutenant-colonel, and from April 1862 as colonel of the First Virginia Cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia. He became brigadier-general on General J. E. B. Stuart's recommendation on the 25th of July 1862, and served under that general throughout the Virginian campaigns of 1862 and 1863, becoming major-general on the 3rd of September 1863. He conducted the cavalry

## action of Beverly Ford (17th March 1863) with skill and success. In the

Wilderness and Petersburg campaigns he was constantly employed as a divisional commander under Stuart, and, after Stuart's death, under General Wade Hampton. He took part in Early's campaign against Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, and at Winchester (19th Sept. 1864) three horses were shot under him and he was severely wounded. On General Hampton's being sent to assist General Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, the command of the whole of General Lee's cavalry devolved upon Fitzhugh Lee early in 1865, but the surrender of Appomattox followed quickly upon the opening of the campaign. Fitzhugh Lee himself led the last charge of the Confederates on the 9th of April that year at Farmville.

After the war he devoted himself to farming in Stafford county, Virginia, and was conspicuous in his efforts to reconcile the Southern people to the issue of the war, which he regarded as a final settlement of the questions at issue. In 1875 he attended the Bunker Hill centenary at Boston, Mass., and delivered a remarkable address. In 1885 he was a member of the board of visitors of West Point, and from 1886 to 1890 was governor of Virginia. In April 1896 he was appointed by President Cleveland consul-general at Havana, with duties of a diplomatic and military character added to the usual consular business. In this post (in which he was retained by President McKinley) he was from the first called upon to deal with a situation of great difficulty, which culminated with the destruction of the "Maine" (see SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR). Upon the declaration of war between Spain and the United States he re-entered the army. He was one of the three ex-Confederate general officers who were made major-generals of United States Volunteers. Fitzhugh Lee commanded the VII. army corps, but took no part in the actual operations in Cuba. He was military governor of Havana and Pinar del Rio in 1899, subsequently commanded the department of the Missouri, and retired as a brigadier-general U.S. Army in 1901. He died in Washington on the 28th of April 1905. He wrote _Robert E. Lee_ (1894) in the "Great Commanders" series, and _Cuba's Struggle Against Spain_ (1899).

LEE, GEORGE ALEXANDER (1802-1851), English musician, was born in London, the son of Henry Lee, a pugilist and innkeeper. He became "tiger" to Lord Barrymore, and his singing led to his being educated for the musical profession. After appearing as a tenor at the theatres in Dublin and London, he joined in producing opera at the Tottenham Street theatre in 1829, and afterwards was connected with musical productions at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. He married Mrs Waylett, a popular singer. Lee composed music for a number of plays, and also many songs, including the popular "Come where the Aspens quiver," and for a short time had a music-selling business in the Quadrant. He died on the 8th of October 1851.

LEE, HENRY (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. 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 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 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 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).

LEE, JAMES PRINCE (1804-1869), English divine, was born in London on the 28th of July 1804, and was educated at St Paul's school and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he displayed exceptional ability as a classical scholar. After taking orders in 1830 he served under Thomas Arnold at Rugby school, and in 1838 was appointed head-master of King Edward's school, Birmingham, where he had among his pupils E. W. Benson, J. B. Lightfoot and B. F. Westcott. In 1848 Lord John Russell nominated him as first bishop of the newly-constituted see of Manchester. His pedagogic manner bore somewhat irksomely on his clergy. He is best remembered for his splendid work in church extension; during his twenty-one years' tenure of the see he consecrated 130 churches. He took a foremost part in founding the Manchester free library, and bequeathed his own valuable collection of books to Owens College. He died on the 24th of December 1869.

A memorial sermon was preached by Archbishop E. W. Benson, and was published with biographical details by J. F. Wickenden and others.

