Charles Lee (General)

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Charles Lee

Charles Lee (born February 6, 1732 in Darnhall , Cheshire , England , † October 2, 1782 in Pennsylvania ) was a British officer and general in the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War .

He was a son of the British Major-General John Lee from his marriage to Isabella Bunbury, daughter of Sir Henry Bunbury, 3rd Baronet. His father sent him to a grammar school in Bury St Edmunds and, at the age of 12, to a school in Switzerland , where he acquired language skills in Greek , Latin , French , Spanish , Italian and German . Three years later he acquired an officer position as an ensign with the John Lee's Regiment of Foot (from 1751 44th Regiment of Foot ), which was under the command of his father. He took part in the French and Indian War and, like George Washington , Horatio Gates and Thomas Gage, was one of the survivors of General Braddock's defeat in the Battle of Monongahela . He later took command in the Mohawk Valley . He was seriously wounded in the attack on Fort Ticonderoga in 1758, but was able to participate in the attack on Fort Niagara and in 1760 on Montreal the next year . In 1760 he returned to England and took part in the campaign in Portugal under John Burgoyne in 1762 . After the end of the Seven Years' War he was placed under half pay with the rank of major . He then served as adjutant to King Stanislaus II August Poniatowski in the Polish-Lithuanian army.

In the British Army in 1772 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel , but remained under half pay and applied unsuccessfully for a command as regimental commander. Disappointed at the rejection of his intended takeover of a regiment in England, he moved to the American colonies in 1773 and became active in Whig circles. In 1775 he purchased a property in Berkeley County in what is now West Virginia . After the outbreak of hostilities in the War of Independence, he expected to be appointed commander in chief of the rebel army because of his military experience; the Continental Congress decided to transfer the post to George Washington. Thanks to the intercession of Adam's cousins ​​( Samuel Adams and John Adams ), he was made a major general .

After the siege of Boston in 1775/76, Lee was given command of the Southern Department . Here he was able to successfully defend Sullivan's Island near Charleston against General Henry Clinton in 1776 . He was then ordered north to assist Washington. In October 1776, Lee distinguished himself at the Battle of White Plains , but was subsequently accused of neglecting the orders of his superior Washington. In letters he tried to persuade Congress to give him the supreme command instead of Washington. In December 1776, after leaving his troops, he was captured by British forces under Banastre Tarleton in a tavern in Basking Ridge , New Jersey, and taken to New York , which had been conquered by the British . During his imprisonment, which he lived in comfortable circumstances, but with the threat of charges before a British court martial, he worked out a war plan for the British, which was not implemented. After the British defeat in the Battle of Saratoga , he was released in a prisoner exchange in early 1778.

At the Battle of Monmouth in June 1778, he ordered a retreat; this earned him a public reprimand from Washington, which could turn the battle and force the British to retreat. After the battle, Lee was stripped of all command by a court martial for a year. After personal attacks on Washington, he was challenged to a duel by its aide John Laurens and wounded in the process. In 1780 Lee was discharged from the army; he retired to Pennsylvania, where he died in October 1782. In his last will, he refused a church funeral.

Fort Lee on the Hudson River in New Jersey was named after Charles Lee.

literature

  • Dominick Mazzagetti: Charles Lee: Self Before Country . 1st edition. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick 2013, ISBN 978-0-8135-6238-4 .
  • Paul David Nelson: Lee, Charles. In: American National Biography. Oxford University Press, New York 1999 ( online ).
  • Henry Manners Chichester:  Lee, Charles . In: Sidney Lee (Ed.): Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 32:  Lambe - Leigh. , MacMillan & Co, Smith, Elder & Co., New York City / London 1892, pp. 343 - 347 (English).
  • John Fiske: Lee, Charles . In: James Grat Wilson, John Fiske (Eds.): Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. Volume 3, D. Appleton & Co., New York 1892, pp. 657-661.

Web links

Commons : Charles Lee  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 11251, HMSO, London, May 23, 1772, p. 1 ( PDF , English).
personal data
SURNAME Lee, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British officer and general in the Continental Army in the American War of Independence
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1732
PLACE OF BIRTH Cheshire , England
DATE OF DEATH October 2, 1782
Place of death Pennsylvania