Light-Horse Harry: A Biography of Washington’s Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee (Heroes and Villains from American History)

by Noel B. Gerson

  The anti-Federalists, following the lead of the strongly pro-French Jefferson, roundly condemned the treaty. Edmund Randolph, who had succeeded Jefferson as Secretary of State, was the only member of the cabinet to vote against its acceptance. Soon thereafter he was the victim of a cruel political hoax, and was accused of having accepted bribes from the French government. Although he was innocent, as he subsequently proved, he immediately resigned.

  Therefore the post of Secretary of State was vacant at a critical time. Washington, trying to steer the nation on a neutral course as more and more nations in Europe were becoming embroiled in the expanding war there, refused all partisan suggestions in an attempt to select a new Secretary who would help him heal the breaches in an increasingly divided nation.

  Meanwhile political paradox piled on paradox. Madison, one of the Constitution’s “fathers,” had become so disillusioned over the way the new system of government was working out that he had cast off all his former allegiances and had joined the Jeffersonians. John Marshall was one of the few Virginians of consequence who unequivocally approved of the federal government in both theory and practice. And Patrick Henry, who had been devoting himself to his private law business since his almost successful attempt to prevent the ratification of the Constitution by the Virginia convention, had undergone a complete change of heart.

  He told John Marshall, who in turn passed along word in a letter to Harry Lee, that he was astonished and gratified to discover that the system was effective and that, thanks to the Bill of Rights incorporated in the first ten Amendments, the personal liberties he deemed so important were being safeguarded. With Madison and Henry changing places, it was small wonder that other men, from the highest official to the humblest private citizen, were confused.

  Early in 1795 President Washington paid a brief visit to his home at Mount Vernon, and a day or two after his arrival there, General Harry Lee rode over from Stratford to pay his respects to his mentor and friend. Anne accompanied him, and the call was a purely social one. Certainly there was nothing in Harry’s previous relationship with Washington that indicated their relationship was about to enter a new phase.

  When the ladies left the table at the end of dinner, however, and the President took his guest on the inevitable stroll that ended on the veranda overlooking the Potomac, the tired Washington began to speak freely of his problems. Harry was a man who had no political ax to grind, wanted nothing for himself and for almost twenty years had unfailingly demonstrated personal loyalty and friendship.

  Washington discussed the complicated international situation and his own efforts to find a Secretary of State who might help pull America’s warring factions closer together. After talking candidly at some length, he posed a question: Did his guest have any possible candidates to suggest?

  As it happened, Harry did. Patrick Henry, who had demonstrated his executive talents as Governor of Virginia, would be perfect. More than any other one man, perhaps, he had inspired the Revolution, and was enormously popular everywhere. New England revered him for the fiery stand he had taken before and during the war. The South loved him because he had so long been her champion. And the West admired him because he had lived for long periods on the Virginia frontier and because he had authorized and promoted the George Rogers Clark expedition that had made so much of the West safe for the United States during the war.

  Beyond all these factors was another that made the suggestion worthy of a Machiavelli — or an Alexander Hamilton. If the one-time champion of the anti-Federalist cause accepted the appointment, the sting would be drawn from the fangs of those who criticized the government. Even if he refused, the Jeffersonians would be forced to curb themselves for a time.

  Washington not only agreed to the idea, but accepted Harry’s offer to carry a presidential letter to Henry and to use whatever powers of persuasion he possessed to insure acceptance. The following day Harry returned to Mount Vernon for the letter and, before setting out, Washington discussed other possible candidates for the office. Perhaps it was the crowning paradox that Harry Lee, whom neither of the opposing political factions wanted, had — perhaps in part for that very reason — become one of the few genuine advisers to whom Washington had ever listened.

  Patrick Henry rejected the offer, but his reasons were personal rather than political. He had a very large family, two of his older daughters were widows and he had to support them and their children in addition to his own younger brood. But a coldness he had felt toward the President for several years evaporated, and he discussed the nation’s affairs at length with Harry, who duly reported back to Washington.

  The President was pleased that he found a selfless man he could trust, and took Harry even more into his confidence. There were two other openings in the cabinet, the places of Attorney General and Secretary of War. Washington discussed candidates with Harry, and approved of his suggestions, Governor John Howard of Maryland, who had been a colonel in Nathanael Greene’s Army of the South, for the War Department opening, and John Marshall for the Attorney Generalship.

  Harry rode up to Baltimore to see Governor Howard, and then privately reported to the President that he had changed his mind as Howard, in his opinion, was growing senile. John Marshall turned down a place in the Cabinet for complex personal reasons, and Harry had still another candidate to suggest, his own brother Charles — who accepted.

  In the autumn of 1795 Harry returned to Richmond as a delegate to the Assembly. There he was regarded as a member of the hopelessly outnumbered Federalist minority, but the real Federalists — Marshall excepted — refused to find a place for him in their ranks. Nevertheless he voted with them, but in vain, as the Jeffersonians pushed through a resolution that condemned the Jay Treaty.

