Henry Lee IV

{{Short description|American biographer and historian (1787–1837)}} {{Other people|Henry Lee|Henry Lee (disambiguation)}} {{Infobox person | name = Henry Lee IV | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1787|5|28}} | birth_place = Stratford, Virginia | death_date = {{death date and age|1837|1|30|1787|5|28}} | death_place = Paris, France | alma_mater = | occupation = Biographer<br>Historian | other_names = "Black-Horse Harry" | spouse = {{marriage|Anne Robinson McCarty|29 March 1817}} | children = | parents = | relatives = See Lee family }} '''Henry "Black-Horse Harry" Lee IV''' (28 May 1787 – 30 January 1837) was an American biographer and historian, born in Stratford, Virginia, the son of Major-General Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III and Matilda Lee, members of the Lee Family of Virginia. He was a half-brother of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. He was educated at Washington Academy in Lexington, Virginia, and in 1808 graduated from the College of William & Mary.<ref>Woodward.</ref> (Washington Academy later developed as Washington and Lee University, renamed for Henry's younger half-brother Robert, who served as head of the school after the Civil War, long after Henry studied there.)

==Politics== thumb|Lee Family Coat of Arms Henry Lee IV served as a speechwriter for Andrew Jackson. After Jackson won election to the presidency in 1828, Lee, along with Jackson and William Berkeley Lewis, helped write the inaugural address.{{sfn|Parton|1860|p=164}} President Jackson rewarded him with a consular appointment to Algeria; the Senate, however, refused the confirmation.

In his remaining seven years of his life, Henry Lee traveled abroad, dying in Paris, France.

==Family== On 29 March 1817 he married Anne Robinson McCarty, daughter of Daniel McCarty and Margaret Robinson. Anne and Henry had one child, Margaret. Margaret was born in autumn of 1818, and died at the age of two in a tragic accident.<ref>Pryor, p. 35.</ref>

Lee's nickname of "Black-Horse" — a pun on the nickname of his famous father, "Light-Horse" Harry Lee — originated in a scandal two years after his daughter's death. Lee began an illicit affair with his wife's young sister, Elizabeth, who was his ward at the time.<ref name="Davis">{{cite book|last=Davis|first=Louise Littleton |title=Frontier Tales of Tennessee |year=1989|publisher=Pelican Publishing Company|pages=73–75|chapter="Black Horse Harry" Lee}}</ref><ref name="Storrow">{{cite web|last=Storrow|first=Samuel Appleton|title=Correspondence of Samuel Appleton Storrow|url=http://leeboyhoodhome.com/1821ltr.html#116|publisher=The Robert E. Lee Boyhood Home Virtual Museum|date=6 Sep 1821|access-date=1 August 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713195058/http://leeboyhoodhome.com/1821ltr.html#116|archive-date=13 July 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to at least one version of the story, Elizabeth became pregnant, although there's no record of the child having survived.<ref name=Davis /> The McCarty family brought suit to remove Lee as trustee of Elizabeth's inheritance and recovery of the money. Unbeknownst to the McCartys, Lee had misappropriated a portion of the trust for upkeep of Stratford Hall Plantation, the Lee family's ancestral home for six generations. In order to conceal the misappropriation, Lee attempted unsuccessfully to marry Elizabeth off to an unscrupulous suitor.<ref name="nagel">{{cite book|last=Nagel|first=Paul C.|title=The Lees of Virginia|year=1991|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=206–12}}</ref> The legal fallout and resulting scandal forced Lee to sell Stratford out of the family.<ref name=Davis /><ref name=nagel/> Elizabeth McCarty lived at Stratford for 50 years, from 1829 until her death in 1879.

Anne Lee, who had become addicted to morphine in an attempt to recover from grief at the death of her daughter, fled to Tennessee. She was often a guest of future president Andrew Jackson and his wife. Henry Lee later followed, beseeching his wife for forgiveness.<ref name=Davis /> Andrew Jackson befriended Lee and began to assist in rehabilitating him in political and social life.

==Literary works== * ''The Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas.'' 1824 * ''Observations on the Writings of Thomas Jefferson.'' 1832 * ''The Life of Emperor Napoleon.'' 1835

==Notes== {{reflist}}

==References== * Freeman, Douglas Southall ''R. E. Lee: A Biography'' Charles Scribner's Sons, New York and London, 1934. Ed. Bill Thayer online section at [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Robert_E_Lee/FREREL/Index*/L.html] Accessed February 23, 2008 * "Lee, Henry." ''American Authors 1600 – 1900'' H. W. Wilson Company, NY 1938. * Library of Congress [http://catalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?SC=Author&SA=Lee%2C%20Henry%2C%201787%2D1837%2E&PID=2971&BROWSE=2&HC=3&SID=2] Accessed June 2, 2007 * {{cite book |last=Parton |first=James |date=1860 |title=Life of Andrew Jackson, Volume 3 |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeandrewjacks00partgoog |location=New York, NY |publisher=Mason Brothers |author-link=James Parton }} * Pryor, Elizabeth Brown, and Robert E. Lee. ''Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters.'' New York: Viking, 2007. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8oLT37IFiIQC&dq=henry+lee+scandal&pg=PA36 googlebooks] Retrieved March 10, 2009 * {{cite web |url=https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lee-henry-1787-1837/ |title=Lee, Henry (1787–1837) |last=Woodward |first=Colin Edward |website=Encyclopedia Virginia |access-date=March 11, 2021}}

==External links== * [https://archive.org/details/campaignincarol00leegoog  The Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas] * [https://books.google.com/books?id=4ncEAAAAYAAJ&q=%27%27Observations+on+the+Writings+of+Thomas+Jefferson Observations on the Writings of Thomas Jefferson] * [https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_GG0JDfAqu_oC/page/n299  The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Henry 04}} Category:People from Westmoreland County, Virginia Henry Category:American male biographers Category:19th-century American historians Category:Speechwriters for presidents of the United States Category:Washington and Lee University alumni Category:College of William & Mary alumni Category:1787 births Category:1837 deaths Category:19th-century American biographers Category:American people of English descent