There were numerous distractions in 1789 and 1790, too. The most serious of them was Matilda’s physical condition. She had complained of dizziness and a lack of appetite before Harry took her off to New York to see Washington inaugurated as the first President of the United States, and the journey did nothing to improve her health. She went into a steady decline after their return, and required so much attention that she spent most of her time at the home of her mother, in Alexandria.
Physicians advised that she visit the hill country, where the air was sweeter and less steamy, but she rallied there for only a short time. Her loss of weight was alarming, and she failed to respond to a variety of elixirs prescribed for her.
Harry’s old friend, Alexander Hamilton, now Secretary of the Treasury, did nothing to ease the Virginia squire’s mind, either. Struggling desperately to put the finances of the young nation on a sound basis after thirteen years of budget juggling by thirteen separate states, he wanted the new federal government to assume the legitimate debts of the states — and pay for the operations of the government by taxing landowners. Harry, with Stratford’s thousands of acres, property in Kentucky and the Great Falls land, became so perturbed that he lost much of his enthusiasm for the new system of government.
By early spring of 1790 he was so upset that he decided to run for a seat in the Burgesses, hoping that if Richmond led the way, other states would follow Virginia’s example and prevent Hamilton from driving estate owners into bankruptcy. He opened a brisk correspondence with the Secretary, believing his friend misunderstood the situation and didn’t realize what he was doing to men in Harry’s position. The replies were cautious, and held out no promise of relief. Alexander Hamilton knew precisely what he was doing.
Matilda began to suffer from mysterious fevers that attacked her suddenly, and left her limp and exhausted when they subsided several hours later. The unexpected death of her mother put her into a melancholy frame of mind, and she was finding it difficult to breathe.
To top Harry’s woes, the winter of 1789–90 was particularly severe, and the cold was followed by a period of heavy rains that lasted well into May and ruined spring planting. Cattle caught a mysterious disease attributed by most estate owners to the incessant dampness, and Harry lost about one-third of his herd.
There were only a few bright spots in that gloomy spring. He was elected to the Burgesses, and the new governor, Beverly Randolph, honored him by making him lieutenant for Westmoreland County. He was now the official commander of the county militia, with the rank of full colonel, and was the presiding justice of the peace. Unfortunately, the honor was an empty one, and he was given no additional salary for his increased responsibilities.
He went off to Richmond in a sour frame of mind, and found himself in agreement with other members of the Assembly who believed that the industrial states of the North intended to finance the government at the expense of the Southern landowner. Bills incorporating Hamilton’s ideas had been introduced in Congress, and the whole South was alarmed. No one was more up in arms than Harry Lee, and although his faith in Washington never wavered, he suspected that the President, the most honorable of men, was unaware of the knavery around him and was the unwitting captive of cunning Senators, Congressmen — and Cabinet members.
On the opening day of the session Harry relieved his mind by making a fiery speech that covered a variety of subjects. He protested at length against a tax on landowners, pointing out that a factory or mill in Massachusetts or New York or Pennsylvania might occupy only a fraction of an acre, and hence its proprietor, who might make an enormous annual profit, would pay a tax infinitely smaller than that required of an unfortunate squire whose thousands of acres were — in that very year — a financial liability and drain.
He was applauded wildly.
Harry was just starting, however, and continued to let out his frustrations. There had been a plan, approved by all Virginians, to build a new capital for the United States on the banks of the Potomac across from Alexandria. Now, however, it had come to his attention that Senators and Congressmen from the North were conniving to find a site located in their part of the country.
Virginians, Harry declared, believed in fair play. They favored a site in the center of the country, equidistant from the northernmost and southernmost tips. As it happened, a capital on the Potomac would, through sheer chance, be convenient to Virginia. But other states were jealous of Virginia’s prestige, and wanted to cheat her. “Their evil designs shall not prevail!” he shouted.
There was such tumult in the House that sergeants-at-arms were required to restore order. And before the day’s session ended, Harry found himself elected to the post of floor leader by his fellow Assemblymen. He was, after the Speaker, the most important member of the lower chamber of the Burgesses. A position that other men had worked for years to attain had almost literally fallen into his lap, with no effort on his part.
As another direct consequence of his address he was offered the chairmanship of the Committee on Propositions and Grievances. It was this group that instructed — or tried to instruct — the state’s federal Senators and Congressmen how to vote on various issues of the day, and consequently was considered by many to be the most important of the Burgesses’ committees. Overnight he was catapulted into a position that led his colleagues to think of him for the Governorship, and throughout the session he was a marked man, courted by every faction and group.
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Harry Lee’s political career is that he achieved success so easily. His climb from obscurity to high places was proof of Washington’s theory that the office sought the man.
Harry enjoyed the spring session of the Burgesses, just as he would relish the autumn meeting a few months later. But his own concerns remained pressing, and as soon as the Assembly adjourned he made another journey to the Great Falls. Work on the locks was progressing, even though some engineers were saying that water would not flow into them. And a warehouse had been built on the one lot he had sold before litigation had forced him into inactivity.
