With nothing better to occupy him, he began to write a personal history of his wartime experiences, and at first he was indifferent to the project, seeking only some way to kill time. Thirty-three years had passed since he had first answered his country’s call to military duty, and he was surprised to find that, although he remembered some things clearly, there were details of incidents he no longer could recall.
Gradually he warmed to the book, and began to work with his old, unquenchable enthusiasm. At some point along the way he decided to devote the bulk of the Memoirs to his service in the South under Nathanael Greene. In order to obtain background and facts that escaped him he opened a lively, increasingly prolific correspondence with old comrades who were still alive and with the families of those now deceased.
Twice during his imprisonment he was moved to the jails of other counties in order to comply with the legalities necessary in bankruptcy petitions. But it didn’t matter to him where he was held. He worked sixteen to eighteen hours each day on the book, and the days weren’t long enough.
In April 1810 Harry was released from prison. He had duly declared himself bankrupt, his creditors had been forced to accept a few cents on each dollar he owed them, and he was now free of debt. The price — a year in jail — seemed a small one now.
He returned to Stratford, although he would live there for only a short time, as Henry, Jr. was scheduled to inherit the estate in his own name within a few months. There was still work to be done on the book, and Harry devoted much of his time to it, hoping it would earn him enough to provide his family with a few of the luxuries that were such rarities in the Lee household.
It would have been out of character for Harry to write a book that failed to express his frank opinions of men and their deeds. Because of his candor he planned to publish the Memoirs anonymously, but friends who submitted his partly completed manuscript to various publishers in New York and Philadelphia reported to him that editors showed no interest unless it appeared under his own name. He was afraid of libel suits, however, and was reluctant to agree. All the same, he continued his work.
He soon discovered that no stigma was attached to his imprisonment, and within a few weeks of his release he was again sitting as a justice of the peace in the Westmoreland County courts, a position he had held most of his life. After all, he was still Light-Horse Harry — and a Lee.
Late in the summer of 1810 Henry, Jr. legally took possession of Stratford. And soon thereafter his father, stepmother, and their four children moved out, although the young man repeatedly urged them to stay. But Anne had never liked the place, and Harry was too proud to live under the roof of anyone else, even that of his eldest son.
Anne had found a quiet, modestly priced house in Alexandria, across the Potomac from Washington City, and there was enough money left from the financial debacle to buy the place. Harry took with them two of his favorite horses, a cow to provide milk for the children and butter for the family table, a pony and cart for Robert Edward, and a dog that was the favorite pet of the whole family. The rooms were small, but large enough for the family’s needs, and — luxury of luxuries — the budget, which Anne supervised, permitted the Lees two servants.
Harry ignored the social life of Washington City, much of which spilled over the river into Alexandria, and devoted his time to his family and the completion of his book. Parties had lost their savor, and he and Anne could not afford to return invitations. He had been out of the limelight so long that hostesses who competed for the privilege of seating the lions of the hour at their tables ignored the Lees in return.
There was one notable exception, however. President Madison and his lovely wife had not forgotten old friends, and on a number of occasions Anne and Harry dined quietly at the Executive Mansion, which wouldn’t be called the White House until it was repainted after the British tried to burn it down in the War of 1812.
Harry completed his Memoirs late in the summer of 1811, and finally faced reality. The book was worthless without his name, so he decided to run the risk of being sued for libel. A man who had taken so many daring chances was not one to hold back now. The staid and prosperous publishing firm of Bradford and Inskip of Philadelphia promptly agreed to publish the book, which they brought out early in 1812, in two volumes.
The threat of a new war with England loomed on the immediate horizon, so interest in the Revolution was revived, and the Memoirs enjoyed a brisk sale, larger than the publishers had anticipated. Harry Lee again became something of a celebrity, although he no longer wanted prominence. He was fifty-six years old, his bronchial condition continued to bother him, and now that he had a little money again, he began to think once more of moving to a warmer climate.
A chance remark made to him at dinner one day by Secretary of State James Monroe revived his hopes of settling elsewhere. A hurricane had devastated several small islands in the Caribbean, and although American ports had again been closed as a precautionary measure prior to a declaration of war, the government was thinking of sending a small fleet of provision-laden ships to the West Indies on a humanitarian mission. The cooperation of the British would be necessary, however, as both President Madison and Secretary Monroe were unwilling to dispatch the ships unless given some assurance that they would not be attacked and captured by the Royal Navy, whose high-handed attitudes, including the impressment of American seamen, constituted one of the principal reasons the United States was preparing to defend herself.
Harry envisioned an opportunity to obtain transportation for his family to a warm place where he and Anne could recover their health. He returned to Alexandria from Washington City by ferry, suffering a slight case of indigestion caused by the rich foods and wines that Monroe had served, and sat down to write a long, formal letter to the President.
