The voyage was a quiet one, in calm seas, but Harry was so exhausted that he was unable to leave his bunk to see a squadron of American warships off the coast of the Floridas or to go ashore at Savannah, where some of the brig’s cargo was landed. Fourteen miles north of the town was Mulberry Grove, where the widow of General Nathanael Greene and her family lived on an estate called Dungeness. Harry asked the master of the ship to put him ashore there, saying he could travel no farther and would surely die if forced to spend another night at sea.
The master obliged, Harry was lowered into the ship’s boat and rowed to the Dungeness wharf, where two sailors carried him ashore. Word was sent to the greathouse of the unexpected arrival of General Greene’s companion-in-arms, and Mrs. Greene immediately sent a carriage to the dock, as Harry was too weak to walk or ride a horse. The Greene family gave the dying Light-Horse Harry a hero’s welcome, put him in a guest room and assigned a servant to take care of him.
Word spread through the area that General Harry Lee was at Dungeness, and the Army garrison at Savannah promptly set up a rotating schedule so that two officers were present at the greathouse at all times. A small ship from the squadron off the Florida coast carried the news to Commodore J. D. Henly, who sailed to Dungeness and also assigned two officers to duty at the estate.
A Naval surgeon attended Harry, but it was too late for medication. Mrs. Greene sent a letter to Anne, at Alexandria, but it did not arrive in time. Light-Horse Harry Lee died in his sleep late in the afternoon of March 25, 1818.
He was given a full military funeral at Dungeness, with Commodore Henly and two brigadier generals of the Army in attendance. The coffin was escorted by an honor guard of Marines from the frigate, John Adams, an Army band from the Savannah garrison played appropriate music and the pallbearers were Army officers in full-dress uniform. The service was performed by the local Anglican minister, the Reverend J. W. Taylor, and the Marines fired thirteen salvos, the correct salute to a major general. Then, as the cannon of the squadron boomed thirteen times, Harry’s body was lowered into a grave beside that of Nathanael Greene.
No relatives attended the funeral, and none of Harry’s old friends or Army associates were there, either. Anne, busy at home, postponed a visit to Georgia, then postponed it again — and again. Henry, Jr. was a very busy man, Lucy had a life of her own with her family in Philadelphia, and Charles was at school at Harvard.
Charles had saved the letters his father had sent him, and later they were devoured by the youngest of Harry’s sons, Robert Edward, who memorized long passages and took every word to heart. He, who scarcely remembered his father, wanted most to emulate him.
Not until 1862 did any member of the immediate family visit Light-Horse Harry Lee’s last resting place. In that year, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Armies and standing on the climactic threshold of a career that would bring him greater glory and fame than his father had ever achieved, laid a wreath on the grave and stood for a long time staring down at it. Aides who waited for him as he left the cemetery said that the imperturbable general’s cheeks were wet.
***
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Manuscripts
Greene, Nathanael, Correspondence (New York Public Library)
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Newspapers
Alexandria Gazette
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Boston Gazette
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Copyright © The Estate of Noel B. Gerson, 1966.
First published by Doubleday & Company, 1966.
The Estate of Noel B. Gerson has asserted its right to be identified as the author of this work.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-80055-246-3.
Light-Horse Harry: A Biography of Washington’s Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee (Heroes and Villains from American History) Page 29