Suddenly there was a great deal to be done, and very little time in which to do it. In less than three weeks the greathouse at Stratford was closed, and the estate left under the care of a general overseer recommended by Senator Lee. Harry, accompanied by his three children, a staff of servants and a housekeeper, set out for Richmond. The children and servants traveled in carriages, but Harry, as in the past, rode in the van on his horse.
XIV: THE FIRST CITIZEN OF VIRGINIA
On December 1, 1791, Light-Horse Harry Lee took the oath of office and began the first of three consecutive, turbulent one-year terms as Governor of Virginia, the maximum allowed any citizen under the state’s law. The ceremony was so quiet that few legislators or private citizens even knew it was taking place. A justice of the peace administered the oath, and aside from Harry’s three children the only guests present were a few wartime comrades, among them John Marshall, a Richmond resident who was engaged in the private practice of law at the moment.
Harry was still in a depressed frame of mind, and the appearance of Richmond, a raw, ugly town, could not have improved his spirits. A new community where construction work had just begun during the war years, it had been burned to the ground by Benedict Arnold, making it necessary to start again. Its atmosphere was that of a sleepy, rural village, and it lacked the urbanity of Alexandria and the charm of the former capital, Williamsburg.
The Governor’s Palace, now called the Governor’s Mansion by some, had been built just a few years earlier, previous governors having found it more pleasant and convenient to rent estates in the vicinity. Located only a stone’s throw from the new Capitol, which was distinguished only by a portico with Greek columns, it was a two-story clapboard structure badly in need of paint. The rooms were cramped, the official furniture provided by the state was uncomfortable and several of the fireplaces smoked. And the kitchen outbuilding was so small that the governor could not ask more than a few guests to a meal.
Harry was not inconvenienced, however, as he had no interest in entertaining, and dined only with those officials with whom he found it essential to discuss the state’s business. On some nights he ate alone, on others he brought the children to the table, and occasionally, when he grew tired of his cook’s dishes, he went to a primitive inn at The Market House, where farmers of the area sold their produce. In his first six months of office, he accepted invitations only from the Marshalls and a very few others. On these occasions his hosts were invariably men who had served with him during the war.
But he more than compensated for his lack of sociability by giving Virginia the most energetic, controversial leadership the state had known since Patrick Henry had been its chief executive. In fact, his first official act brought him into immediate, sharp conflict with the federal government.
A month before Harry had taken office, Major General Arthur St. Clair had led the nation’s Army to battle against a large force of Indians in the Ohio Valley. The warriors had driven St. Clair from the field, inflicting heavy casualties on his corps, and the entire frontier was in a state of near-panic. Settlers, including thousands in Kentucky, which was soon to be admitted to the Union as a state but was still under the jurisdiction of Virginia, were certain the Indians intended to raid the wilderness settlements.
Harry was never one to wait in military matters. The War Department had not yet taken appropriate measures to safeguard the lives and property of the people, so Virginia’s new governor called up three battalions of militia to strengthen the frontier outposts. The citizens of Virginia and Kentucky would be safe, no matter what might happen elsewhere.
However, inasmuch as the protection of Americans was a federal rather than a state responsibility, Harry promptly sent the War Department a bill for more than six thousand dollars to cover the payment of wages to the militia. Secretary of War Henry Knox protested, saying he had no authorization from the Treasury to pay such bills.
Harry, who had been spoiling for a fight, requested the state’s Congressional delegation to take up the cudgels. Senator Richard Henry Lee and his colleagues obliged, and threw themselves into the project with such enthusiasm that the harassed Knox paid the bill, but made it clear that a matter of principle was at stake. He had honored a request from the governor of a state because of the “respect” due him, even though the payment ran contrary to Treasury Department regulations.
For whatever the reason, federal troops did not replace the militia. Perhaps townsmen Knox and Hamilton failed to appreciate the danger to frontier dwellers, or it may be they thought enough federal units were in the area. Harry felt otherwise, and kept the militia on duty for another year, at the end of which time he sent Knox a bill for more than fifteen thousand dollars.
Again the Secretary capitulated, but wrote a formal letter stating that thereafter he would lack the authority to request the Treasury to honor such debts. Governor Lee cannily made no reply, and Henry Knox, aware that the stubborn Virginian would keep his men on duty until relieved, finally sent federal troops to replace the militia.
The problems on the frontier created new personal anguish in Harry. He had never thought very highly of St. Clair, and in talks with Marshall, Major Thomas Gibbon, and some of his other old comrades, he discussed at length how he would end the raids if he were the military commander of the Northwest Territory. It was obvious, he declared, that only a force like his Legion, made up of superb horsemen and sharpshooting infantry, could bring the Indians under control.
He spent many of his lonely evenings brooding, and wished he had applied to President Washington for a commission rather than accept the governorship. Even the highest civilian office in the state bored him. France was engulfed in a revolution, and word had reached the United States that the Marquis de Lafayette was commanding a large corps of troops on the side of those struggling to break the shackles of tyranny.