He returned to Stratford so fired with enthusiasm for his real estate development that he wanted to mortgage as much of the property he and Matilda owned as was necessary to finance the operation that had become his obsession. Matilda, who had always deferred to him in all things, stubbornly refused to give him a free hand. She believed she was dying, she had no faith in the Great Falls scheme, and she was afraid that her three children — who had no inheritance other than the Stratford estate — would become penniless orphans.
She understood her husband, but there were others in the family who knew him, too, and Matilda enlisted their help. Her sister’s husband, Ludwell Lee, was one, and Harry’s own brother, Richard, was another. Both were hard-headed lawyers with considerable experience in dealing with business matters, and both tried to dissuade him from squandering his children’s future.
When Harry would not be budged, Matilda took another tack, and begged him — for her sake — to grant her wishes. A husband who loved his invalided wife and could not bear to see her in torment was unable to oppose her. Harry agreed to put the Stratford estate and several other valuable properties he and Matilda jointly owned in trust for the children. Under its terms, carefully drawn by Richard and Ludwell, he could not borrow on the estates or dispose of them; after his death and Matilda’s, these lands — and everything on them — would go to their children.
Harry returned to Richmond for the autumn session of the Burgesses still searching for ways to finance his project. Meanwhile the state’s business inundated him, and his popularity continued to soar. He was still popular with the Constitutionalists, whose cause he had espoused so vigorously at the Virginia convention. And their opponents, whose ranks were increasing, held views on most matters identical to his own.
James Madison, who had failed in his bid for a Senate seat and was now a member of the House of Representatives, had also suffered strong changes of heart. Strongly
opposed to most of Secretary Hamilton’s ideas, he had already become an articulate leader of the anti-Administration forces in Congress, and was applauded by most Virginians for his stand. He corresponded regularly with Harry and with others in the legislature, and it may have been he who first openly advocated that his old friend be elected governor the following year.
Whether he was the first is, in a sense, irrelevant. What matters is that he became Harry’s champion. Other young men, among them James Monroe, who would follow Madison as President, and John Marshall, who would become the nation’s most distinguished Chief Justice, were also enthusiastic. The older, most powerful Virginians kept their hands off, for one reason or another. President Washington didn’t believe it appropriate for the dignity of his office to interfere, but everyone knew Harry had long been his protégé. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson was preoccupied. Patrick Henry had retired from politics to support his large family by practicing law. Only United States Senator Richard Henry Lee was still concerned with state politics, and of course he favored the election of the cousin he had always helped.
The political pot bubbled furiously, but while the ferment was at its peak, Harry lost interest in the governorship, in Great Falls, even in life itself. He received a message from Stratford telling him that Matilda had died suddenly and unexpectedly in her sleep.
Harry left Richmond at once, and did not return to the state capital after her funeral. His devotion to his wife had been deep for the more than eight years of their marriage, and although her illness should have prepared him for what was to come, he was stunned.
He spent the winter at Stratford, and for days on end did nothing but sit in his library and stare out of the window. One day he conceived the idea of building a stone mausoleum in the rose garden Matilda had loved since childhood, and he spent weeks closely supervising the project, sometimes stepping in to cement a stone into place.
His many relatives and loyal friends could not console him, and Harry literally refused to leave the estate until the mausoleum was completed and Matilda’s remains moved there. Spring came, and he stirred sufficiently to oversee the planting, but did little other than go through empty motions.
Great Falls no longer meant anything to him, either. For a time, at least, he was able to see he had been pursuing a dream, and on the infrequent occasions he bothered to answer friends’ letters, he confessed he had been mad to think he could acquire a fortune in land speculation.
He stayed close to his children through the spring, and others in the family engaged in a conspiracy for his good. Philip and Henry urged him to take them riding, to teach them how to handle sword and pistol while in the saddle, and they were so insistent that he obliged them, and thus spent several hours each day exercising in the open.
He tried to be both father and mother to the children, and supervised their studies, read to them daily and told stories to his daughter every evening. No one, his own mother and brothers included, could induce him to leave Stratford long enough to dine with them.
But the world continued to come to him. Visitors dropped in to see him frequently, and men spoke of little but the “enslavement” of Virginia and the other states of the South by Alexander Hamilton. Already deeply depressed, Harry became gloomy almost beyond endurance. He heard nothing but bad news, and wished he had stood with Patrick Henry at the Virginia convention.
If he had, he told Madison in a brooding letter, the state would not have ratified the Constitution, and without Virginia’s support the new system of government would not have been adopted. Therefore, he concluded in a burst of specious, guilt-ridden reasoning, he was responsible for the nation’s catastrophe.