LEE, NATHANIEL (c. 1653-1692), English dramatist, son of Dr Richard Lee, a Presbyterian divine, was born probably in 1653. His father was rector of Hatfield, and held many preferments under the Commonwealth. He was chaplain to General Monk, afterwards duke of Albemarle, and after the Restoration he conformed to the Church of England, abjuring his former opinions, especially his approval of Charles I.'s execution. Nathaniel Lee was educated at Westminster school, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1668. Coming to London under the patronage, it is said, of the duke of Buckingham, he tried to earn his living as an actor, but though he was an admirable reader, his acute stage fright made acting impossible. His earliest play, _Nero, Emperor of Rome_, was acted in 1675 at Drury Lane. Two tragedies written in rhymed heroic couplets, in imitation of Dryden, followed in 1676--_Sophonisba, or Hannibal's Overthrow and Gloriana, or the Court of Augustus Caesar_. Both are extravagant in design and treatment. Lee made his reputation in 1677 with a blank verse tragedy, _The Rival Queens, or the Death of Alexander the Great_. The play, which treats of the jealousy of Alexander's first wife, Roxana, for his second wife, Statira, was, in spite of much bombast, a favourite on the English stage down to the days of Edmund Kean. _Mithridates, King of Pontus_ (acted 1678), _Theodosius, or the Force of Love_ (acted 1680), _Caesar Borgia_ (acted 1680)--an imitation of the worst blood and thunder Elizabethan tragedies--_Lucius Junius Brutus, Father of His Country_ (acted 1681), and _Constantine the Great_ (acted 1684) followed. _The Princess of Cleve_ (1681) is a gross adaptation of Madame de La Fayette's exquisite novel of that name. _The Massacre of Paris_ (published 1690) was written about this time. Lee had given offence at court by his _Lucius Junius Brutus_, which had been suppressed after its third representation for some lines on Tarquin's character that were taken to be a reflection on Charles II. He therefore joined with Dryden, who had already admitted him as a collaborator in an adaptation of _Oedipus_, in _The Duke of Guise_ (1683), a play which directly advocated the Tory point of view. In it part of the _Massacre of Paris_ was incorporated. Lee was now thirty years of age, and had already achieved a considerable reputation. But he had lived in the dissipated society of the earl of Rochester and his associates, and imitated their excesses. As he grew more disreputable, his patrons neglected him, and in 1684 his mind was completely unhinged. He spent five years in Bethlehem Hospital, and recovered his health. He died in a drunken fit in 1692, and was buried in St Clement Danes, Strand, on the 6th of May.

Lee's _Dramatic Works_ were published in 1784. In spite of their extravagance, they contain many passages of great beauty.

LEE, RICHARD HENRY (1732-1794), American statesman and orator, was born at Stratford, in Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 20th of January 1732, and was one of six distinguished sons of Thomas Lee (d. 1750), a descendant of an old Cavalier family, the first representative of which in America was Richard Lee, who was a member of the privy council, and early in the reign of Charles I. emigrated to Virginia. Richard Henry Lee received an academic education in England, then spent a little time in travel, returned to Virginia in 1752, having come into possession of a fine property left him by his father, and for several years applied himself to varied studies. When twenty-five he was appointed justice of the peace of Westmoreland county, and in the same year was chosen a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, in which he served from 1758 to 1775. He kept a diffident silence during two sessions, his first speech being in strong opposition to slavery, which he proposed to discourage and eventually to abolish, by imposing a heavy tax on all further importations. He early allied himself with the Patriot or Whig element in Virginia, and in the years immediately preceding the War of Independence was conspicuous as an opponent of the arbitrary measures of the British ministry. In 1768, in a letter to John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, he suggested a private correspondence among the friends of liberty in the different colonies, and in 1773 he became a member of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence.