“War suits me as well as peace,” Harry wrote to Cousin Richard Henry, and suggested that he was considering applying to Lafayette for a commission. After all, the gallant young Frenchman had helped the United States in a time of need, and it would be only fitting to “repay the debt.”
By early 1792 the War Department had reason to feel that St. Clair was proving less than efficient, and Secretary Knox held several private conferences with President Washington on the possibility of replacing him. These talks were theoretically confidential, but all Philadelphia, now the seat of the federal government, buzzed with rumors. Madison and Cousin Richard Henry wrote to Harry that he was one of the leading candidates for the post, but warned him that several officers with rank far greater than his were also being considered.
Harry could hear the blare of bugles and feel the thrill of riding across a field at the head of his troops. He could visualize the gold epaulets of a major general of the line on his shoulders, and his excitement was intense.
Then, in April, Madison sent him a short, sympathetic note telling him the appointment had gone to General Anthony Wayne.
Harry felt deeply disappointed, and shot off an angry letter to Henry Knox, in which he stated repeatedly that he had been “cheated.” He remained consistent in his approach to personal relations, however, and concluded by assuring Knox of his warm attachment to an old friend.
A few days later Harry was told that he had been rejected on Knox’s recommendation to the President. The Secretary of War had felt that his relatively junior wartime rank would have created an awkward situation and made it impossible for many officers senior to him, who were still on active duty, to serve under him. Washington had agreed.
Harry went to great pains to confirm the story, and then sent an even angrier letter to the President. “Sir,” he wrote, “you have been deceived by those in whom you place the highest confidence, and consequently your own character as well as the public interest may be submitted to derogation and injury.” Again, however, he closed on a note of personal warmth.
His feeling of frustration had become intolerable, and Harry finally sent off
the letter to Lafayette that had been on his mind for months. To be on the safe side, he also dispatched another communication to a less well-known Frenchman who had fought in the American Revolution and was now a person of some consequence in Paris. Would he be welcome as a volunteer, he asked, and what rank might be offered him?
Lafayette’s reply was sent from Cologne. The Marquis had been a victim of one of the many purges that characterized the French Revolution, and had been forced to flee for his life. He was now a refugee, waiting for another swing of the pendulum to return home.
Another letter, which arrived a few days later, was an official communication from the Adjutant General of the French Army. His Excellency, Colonel-Governor Lee, had acquired world renown as a soldier, and there were many in France who recalled his gallantry and leadership. He was indeed welcome in Paris, and would be given command of a division, with the rank of major general, the day he arrived.
Harry literally didn’t know what to do. He loved his own country passionately, and had accepted the highest office that his beloved Virginia could bestow on him. But the temptation to accept the French offer was virtually irresistible. He needed to talk to someone about the problem, and instinctively sought the advice of the man he respected above all others, President Washington.
Learning that the President was paying a short visit to Mount Vernon, Harry made a hurried ride there, and was bitterly disappointed when he heard that the President had already gone back to Philadelphia. Aware that it would be both brash and improper to follow him, Harry wrote him a long letter in which he spoke of his loneliness since Matilda’s death, his love of his “real profession” and his desire to return to it. Should he or should he not accept the French offer?
The President replied almost as quickly as he had done when Harry had sought his help during the war. But there was a difference now. George Washington was President of the United States, and was trying to prevent the spreading military upheaval in Europe from spilling across the Atlantic onto American shores. His letter was unsigned, but was written in the same dignified scrawl that Harry had known since childhood.
It was characteristic of George Washington to state, with some severity, that he could not give advice either in his capacity as President or as a friend. Then, having created the gulf that he always placed between himself and others, Washington expressed himself emphatically: “If the case which you have suggested were mine, I should ponder well before I resolved, not only for private considerations but on public grounds. The latter because, being the First Magistrate of a respectable State, much speculation would be excited by such a measure.”
He went on to discuss the situation in France, and made it apparent that he neither liked nor trusted the Revolutionary high command. Men in high places there were jealous of one another and jockeyed incessantly for position. They would “tear each other to pieces” before the Revolution ended, and in the process the principles for which they were fighting would be lost. The French would achieve neither the liberty nor the equality they sought, and in the end might find themselves saddled with a political system more tyrannical than the monarchy they had overthrown. The President proved himself an astute political prophet.
He also had a few words of advice from one soldier to another. As affairs became more chaotic, rations for the troops in the field would become increasingly scarce. There was already a shortage of bread, and it would grow worse. Hungry troops needed a cause as a substitute for food, but in the growing confusion that prevailed in France, he was afraid causes would be forgotten, and starving men would become deserters. Anyone who sought to command a division under such conditions was asking for trouble.
Washington’s advice made so much sense to Harry that he abandoned his idea of going to France, and never again revived the scheme. In the meantime, a great many other things had been happening.
Harry led Virginia’s fight against Hamilton-inspired legislation imposing a tax on all liquor distilled in the country, and when Hamilton’s bill became law, he wrote an official protest which the Assembly supported by an almost unanimous vote. Paradoxically, although in keeping with his concept of friendship, this official opposition to the policies of Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton did not interfere with a private correspondence he maintained with Colonel Alexander Hamilton, his old friend.
