A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee by John Esten Cooke
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page 18 of 612 (02%)
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and aptitude for great affairs, which marked Richard Lee in the
seventeenth century, were unmistakably present in the character of Robert E. Lee in the nineteenth century. We shall conclude our notice of the family by calling attention to that great group of celebrated men who illustrated the name in the days of the Revolution, and exhibited the family characteristics as clearly. These were Richard Henry Lee, of Chantilly, the famous orator and statesman, who moved in the American Congress the Declaration of Independence; Francis Lightfoot Lee, a scholar of elegant attainments and high literary accomplishments, who signed, with his more renowned brother, the Declaration; William Lee, who became Sheriff of London, and ably seconded the cause of the colonies; and Arthur Lee, diplomatist and representative of America abroad, where he displayed, as his diplomatic correspondence indicates, untiring energy and devotion to the interests of the colonies. The last of these brothers was Philip Ludwell Lee, whose daughter Matilda married her second cousin, General Henry Lee. This gentleman, afterward famous as "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, married a second time, and from this union sprung the subject of this memoir. III. GENERAL "LIGHT-HORSE HARRY" LEE. This celebrated soldier, who so largely occupied the public eye in the |
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