Lee was one of the delegates from Virginia to the first Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774, and prepared the address to the people of British America, and the second address to the people of Great Britain, which are among the most effective papers of the time. In accordance with instructions given by the Virginia House of Burgesses, Lee introduced in Congress, on the 7th of June 1776, the following famous resolutions: (1) "that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved"; (2) "that it is expedient to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign alliances"; and (3) "that a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective colonies for their consideration and approbation." After debating the first of these resolutions for three days, Congress resolved that the further consideration of it should be postponed until the 1st of July, but that a committee should be appointed to prepare a declaration of independence. The illness of Lee's wife prevented him from being a member of that committee, but his first resolution was adopted on the 2nd of July, and the Declaration of Independence, prepared principally by Thomas Jefferson, was adopted two days later. Lee was in Congress from 1774 to 1780, and was especially prominent in connexion with foreign affairs. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates in 1777, 1780-1784 and 1786-1787; was in Congress again from 1784 to 1787, being president in 1784-1786; and was one of the first United States senators chosen from Virginia after the adoption of the Federal constitution. Though strongly opposed to the adoption of that constitution, owing to what he regarded as its dangerous infringements upon the independent power of the states, he accepted the place of senator in hope of bringing about amendments, and proposed the Tenth Amendment in substantially the form in which it was adopted. He became a warm supporter of Washington's administration, and his prejudices against the constitution were largely removed by its working in practice. He retired from public life in 1792, and died at Chantilly, in Westmoreland county, on the 19th of June 1794.

See the _Life_ (Philadelphia, 1825), by his grandson, R. H. Lee; and _Letters_ (New York, 1910), edited by J. C. Ballagh.

His brother, WILLIAM LEE (1739-1795), was a diplomatist during the War of Independence. He accompanied his brother, Arthur Lee (q.v.), to England in 1766 to engage in mercantile pursuits, joined the Wilkes faction, and in 1775 was elected an alderman of London, then a life-position. In April 1777, however, he received notice of his appointment by the Committee of Secret Correspondence in America to act with Thomas Morris as commercial agent at Nantes. He went to Paris and became involved in his brother's opposition to Franklin and Deane. In May 1777 Congress chose William Lee commissioner to the courts of Vienna and Berlin, but he gained recognition at neither. In September 1778, however, while at Aix-la-Chapelle, he negotiated a plan of a treaty with Jan de Neufville, who represented Van Berckel, pensionary of Amsterdam. It was a copy of this proposed treaty which, on falling into the hands of the British on the capture of Henry Laurens, the duly appointed minister to the Netherlands, led to Great Britain's declaration of war against the Netherlands in December 1780. Lee was recalled from his mission to Vienna and Berlin in June 1779, without being required to return to America. He resigned his post as an alderman of London in January 1780, and returned to Virginia about 1784.

See _Letters of William Lee_, edited by W. C. Ford (Brooklyn, 1891).

Another brother, FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE (1734-1797), was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1770-1775. In 1775-1779 he was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and as such signed the Declaration of Independence. He served on the committee which drafted the Articles of Confederation, and contended that there should be no treaty of peace with Great Britain which did not grant to the United States both the right to the Newfoundland fisheries and the free navigation of the Mississippi. After retiring from Congress he served in 1780-1782 in the Virginia Senate.

LEE, ROBERT EDWARD (1807-1870), American soldier, general in the Confederate States army, was the youngest son of major-general Henry Lee, called "Light Horse Harry." He was born at Stratford, Westmoreland county, Virginia, on the 19th of January 1807, and entered West Point in 1825. Graduating four years later second in his class, he was given a commission in the U.S. Engineer Corps. In 1831 he married Mary, daughter of G. W. P. Custis, the adopted son of Washington and the grandson of Mrs Washington. In 1836 he became first lieutenant, and in 1838 captain. In this rank he took part in the Mexican War, repeatedly winning distinction for conduct and bravery. He received the brevets of major for Cerro Gordo, lieut.-colonel for Contreras-Churubusco and colonel for Chapultepec. After the war he was employed in engineer work at Washington and Baltimore, during which time, as before the war, he resided on the great Arlington estate, near Washington, which had come to him through his wife. In 1852 he was appointed superintendent of West Point, and during his three years here he carried out many important changes in the academy. Under him as cadets were his son G. W. Custis Lee, his nephew, Fitzhugh Lee and J. E. B. Stuart, all of whom became general officers in the Civil War. In 1855 he was appointed as lieut.-colonel to the 2nd Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Sidney Johnston, with whom he served against the Indians of the Texas border. In 1859, while at Arlington on leave, he was summoned to command the United States troops sent to deal with the John Brown raid on Harper's Ferry. In March 1861 he was made colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry; but his career in the old army ended with the secession of Virginia in the following month. Lee was strongly averse to secession, but felt obliged to conform to the action of his own state. The Federal authorities offered Lee the command of the field army about to invade the South, which he refused. Resigning his commission, he made his way to Richmond and was at once made a major-general in the Virginian forces. A few weeks later he became a brigadier-general (then the highest rank) in the Confederate service.