He and his family would occupy very little space on the voyage, he wrote. If necessary, they could travel on board two ships, with Anne taking the two younger children on one while he escorted the elder on another. For the first time a wistful, almost pleading note crept into Harry’s plea. He offered his services to the Administration without charge, and said he would be glad to act as the President’s emissary in presenting the food and other supplies to the stricken West Indians.
He reminded Madison — unnecessarily — of his previous desire to make a journey to “the Brazils.” And he made an attempt to salvage his pride by declaring that he was asking no extraordinary favor, but merely sought passage on board vessels sailing to a destination hitherto inaccessible to him. If the President wished, he added with a touch of bravado, he would pay any fee that the government deemed appropriate.
Madison, who had been concerned over Harry’s failing health, was sympathetic, and would have given his approval had the voyage materialized. But the British refused to cooperate. Aware of their naval superiority and convinced that a sea blockade could force the United States into a quick surrender, they saw the projected mission as a trick, a way to send American merchantmen to sea before hostilities began.
The United States was forced to abandon the plan, and Harry once again was frustrated. But he soon forgot his disappointment. On June 18, 1812, the country formally declared war, and both the President and his Secretary of State, who would soon take over the War Department portfolio, too, privately told him that his services would be needed. In spite of his age and infirmities, Light-Horse Harry Lee was the logical choice to lead the American Army. The long years in the wilderness were ended — or so it seemed.
XIX: DON QUIXOTE, WHO TILTS AT WINDMILLS
The United States was woefully unprepared for war in 1812, and in many ways her defenses were in a sorrier state than in 1775. “Mr. Madison’s War,” as the conflict was called by newspapers in Hartford, New Haven, and Providence, was so unpopular in New England that a serious threat of secession developed in that part of the country. Most of the agitation in favor of the war came from the new Western states, where expansionist fever was strong and British-inspired Indian r
aids were frequent. Elsewhere, the great seaboard states that had been the mainstays of the Revolution, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland, accepted the coming of the war with almost fatalistic calm.
Bonfires were burned, of course, and patriotic speeches were made and duly applauded, but nowhere east of the mountains did the people display enthusiasm for the war. The nation had been enjoying unprecedented prosperity, and there had been indications that her wealth would be quadrupled, at the very least, within a few years. Now a new era of bleak self-discipline had been inaugurated.
The Navy was pitifully small, although her officers and men were exceptionally efficient, thanks to years of serving together in the nation’s “little war” against the Barbary pirate states of North Africa. It would be impossible, however, for a fleet consisting of only four frigates mounting more than forty guns and fifteen smaller ships to meet the great Royal Navy, with its vast armadas of ships-of-the-line, many of them seventy-fours.
The United States Army was in even worse shape, and there were many, Secretary Monroe among them, who considered it no more than a tiny military police force. The Regular Army consisted of 6,483 officers and men, and except for a few who had taken part in frontier skirmishes against Indians, most had never fired a musket or cannon in earnest. The officer corps was in an especially deplorable state. There had been so little hope of professional advancement for so many years that few energetic, courageous men with a talent for leadership had been attracted to a military career.
Secretary of War William Eustis was an amiable politician with no qualifications for his post. At the outbreak of war his small corps was scattered from the Canadian border to the Floridas’ frontier, and from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi. A few weeks before the formal declaration signaling the outbreak of hostilities he had, at the President’s instigation, begun a campaign for volunteers, but no one knew how successful it had been. In a Cabinet report destined to become famous for its inefficiency, Eustis guessed that five thousand recruits had answered the call to the colors, but he couldn’t be sure.
In the early stages of the war the government had to fall back on the state militia, which were as unreliable as they had been a generation earlier. And the governors of the New England states compounded the Administration’s problems by refusing to call up their militia.
The shortage of efficient commanders was critical. Soon after the start of the war, Congress accepted the War Department’s recommendations and appointed five generals, two of them major generals, the rest brigadiers. The youngest was in his mid-fifties, and only two of the five had held commands of consequence in the Revolution. Former President Jefferson, sympathizing with his successor’s predicament, wrote from his estate at Monticello, “The Creator has not thought proper to mark those on the forehead who are of the stuff to make good Generals.”
The situation seemed tailor-made for the re-emergence of Major General Light-Horse Harry Lee, and he had reason to hope, after brief conferences with the President and Monroe, that his commission would be reactivated and that he would be given command of the field forces. But James Madison was troubled. Harry’s health was so frail that he was incapable of withstanding the rigors of campaigning. By temperament and training he was unsuited for a post as a desk soldier, or military adviser to the President, and would have to be given a place in the field — or none at all.
The busy Madison made a tactful attempt to sound out Anne, but she was of little help. She knew her husband’s heart was set on returning to action, but she, too, wondered if he was strong enough for a hard life in the open. While Madison hesitated, Harry Lee brooded.
By the end of July Harry was thoroughly aroused. More than five weeks had passed since war had been declared, but he had not yet been asked to don his uniform. And the fact that Henry, Jr. had already been called to duty as a major and battalion commander of Virginia militia increased his sense of frustration.
