Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero - The Tragic Life of Robert E. Lee's Father

by Ryan Cole

Overview

"It would be hard to write a dull book on Light-Horse Harry, and Mr. Cole's is far from it.... [The book] contains passages of considerable eloquence."— WALL STREET JOURNAL book review

"Light-Horse Harry blazes across the pages of Ryan Cole's narrative like a meteor—and his final crash is as destructive. Cole tells his story with care, sympathy, and where necessary, sternness. This book is a great, and sometimes harrowing read." —Richard Brookhiser, senior editor at National Review and author of Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington

Who was "Light-Horse Harry" Lee?

Gallant Revolutionary War hero. Quintessential Virginia cavalryman. George Washington’s trusted subordinate and immortal eulogist. Robert E. Lee’s beloved father. Founding father who shepherded the Constitution through the Virginia Ratifying Convention.

But Light-Horse Harry Lee was also a con man. A beachcomber. Imprisoned for debt. Caught up in sordid squabbles over squalid land deals. Maimed for life by an angry political mob.

Light-Horse Harry Lee’s life was tragic, glorious, and dramatic, but perhaps because of its sad, ignominious conclusion historians have rarely given him his due—until now.

Now historian Ryan Cole presents this soldier and statesman of the founding generation with all the vim and vigor that typified Lee himself. Scouring hundreds of contemporary documents and reading his way into Lee’s life, political philosophy, and character, Cole gives us the most intimate picture to date of this greatly awed but hugely talented man whose influence has reverberated from the founding of the United States to the present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621576976
Publisher:	Skyhorse Publishing
Publication date:	01/15/2019
Pages:	426
Sales rank:	249,366
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

RYAN COLE, a former assistant to Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and speechwriter at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, holds degrees in history and journalism from Indiana University. He has written extensively about American history and literature for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the New Crite- rion, Civil War Times, the American Inter- est, and the Indianapolis Star. Additionally, he has written for Indiana University and the Lumina Foundation, and he served on the staff of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

Table of Contents

Prologue xi

1 Freestone Point 1

2 All Sons of Liberty 13

3 This Struggle for the Rights of Mankind 25

4 A Rebel Captain by the Name of Lee 45

5 A Most Gallant Affair 61

6 Gold Seven Times Tried in the Fire 77

7 The Great Game 95

8 A Fatal Stab to the British Tyrant 121

9 You Cannot Cease to be a Soldier 147

10 One People 171

11 Indifferent Destiny 193

12 Pointing the Bayonet against the Hearts of Our Countrymen 209

13 Cracked 231

14 Farewell Great and Noble Patriots 247

15 Unceasing Woe 267

16 When Future Generations Shall Inquire 283

17 The Sad Catastrophe of Baltimore 293

18 My Miserable Exile 313

Epilogue 333

Acknowledgments 345

Notes 347

Editorial Reviews

Lee was a bold and often reckless character whose tragic life ended up tracing the distance between valiant Revolutionary service under George Washington and the depths of bankruptcy, debtor’s prison, and a painful end. Cole captures it all in admirably lapidary prose, in the process bringing to life the vanished world of the early American republic, a world of both opportunity and peril.”

G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty, University of Oklahoma - Wilfred M. McClay

Ryan Cole’s new biography of Henry Lee—the daredevil cavalry master of the American Revolution and the father of Robert E. Lee—provides us with a portrait nearly as headlong and fast-paced as ‘Light-Horse Harry’ himself.”

Professor of the Civil War Era at Gettysburg College and author of Gettysburg: The Last Invasion - Allen Guelzo

Light-Horse Harry blazes across the pages of Ryan Cole’s narrative like a meteor—and his final crash is as destructive. Cole tells his story with care, sympathy, and where necessary, sternness. This book is a great, and sometimes harrowing read.”

senior editor at National Review and author of Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington - Richard Brookhiser

This page-turning biography brings Robert E. Lee’s father vividly back to life.”

2008 winner of the National Humanities Medal and 2015 winner of the Lincoln Prize - Harold Holzer