It was an intimate correspondence, indeed, and it may be that he was inspired to confide in someone who was, with justification, known as a ladies’ man. A few months after taking office, Harry suddenly became aware of the opposite sex again, and confessed to Hamilton that he was fascinated by attractive ladies everywhere.
A governor of Virginia was not free to pursue romance indiscriminately, however, and Harry began to wonder about girls he had met in various places during the war. One in particular, a “beautiful Miss Allen” of Philadelphia, still intrigued him, he confessed to Hamilton, and he wondered if she might still be unmarried. He asked his friend to pass along any available information on her. Hamilton was unable to oblige him.
Friends and relatives who became aware of the change in his attitude were relieved, but made no open reference to the subject in Harry’s hearing. For his own peace of mind he continued to protest that there would never be anyone else in his life, and that he had buried his heart with Matilda. Cousin George predicted to others in the family that he would remarry within a year.
Harry may or may not have realized that he was beginning to look for another wife. Then, at a dinner at the house of John Marshall, he met Anne Hill Carter, the daughter of a plantation owner who lived at Shirley, on the James River. She appeared to Harry as a “lovely statue, carved in stone,” and he devoted the better part of the evening to her. Not until he came to know her better would he discover that behind her solemn façade was a deliciously subtle and sensitive sense of humor that would perplex him to the end of his days.
Anne, although young, was wise beyond her years. Nevertheless she had done little traveling, and was lacking in sophisticated polish. She was flattered by the attentions of Virginia’s first citizen, a debonair man in his mid-thirties still known throughout the country for his wartime exploits. Other girls had flirted with him in vain, but he made several trips to Shirley for the express purpose of seeing her, and whenever she came to Richmond he was very attentive to her.
The pace of correspondence in the Lee family quickened, and Richmond hostesses who hoped to snare the governor for an evening learned that the best way to insure his acceptance was to invite Anne as his partner for the evening.
It was during this period, however, that Harry, having just suffered the disappointment of losing command of the federal Army, was giving his most serious consideration to accepting a commission from the government of France. Not yet truly in love with Anne and lacking the deep-grained interest in politics that might impel him to use the governorship as a steppingstone to still higher office, he was still restless, still trying to establish permanent, comfortable roots.
In mid-July of 1792 he decided to make a personal tour of the militia outposts. The Assembly was not in session, Richmond was dull — except for the evenings he spent with Anne — and he found the urge to taste military life again overpowering. He left almost immediately on his tour, accompanied only by two aides, and spent a relaxing eight weeks in the field. This was the life he enjoyed most, and he felt refreshed and invigorated when he returned to his capital.
There one of the worst shocks of his life awaited him. His elder son, Philip, had died one night several weeks earlier.
Couriers sent to intercept the governor had not been able to catch up with him. He had traveled at such a rapid cavalryman’s pace that not one of the messengers sent by staff members and relatives had found him. Philip’s illness had been brief; he had complained of a headache one evening, and had gone to bed without his supper. A few hours later, before a physician could be summoned, he had expired.
The cause of his death had not been determined, but it w
as the general opinion that he had been carried away by “early swamp fever,” which often attacked children. He had been given a temporary burial on the grounds of the Governor’s Palace, but Harry immediately made the melancholy journey to Stratford in order to place his son’s coffin in the mausoleum he had built for Matilda.
The fresh blow, coming at a time when Harry had just regained his equilibrium, almost unhinged his mind. But he was alert to the danger, and managed to overcome it in spite of his grief. More than ever before he looked forward to a military career — and forgetfulness — in far distant France.
Two influences saved his reason. One was Anne Carter, who gave him the tender sympathy he so desperately craved. At a time when he badly needed help, she was beside him, wise and sweet and strong.
The other factor was a change in his own nature that he began to recognize. In a later age men would explain such a balanced — almost philosophical — acceptance of tragedy as a process of emotional maturation. For the first time in his life he was able to examine himself objectively.
Only a few months later, while continuing to attack the policies of the Secretary of the Treasury, he said in one of his many personal letters to Hamilton, “I wonder why men cannot differ in politics as they differ in other matters and yet hold established regard. I see no insurmountable difficulty in the way, & see its practicability. I believe you are in some degree right in your conjecture with respect to my friends.
“Generally speaking, those in the political line will be found arranged with you, but in the opposition are some, too, loved by me & attached to me. Why do not these violent parties coalesce? Is there no middle ground on which a union might be formed—? The public harmony as well as individual comfort would be promoted by such an event.”
Harry’s attempts to convert others to his way of thinking were interrupted by public business, major and minor, that were an integral part of his duty. A sensational murder case and the startling complications that grew out of it attracted the attention of the whole country for a time, and made even cabinet members and senators forget politics.
Light-Horse Harry: A Biography of Washington’s Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee (Heroes and Villains from American History) Page 21