By summer Harry became active enough to start returning the condolence calls of relatives, in itself a full-time occupation. He took the children with him everywhere, and although more active physically, he had not yet recovered from the shock of Matilda’s death and remained emotionally empty and drained. Occasionally he spent an evening with some of his leather-covered books, but engaged in no other intellectual pastimes.
Others continued to think of him as the best candidate for governor, however, and Madison wrote to ask whether he would accept the position.
“I wish to be done with government,” Harry replied. “On the score of tranquility & peace I am also desirous to be quiet, for every day adds new testimony of the growing ill will of the people here to the government.”
Some of his other comments in the letter were equally vehement. In one place he wrote, “How do you feel, what do you think, is your love for the Constitution so ardent as to induce you to adhere to it though it should produce ruin to your native country?” His views had swung from one extreme to the other since 1789.
Some men believed Harry would refuse the governorship even if elected, but Madison was not one of them. The very intensity of the feelings expressed in the letters he had received indicated to Madison that his friend was coming to life again. He quietly advised the legislature to elect Harry, saying he felt certain that “Colonel Lee will deem it his obligation as a citizen to accept.”
Attempts to interest the grieving widower in a social life met with virtually no success. Attractive widows and unmarried young ladies were often included at the quiet dinner parties of relatives, but Harry had retreated into the shell from which he had emerged only to woo and win Matilda. Now, as in his early bachelor days, he was courteous but remote, and scarcely seemed aware of the existence of women.
Harry’s brother, Charles, who had attended the College of New Jersey with him and was closer to him than other members of the family, finally decided to have a frank talk with him. It wasn’t natural, he said, for a virile, adult man to spend all his time alone, and he suggested that Harry would recover sooner from his melancholy if he visited one of the brothels in Alexandria. If, because of the dignity of his position, he didn’t want to be seen entering or leaving such a place, Charles felt certain that arrangements could be made to bring an amenable young woman to Stratford for an evening.
“Sir,” Harry replied, according to a letter Charles wrote to Thomas L. Lee, another concerned relative, “were you anyone but the son of my parents I would take the flat of my sword to your backside. Never would I sully the memory of the wife I cherish by bringing a harlot under her roof. Nor,” he added gratuitously, “will another lady ever replace her in my affections. I died with her, sir, and now live only to serve our orphaned children and my fellow citizens.”
Charles promptly let it be known that Harry was speaking in terms of his duty to Virginia. His supporters throughout the state were pleased, but no one dared approach him directly on the subject. Again Madison’s advice was asked, and the reply was succinct: “Elect Colonel Lee Governor.”
By the end of summer Harry was once again keenly concerned with affairs of state. Hamilton remained his close personal friend, he protested frequently — and truthfully, although he despised Hamiltonian policies. This aspect of his nature remained unchanged to the end of his life. He was destined to become Hamilton’s bitter opponent for a time, but his friendship never wavered. Within a few years he would believe that Henry Knox had cheated him out of a post of high honor he desperately wanted, yet he retained a deep personal regard for Knox, too. And although the Chief Executive of the government he reviled was George Washington, he revered his former commander-in-chief as he did no one else, dead or alive.
This curious quirk sometimes baffled Harry’s political allies, who believed him either insincere or shallow. He was neither, but instead was naïve. A man’s political views, he felt, or even the acts he performed in the line of duty, were irrelevant to his personal relationships. One entertained a friend or was entertained by him, and one confided matters of an intimate nature to him if one wished. But one dismissed that man from office the next day if one felt he had due cause. Holding these unalterable views himself, Harry refused to allow differences of opinion or even acts hostile to him to sway his regard for others.
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Perhaps his greatest contribution to Robert E. Lee’s character was this lofty sense of duty. He had acquired it, at least in part, from his own lifelong association with George Washington, and handed down the concept to his son, whose high-minded idealism as an officer, a gentleman, and a human being was often reminiscent of Washington’s attitudes.
Harry’s sense of friendship did not prevent him from striking out at policies he loathed, however, and in a letter he wrote to Madison in the autumn of 1791, he indicated that, after almost a year of mourning and inactivity, he was ready for action again. “I had rather myself submit to all the hazards of war & risk the loss of everything dear to me in life,” he said, “than to live under the rule of a fixed, insolent majority. At present this is the case, nor do I see any prospect of alteration or alleviation. Something must be done to relieve a situation that has become intolerable! Our peril is great, and we can not afford delay.”
On November 1, 1791, the Virginia Burgesses gave Harry Lee an opportunity to enter the lists against those he considered responsible for an intolerable situation. By an overwhelming majority the Assembly elected him governor, and a committee was sent to call on him at Stratford to notify him of his election and ask whether he would accept.
Harry’s reply was brief: “I receive with humility and with gratitude the distinguished honor conferred upon me; to my mind invaluable because it conveys the strongest testimony of affection and confidence of the country.”
He, like Patrick Henry before him, had been elected without lifting a finger on his own behalf.
Light-Horse Harry: A Biography of Washington’s Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee (Heroes and Villains from American History) Page 20
