Henry (Black Horse Harry) Lee IV (28 May 1787 – 30 January 1837) was a Biographer and historian, born in Stratford, Virginia, to Major General Light Horse Harry and Matilda Lee. He was a half-brother of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. In 1808 he graduated from William and Mary College. He served as a speech writer for the statesman John C. Calhoun as well as the presidential candidate Andrew Jackson. When Jackson won, Lee helped write the inaugural address. President Jackson rewarded him by a consular appointment to Algeria; the Senate, however, refused the confirmation. His remaining seven years of his life he traveled abroad dying in Paris, France.
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On 29 March 1817 he married Anne Robinson McCarty, daughter of Daniel McCarty and Margaret Robinson. Anne and Henry had one child, Margaret, born in the Autumn of 1818 and barely two years later she died in a tragic accident.[1]
Lee′s nickname of “Black Horse” — a pun on the nickname of his famous father, “Light Horse” — arose from a scandal that occurred two years after his daughter′s death. Lee embarked on an affair with his wife′s young sister, Elizabeth, who was his ward at the time.[2][3] According to at least one version of the story, Elizabeth became pregnant, although there′s no record of the child having survived.[2] McCarthy family brought suit to remove Lee as the trustee of Elizabeth's inheritance and recovery of the money. Unbeknownst to the McCarthy's, Lee had misappropriated a portion of the trust for the upkeep of the Stratford plantation, his ancestral home going back six generations. In order to conceal the misappropriation, Lee attempted to marry Elizabeth off to an unscrupulous suitor, without success. [4] The legal fallout forced Lee to sell Stratford out of the family.[2][4]
Anne Lee, who had become addicted to morphine while trying to dampen her grief, fled to Tennessee, where she often stayed with the future president, Andrew Jackson, and his wife. Henry Lee later followed, beseeching his wife to forgive him.[2] That is how Lee befriended Jackson and began his political rehabilitation.