  Virtually no one knew that Harry had become the President’s confidential agent, and he himself kept his mouth shut. Much as he enjoyed glory and the limelight, he vastly preferred the intimate friendship of George Washington.

  In the winter of 1795–96 the President called on him again, this time to inquire whether Patrick Henry would accept the Chief Justiceship of the United States. Again the old man refused, but by now he, too, had learned to appreciate Harry Lee’s brand of forthright but quiet diplomacy, and to the end of his days, within the decade, Patrick Henry remained Harry’s close friend.

  Frequently called into conference by Washington during his last year in office, Harry was asked for assistance by Hamilton and the other Federalist leaders in the election campaign of 1796. He agreed, without enthusiasm, and did less for the Federalists’ man, General Charles Pinckney, than he did against Thomas Jefferson. He showed no disappointment when the cold but able John Adams of Massachusetts, who was his own man, won the election.

  At no time during this period did Harry show or express personal political ambitions of his own. He had won sufficient prominence as a three-term Governor of Virginia and commander of the largest peacetime military force in American history to take a more active role in politics had he been willing to play the game according to its rules. But he had no patience with such maneuvers, and his thirst for power was satiated by his confidential relationship with Washington.

  Besides, other matters occupied his attention, not the least of them sparked by a rekindling of his desire to make a fortune in land speculation. But his years in the Governor’s Mansion had not made him a more astute businessman, and he compounded some of his earlier errors.

  The Great Falls project was still on his mind, even though the canal that would link East and West now seemed a far-distant dream. Harry and John Marshall, together with Marshall’s brother, James, bought a vast parcel of more than one hundred and fifty thousand acres in northwestern Virginia. James Marshall’s father-in-law was the venerable and distinguished Philadelphia banker, Robert Morris, who had been one of America’s financial geniuses in the Revolution, and James confidently expected Morris to put up most of the money for the purchase.

  Unfortunately, Morris was himself in
debt because of the failure of several land speculation projects, and Harry found himself loaning a considerable sum to the embarrassed old aristocrat. According to some accounts Harry gave him ten thousand dollars, but in other letters he himself refers to as much as forty thousand. The simple truth of the matter may be that Harry was becoming so involved in so many financial affairs that he could no longer keep them straight.

  Through General Benjamin Lincoln, one of his wartime commanders, Harry was one of several purchasers of a mammoth tract of nearly a quarter of a million acres in the Ohio Valley. His partners, Boston businessmen whom he had never met, had given him verbal promises to buy him out at any time.

  Harry had been counting on his 1796 crop at Stratford to ease his difficulties, but the estate produced no more than usual, and he tried to obtain his release from the Ohio Valley venture. The gentlemen in Boston proved to be silently and stubbornly reluctant to part with cash. In deep water and unable to swim, Harry borrowed twenty-seven thousand dollars on a short-term basis from President Washington. By selling several small properties he gathered enough cash in hand to repay at least a portion of his debt to Washington, and hoping to wipe out the obligation quickly, purchased some bank stock that, he was told, would soon triple its face value.

  He gave the stock to Washington, who accepted his explanation that it would soon be worth three times the current price. To his mortification, the stock depreciated rapidly. Harry hurriedly sent seventy barrels of corn, all he had on hand, to Mount Vernon as a token of his good will, and sold other properties in order to repay the full debt.

  The more he juggled his finances the more complicated they became, and the less cash he had for day-to-day expenses. Anne made no complaint, but the greathouse at Stratford began to look shabby. Anne, in fact, had her hands full. Her first child, born at Stratford in 1795, had died a few months later, and from that time on she hated the vast estate, so much larger and less intimate than the home she had known at Shirley.

  The year 1798 was the happiest the family had known in years. Anne’s second child, Charles Carter Lee, was born at Stratford, and was a plump, healthy baby. The infant came into the world at a critical time for the country — a war with France seemed imminent, and Light-Horse Harry, after years of relative obscurity, was suddenly thrust to the forefront of national affairs again.

  President John Adams, almost totally unprepared for a fight with a major power, made frantic efforts to put the United States on a war footing. He conferred by letter and in person with former President Washington, and the country breathed a little more freely when Adams announced that Washington had accepted a new commission as the senior major general and would lead the Army if it became necessary to declare war. Militia units in every state began to drill in scenes reminiscent of the eve of the Revolution, and Congress authorized the appointment of four major generals to serve under Washington. Again the President and ex-President consulted.

  Second on the list of seniority was Henry Knox, although most military men believed him too elderly, ailing, and obese to go into the field, despite his fiery declarations to the contrary. Next was Charles C. Pinckney of South Carolina, still vigorous in his fifties, but more a diplomat than a soldier. He won his appointment in part for political reasons, as he had been an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency in 1796, and partly because it had been he who had disclosed that France had threatened war unless the United States loaned her a large sum of money. Pinckney had served during the Revolution as a captain, and had spent more than two years as a British prisoner.

  Only the two junior major generals were actually expected to lead troops in the field. Alexander Hamilton had served with great distinction in the Revolution, and even the Jeffersonians who hated him did no more than grumble quietly when they learned of his appointment. The officer at the bottom of the list won the greatest popular ovation. Major General Harry Lee, said newspapers everywhere, would teach the French a lesson they would never forget.