The military operations with which the great Civil War opened in 1861 were directed by President Davis and General Lee. Lee was personally in charge of the unsuccessful West Virginian operations in the autumn, and, having been made a full general on the 31st of August, during the winter he devoted his experience as an engineer to the fortification and general defence of the Atlantic coast. Thence, when the well-drilled Army of the Potomac was about to descend upon Richmond, he was hurriedly recalled to Richmond. General Johnston was wounded at the battle of Fair Oaks (Seven Pines) on the 31st of May 1862, and General Robert E. Lee was assigned to the command of the famous Army of Northern Virginia which for the next three years "carried the rebellion on its bayonets." Little can be said of Lee's career as a commander-in-chief that is not an integral part of the history of the Civil War. His first success was the "Seven Days' Battle" (q.v.) in which he stopped McClellan's advance; this was quickly followed up by the crushing defeat of the Federal army under Pope, the invasion of Maryland and the sanguinary and indecisive battle of the Antietam (q.v.). The year ended with another great victory at Fredericksburg (q.v.). Chancellorsville (see WILDERNESS), won against odds of two to one, and the great three days' battle of Gettysburg (q.v.), where for the first time fortune turned decisively against the Confederates, were the chief events of 1863. In the autumn Lee fought a war of manoeuvre against General Meade. The tremendous struggle of 1864 between Lee and Grant included the battles of the Wilderness (q.v.), Spottsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor and the long siege of Petersburg (q.v.), in which, almost invariably, Lee was locally successful. But the steady pressure of his unrelenting opponent slowly wore down his strength. At last with not more than one man to oppose to Grant's three he was compelled to break out of his Petersburg lines (April 1865). A series of heavy combats revealed his purpose, and Grant pursued the dwindling remnants of Lee's army to the westward. Headed off by the Federal cavalry, and pressed closely in rear by Grant's main body, General Lee had no alternative but to surrender. At Appomattox Court House, on the 9th of April, the career of the Army of Northern Virginia came to an end. Lee's farewell order was issued on the following day, and within a few weeks the Confederacy was at an end. For a few months Lee lived quietly in Powhatan county, making his formal submission to the Federal authorities and urging on his own people acceptance of the new conditions. In August he was offered, and accepted, the presidency of Washington College, Lexington (now Washington and Lee University), a post which he occupied until his death on the 12th of October 1870. He was buried in the college grounds.

For the events of Lee's military career briefly indicated in this notice the reader is referred to the articles AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, &c. By his achievements he won a high place amongst the great generals of history. Though hampered by lack of materials and by political necessities, his strategy was daring always, and he never hesitated to take the gravest risks. On the field of battle he was as energetic in attack as he was constant in defence, and his personal influence over the men whom he led was extraordinary. No student of the American Civil War can fail to notice how the influence of Lee dominated the course of the struggle, and his surpassing ability was never more conspicuously shown than in the last hopeless stages of the contest. The personal history of Lee is lost in the history of the great crisis of America's national life; friends and foes alike acknowledged the purity of his motives, the virtues of his private life, his earnest Christianity and the unrepining loyalty with which he accepted the ruin of his party.

See A. L. Long, _Memoirs of Robert E. Lee_ (New York, 1886); Fitzhugh Lee, _General Lee_ (New York, 1894, "Great Commanders" series); R. A. Brock, _General Robert E. Lee_ (Washington, 1904); R. E. Lee, _Recollections and Letters of General R. E. Lee_ (London, 1904); H. A. White, _Lee_ ("Heroes of the Nations") (1897); P. A. Bruce, _Robert E. Lee_ (1907); T. N. Page, _Lee_ (1909); W. H. Taylor, _Four Years with General Lee_; J. W. Jones, _Personal Reminiscences of Robert E. Lee_ (1874).