Feeling out of sorts and impelled by motives never made clear in his own lifetime or later, Harry made a journey to Baltimore on July 26, traveling the short distance from Washington City by public coach. Whatever the reasons for Harry’s visit, he immediately became involved in a complicated, dangerous situation.
Support for the war was strong in Baltimore, and so was opposition to the Administration’s course. A young man named Alexander C. Hanson, whose late father had been a friend of Harry’s, was the publisher of a newspaper called The Federal Republican. On June 19, the day after war had been declared, he wrote a long, angry editorial in its columns, claiming the people had not wanted war, but that it had been forced on them by a blundering, short-sighted Administration.
The following day a mob had gathered, and while the officials of the city administration had looked the other way, had torn down the newspaper office, forcing Hanson to flee for his life. Now he had returned, bringing with him copies of a new and vituperative edition of his paper, which he had printed elsewhere. Determined to make a stand, Hanson had rented a house on Charles Street, which he planned to use as a combination office and home. Rather than be driven out by another mob, he had made up his mind to protect himself, and a number of his friends had gathered at the house, armed with muskets, pistols, ancient rifles, and sabers that had become heirlooms.
Most of Hanson’s “guards” were young men of good Baltimore families, and had earnest convictions but little common sense. They had decided to make a “stand for life” if another mob tried to attack Hanson, and planned to emulate Light-Horse Harry Lee’s farmhouse defense near Valley Forge in 1778.
Whether the arrival of the old hero in Baltimore was coincidental or planned has never been determined. And whether he called on Hanson, which he did, to remonstrate with him and urge him to support the war, or to offer him moral encouragement is also unknown.
Only a few facts can be gleaned from the hysterical reports that were printed thereafter in the nation’s press. Harry arrived at the house at approximately 7:00 P.M., and found it crowded with Hanson’s “guards” and well-wishers who were welcoming him home. After chatting briefly with his host, Harry took his leave, but was forced back into the house by a gang of boys and young men who threw stones at him.
He immediately sent two of the guests out by way of a back door to notify the city authorities that a mob was gathering, and he requested, in his own name, that steps be taken to disperse the throng. Meanwhile the mob continued to grow. Hanson and several of his friends opened windows and exchanged insults with the crowd, and Harry was alarmed when Hanson declared he intended to fire a volley over the heads of the mob. Such action, the old soldier said, would be certain to precipitate a real riot.
The police did not appear, but the crowd continued to grow rapidly, and became more menacing. An unending shower of stones rattled against the walls, and nearly every window in the house was broken. The rumble of the crowd became menacing, and Harry realized the besieged men in the house could be in for real trouble.
He set about organizing their defenses until either the police or a company of militia came to disperse the throng, and showed his usual skill in placing the defenders in strategic places. He insisted, however, that no shots be fired unless the mob rushed the house, and Hanson reluctantly agreed.
Meanwhile the men who had been sent for help were encountering time-consuming difficulties. The signatures of three magistrates were required to call out a force of sufficient size to disperse a throng of the size that had now gathered, and before the legal amenities had been satisfied, the crowd acted.
At 10:30, or thereabouts, the mob tried to break down a door, and its defenders fired through the panel, deliberately aiming high, in an attempt to scare them off. The attackers retreated, the mob grew still more unruly and the siege entered a new phase. Several men raced off, returning a half-hour later with a small cannon and some iron shot. It was later charged that the gun and ammunition had been stolen from a state militia armory, but the issue was not pressed.
<
br /> By midnight the defenders were literally fighting for their lives. The cannon had made several holes in the walls of the house, but the mob was still being kept at a distance, thanks to the singlehanded efforts of Harry, who hurried from one post to another and himself fired an occasional shot, with deadly accuracy, that sent the throng scurrying back to safety.
A short time before dawn a small detachment of Maryland dragoons arrived at the scene, but the troops, themselves only half-trained, were not capable of coping with the crowd, which now numbered well into the hundreds. The commander was able to make his way to the house, where he held a short discussion with Harry, promising he would do what he could to restore order and, above all, to protect the person of General Lee.
Soon after daybreak a larger militia force appeared, and with them came the mayor and several other officials. To Harry’s astonishment, they refused to disperse the mob, now more than one thousand strong, and declared that the only solution of the problem was to arrest those in the house for disturbing the peace and then take them off to jail. Harry agreed, reluctantly, and the entire party was marched to the jail.
The mob was restrained with difficulty, and the militiamen, who formed a double line on each side of the prisoners, sympathized with the majority. Three or four of Hanson’s friends were roughly treated before officers, moving up and down the line, were able to rescue them.
The day passed quietly, too quietly, and although the prisoners enjoyed the illusion of safety, they were uneasy. No formal charges had been made against them, and they were not called before a magistrate. Twice Harry demanded that they be charged or set free, but the militia officers paid no attention. They, like the members of the mob, called him, of all people, a “Tory” and “Redcoat.”
Light-Horse Harry: A Biography of Washington’s Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee (Heroes and Villains from American History) Page 27