  Hundreds of letters from every state and territory made the delivery of mail to Stratford a backbreaking chore. Officers who had served with Harry, officers who wanted to serve with him and scores who wanted commissions for themselves, their relatives or their friends wrote him at length. The nation was running a high war fever, and that spirit was reflected in the correspondence that filled the library at Stratford and overflowed in bushel-baskets piled high in an adjoining room.

  Harry made a quick trip to Philadelphia, where he accepted his commission and took the oath. Then, returning home to await a call to active duty, he decided to answer every letter sent to him. The chore soon proved too great, however, and he had to give up when special couriers were sent from Alexandria with bags and baskets crammed with still more mail. Oddly, none of the other generals, Washington himself included, received so many requests. Harry and his friends concluded that if war should come, men wanted to fight under the command of an officer in whom they had confidence.

  The domestic situation became more clouded and unpleasant as the war hysteria mounted. Several times President Adams was on the verge of declaring war, but refrained only because the country was not yet ready to fight. Hamilton openly suggested a scheme he had long favored, an alliance with Great Britain, which alarmed people who still regarded Redcoats as the enemy.

  Jefferson, who still liked and respected France and the French, was convinced a sensible solution could be found, and gradually formed the opinion, which Freneau’s National Gazette trumpeted to the nation, that the war scare was nothing more than an insidious “plot of the Generals” to abolish the democratic form of government and establish a monarchy under “King Alexander I.”

  These attacks by the Republican-Democrats, as the Jeffersonians were now calling themselves, were primarily directed at Hamilton, but as they increased in vindictiveness, Harry was smeared, and not even Washington went untouched. Harry was infuriated by the gibberish he read in the Jeffersonian newspapers, and became more staunchly and articulately Federalist in his views.

  “The real enemies of the Republic,” he declared in a single-sheet broadside that he published at his own expense, a gesture he could ill afford, “are Vice-President Jefferson and his henchmen. Like rodents they gnaw at the very foundations of our system of government at a time when our liberty itself is in peril.”

  He was not alone in his anger or in the intemperance of his language. Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, a sedate gentleman from Connecticut, called the Vice-President, his supporters in Congress and the leaders of the French government “apostles of Atheism and anarchy, bloodshed and plunder.”

  No adjectives were spared in the verbal war that split the United States, and the alarmed Federalists, who still controlled Congress, were afraid that the country might refuse to fight unless stern measures were taken. Four major bills were passed and signed by President Adams. Known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, they were the Federalists’ worst blunder.

  In brief, the Alien Acts extended residence in the United States from four to fourteen years before an alien could become a citizen, granted the President powers to deport or imprison aliens he deemed undesirable, and granted him even greater powers to deal with citizens of nations that might be at war with the United States. The Sedition Act gave the government power to punish any persons, citizens included, who “conspired together to impede the operation of Federal laws,” and forbade anyone to write, publish or speak any “false, scandalous and malicious statement against the government of the United States.”

  The Republican-Democrats were appalled, and so were some of the more moderate Federalists. These laws struck at the very core of human liberties on which the American democratic system was founded. Even Hamilton thought the Sedition Act so strong that it might lead to tyranny, and supported a Congressional amendment to the bill that would make it less obnoxious. But his mild protest was not heard as the Republican-Democrats thundered and fulminated.

  Responsible officials and other men of standing
in the South and West spoke seriously of breaking away from the Union, letting New England and the other industrial states struggle alone as best they could while the dissatisfied formed another new nation of their own. Vice-President Jefferson thought it unnecessary to go that far, although he tacitly admitted that a state had the right to secede. In his opinion the Federalists had made a monumental blunder that he and like-minded men could use to their advantage.

  The voter was the ultimate source of power in a democracy, and he believed that an enlightened electorate would display a common-sense attitude at the polls that would end the Federalist reign. James Madison was pressed into service, and wrote a set of resolutions condemning the Alien and Sedition Acts that the Virginia Assembly passed by an overwhelming vote. Harry Lee was one of a small minority who voted in vain against the measure. A companion set of resolutions was prepared by Jefferson himself, but because of his position as Vice-President he deemed it unwise to admit his authorship. John Breckinridge, later to become a national figure of note, sponsored them in the Kentucky legislature, where they were adopted by a large majority.

  The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were the clearest, most pungent critique of the Federalists yet to appear, and did incalculable damage to the men in power. Meanwhile the Republican-Democratic press continued to see — or profess to see — evidence of a “Generals’ plot” that endangered the very foundations of the American system.

  Washington was treated relatively gently, the editors knowing their efforts would boomerang if they lashed out too hard at the one man respected by nearly every American. Ailing, bankrupt Henry Knox made a poor target, and Pinckney, who was not well known, seemed to be a colorless personality. That left Alexander Hamilton and Harry Lee as targets, and they were on the receiving end of a prolonged campaign that alternately slashed at them and ridiculed them.