Harry's father owned many horses and saw that his son became familiar with their care and use. His general education was not slighted as tutors provided him an outstanding general education and an appreciation of art and literature. At the age of fourteen, as was the custom, Harry was sent to the College of New Jersey at Princeton, NJ where he excelled, though he was disliked for his disputatious nature. One of his classmates was James Madison. Also in attendance at the same time were James Monroe and Aaron Burr. By the time of his graduation, Henry was confirmed in traits leading Nagel to describe him as "arrogant, vain, imperious, ambitious to a fault, painfully sensitive." and easy to quarrel.

Graduating at seventeen, his planned legal education in England was interrupted by the threat of war with the mother country. Having obtained a commission with the Virginia Light Dragoons led by a relative Theodorick Bland, his knowledge of horses and his command of men led to his recruitment and equipping of an outstanding company of light dragoons. It was not long until Harry was leading an independent command. In a series of skirmishes with British dragoons outside New York he received an education in cavalry tactics. He learned so well his raiders were instrumental in providing captured supplies to Washington at Valley Forge. So well, indeed, that more than 200 men were sent to capture him at nearby Spread Eagle Tavern. With seven of his men and using boldness and some theatricality, Harry avoided capture while killing five and dispersing the rest of the enemy.

This action, as well as the longtime family connection, brought Harry to Washington's attention and with it an offer of a position on his staff. To everyone's surprise, Harry refused this plum assignment saying he was, "wedded to my sword." Accordingly, Washington made him commander of an independent partisan corps of light dragoons with the rank of Major.

Inspired by Wayne's surprise attack on the British at Stony Point, Lee conceived of an even bolder attack on their force at Paulus Hook, NJ, directly across the river from the main British force in New York City. With Washington's approval, Harry was given an augmented force with which to execute his plan. From the start the action was beset with unexpected difficulties such that it was carried out by a reduced force with muskets made useless by water. Nevertheless, Harry persisted killing fifty of the enemy and carrying off one hundred and fifty prisoners. For this the always controversial Lee received Washington's thanks, the only Congressional Gold Medal awarded to an officer of his rank and -- a court-martial.

An early hitch in Harry's plan was that the commander of the force sent to augment his in the attack disputed Harry's right to command based on date of rank. Nothing daunted, Harry lied about his commission date. Washington ended the court-martial stating that Lee was acting under his direct authority, date of rank notwithstanding, and did only what was necessary to carry out his orders.

Light-Horse Harry Lee Monument Leesylvania (Va.) State Park

These are but two examples of the boldness, flexibility and military aptitude which made Harry the most outstanding and controversial officer of his rank in the Continental Army. In March 1780 he was sent south, a Lt Colonel under the command of Nathanael Greene, as commander of "Lee's Partisan Corps," or "Lee's Legion." In the Carolinas, Lt. Colonel Lee in cooperation with General Francis Marion hounded Cornwallis until the latter, retiring to Virginia, met defeat at Yorktown. [For an account of one of his battles, visit the NPS site for the Frontier Post of 96]

Giving no clear reason for the action, Harry, in 1782, unexpectedly resigned his commission. Was it the constant infighting among ambitious officers, a feeling that his own contributions had not been rewarded, a wish to marry or simply exhaustion? Perhaps it was precipitated by the appearance of a perceived rival in South Carolinian John Laurens, a member of Washington's staff, and son the former President of the Continental Congress, Henry Laurens. In fact, upon Lee's departure, Laurens took his place in command of the Legion. Under Laurens the Legion never regained the luster it enjoyed under Lee and Laurens became one of the War's last casualties.

In April 1782, after leaving the Army, Lee married his second cousin nineteen year old Matilda Lee (1764-90), the daughter of Philip Ludwell Lee (1727-75) and heiress to Stratford Hall plantation It was while married to Matilda that Henry began the task of building a great fortune by speculating in real estate. He had observed how Washington had profited by buying land on the frontier and selling it at a profit as the tide of migration moved west. What could be easier? The Lees had long looked to the Potomac river, flowing by their very doors at Leesylvania and Stratford Hall, as their road to fortune. To Henry the key to that fortune lay at the falls of the Potomac. By-pass the falls and all the commerce of the west could flow down the river. They would make their fortune in that city at the falls. Henry set out to achieve his dream by acquiring tracts of western land, participating with Washington and John Potts Jr.in the Potomac Canal Company and beginning to build a city at the falls, named Matildaville in his wife's honor.

Lee's success as a military man lay in his knowledge of horses, of men and of tactics learned from the British. Lee however was no surveyor as was Washington, nor had he a mind for finance. Perhaps it was vanity or his quick early success which prevented his repair of this lack, but it would cost him and his family dearly.

Great Falls of the Potomac Great Falls National Park, Va.

First there was the problem of digging the canal. When finished it would be hailed as the greatest engineering feat of nineteenth century America. But that was too late to help Lee. Second there was the western land speculation. The expected flow of European capital into the new land went instead to the Napoleonic wars. This brought ruin to Robert Morris, financier of the American Revolution, who could not repay sizeable loans made by Henry. Henry would have inspected carefully the equipage of his horses, but he did not look closely at the deals he made. One involved the purchase of 300,000 acres of land which proved upon survey to have been only 133,000 acres. Finally, he did not insure clear title to the land on which he was building Matildaville and so could not collect rents. Had he the least business sense he would have noted that while he was buying property, his model, Washington, was selling.

Many faced with such a situation would have retrenched seeking to learn from their errors, but that was not Henry's way. He reacted as he did in battle, choosing to press ahead and fight his way out. In so doing, he eventually was forced to resort to measures which were clearly immoral if not illegal, ruining family and friends in the process. He offered for security land he no longer owned, he appropriated the money for his daughter's dowry, and he even gave George Washington a bad check. It should be noted that such conduct was not unknown among others and that there were no forgiving bankruptcy laws in his day. Even in his financial ruin he remained a source of aid to his beloved veterans.

After leaving the Army Henry served in the Congress under the Articles of Confederation. There he observed the folly of a government unable to levy taxes and acting more like a congress of emissaries from sovereign governments than as a national government. Here, the problems of the canal company helped set the stage for a series of meetings which eventuated in the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1789. He wholeheartedly supported the work of the Convention. He lamented its failure to provide for the eventual end to slavery, but did nothing to achieve this end, in part through fear of a slave insurrection. In Virginia he worked for ratification against the opposition of Patrick Henry. In the ratifying convention his arguments had the added weight of his close association with Washington; who, seeing a conflict of interest, did not participate. In these debates, Lee alone of the founding generation stated that this was an indissoluble union.