I came to Harry Lee through a long interest in his youngest son, R.E. Lee. Anyone who reads the son's letters or studies his life knows his father loomed unusually large in his life, both as a military hero and as a caution. The son was but a boy of four or five when his father left for the West Indies, where he hoped to recover his health after being brutally beaten and stomped nearly to death by a Baltimore Democratic-Republican mob that attacked the offices of a federalist newspaper where he had gone to advise the owner how to defend the place. Everyone else in the building was killed. Lee was left for dead. Doctors managed to restore him to life, but not to health. His son was left with the tales of the remarkable, dashing military hero who counted George Washington among his admirers and whispers of the post-war profligate whose careless land speculations landed him in jail and left his family impoverished. Recent reading of biographies of Washington and studies of the Revolutionary War and the elder Lee's exploits in it led me to this book.
I recommend it both for its study of a man and of a leader in the Revolutionary War in the South. In many ways Harry Lee was typical of the men of his class in his time: land speculation sent some of the most prominent and responsible Virginians into dire financial straits even before the Revolution. Washington himself was saved from serious difficulties by an inheritance after his step-daughter's death. But Harry Lee's temperament and perhaps his physiology seems to have made him particularly liable to problems in what amounted to a futures market. He was a man of extremes, one who today probably would be diagnosed as bi-polar, at the very least. His exit from active duty came in the wake of a towering depression that followed his most exhilirating and successful actions on the field. From the outset, those around him in Virginia and at Princeton had recognized his intellectual brilliance, but he seems never to have been satisfied with the recognition he received in life. Washington's correspondence is littered with letters from Lee complaining that his performance had not been publicly acknowledged or sufficiently recognized, even when the Commander had written him personally lauding his work. This discontent lay behind many of the enduring military enmities he made. He was a student of classical history, and he craved Glory and Honor as much as any Greek warrior: Honor in war would bring Glory and the enduring preservation of his name. But Achilles was made for battle, not the tedious work of bureaucratic leadership. And after the war, Lee's vices made him a poor and irresponsible husband and parent.
But as a cavalry leader, Light Horse Harry Lee was superb. And his work with General Nathaniel Greene in the Southern theater of war was brilliant and critical. The author's descriptions of all the war actions are both clear and breath-taking. I found myself completely absorbed in the actions surrounding the Battle of Guildford Courthouse and the harrying actions that followed. Brilliant accounts of things difficult to communicate. For those chapters alone, this book is worth the read.
The author's descriptions of Lee's last five years, hopping from one warm island to another, depending on the kindness of strangers he beguiled with his conversation and tales and left with worthless checks, is also well done. One feels sad for the man even as he recognizes that man is a con artist par excellence. The picture of Lear on the heath comes to mind.
To his credit, the author moralizes but little. He generally lets the story tell itself. But when he describes R.E. Lee's decision to refuse Winfield Scott's offer to command the union armies out of loyalty to Virginia, he observes the irony of that choice. After all, Harry Lee's entire career, both military and civilian, had been spent in preserving the union of the states. I found this to be both gratuitous and reductionist. In the first place, Harry Lee had on occasions (e.g., War of 1812) loudly opposed the U.S. In correspondence with a British friend, he remarks the pettiness of the act, which was created partly by British ships impressing naturalized sailors from the British Isles, and he wrote the President suggesting the nation solve the problem by refusing to admit naturalized citizens to the Navy. And his allegiance to Virginia was more primal than most who live in a globalized world can appreciate. Most importantly, he was not faced with choosing between Virginia and a hostile union. His son, whose character was almost completely antithetical Harry Lee's and who was known as a model of integrity, did face that choice. His knowledge of warfare and his engineer's mind almost certainly told him it was not a war Virginia or any Southern alliance it might make would be able to win. The wars of the father and the son were entirely different, and while the irony is worth noting, to treat it so superficially is not worthy of the author.
I think anyone who wants to know more about either Light Horse Harry Lee or his son R.E. Lee would do well to read this fine book. And anyone who tends to get lost in battle descriptions (I sometimes do) will not get lost in these.
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