“Light Horse Harry” Lee – “Wedded to My Sword”
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Vol. 5 No. 1.0____________________________________________________ __First Quarter 2008 Lt. Col. Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee – “Wedded to My Sword” Rock Hill, SC artist T. Kelly Pauley lends us his interpretation of Lt. Col. “Light Horse Harry” Lee. Lee raised and commanded a legion of mixed horse and infantry, and served under Gen. Nathanael Greene in the 1781 Southern Campaigns, often cooperating with Gen. Francis Marion. He fought at Fort Motte, Granby, Augusta, Ninety Six, and Eutaw Springs. With characteristic courage, this former Virginia Governor wrote his Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department of the United States while serving time in the Montross, Virginia debtor's prison 12-by-15 foot cell. See article on the members of Lee’s Legion on p. 32. 1 Publisher’s Notes Dallas, Texas will start a regular featured document column in SCAR. We note the departure of Ben Rubin a senior history major Now that the 225th anniversary wave of events is behind us, the at Hanover College, Indiana, SCAR’s 2007 summer intern. Ben steady, gradual work of Revolutionary research, preservation, will pursue his master’s degree in history studying the Southern protection, and promotion goes on. Join SCAR’s efforts to continue Campaigns. Jim Gillgam of Gibsonville, NC will help out with the good fight. Participate with us in the footwork and feel the illustrations. And last, but certainly not least, Barbara Abernethy excitement quicken your blood! of Seneca, SC has pitched in with her considerable talents as a general editor of the magazine. Huzzah and welcome aboard! This quarter’s features Rob McCaskill, graphics artist of Asterisk Creative in Charlotte, In the last issue of SCAR, Jeff Dennis’ article on South Carolina’s NC will take the look and feel of our magazine from an amateur Indian Campaign of 1776 is illustrative of the depersonalization journal to a professional magazine. Rob will start with our next that historians of former years did - a carry-forward of the issue as creative director and give the magazine a needed facelift. extremely anti-native American attitude that many revolutionaries In that issue, expected in the early summer 2008, we plan to feature in South Carolina shared - “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Scott Miskimon’s study of the Battle of Lenud’s Ferry; Scott One positive popular trend in history is to put a face on this Withrow’s article which looks at the facts around young Francis particularly nameless, faceless foe and attempt to analyze the forces Marion’s service in the Cherokee Campaign of 1761; and Lee that made the Creek and Cherokee pawns in the Europeans’ global McGee’s reanalysis of the Patriot’s cavalry actions at the Battle of wars. In this edition, historian Patrick O’Kelley takes a critical Cowpens. look at the sympathetic presentation of the Cherokee and challenges some of Dr. Dennis’ conclusions. Donations and mailing list John C. “Jack” Parker’s article is a how-to on his methodology We do not sell subscriptions to Southern Campaigns of the for field location of “lost” Revolutionary War sites. Jack shares American Revolution, but we do accept all donations. We do how he “got lucky” with good field work and was able to define maintain a snail-mail list and email list of folks who have indicated some archaeological search boxes for probable sites of the 27 an interest in receiving the magazine in black & white photocopy August 1780 skirmish between SC Patriot militia Maj. John James form. If you have not sent us your name, email address and snail and British Maj. James Wemyss and of the burned home of John mail address, and you would like to continue getting Southern James in the Indiantown community of Williamsburg County, SC. Campaigns of the American Revolution, please send them to me so James was one of Gen. Francis Marion’s most trusted lieutenants we can put you on the mailing list. Each month, spam filter issues and his son, William Doblin James, gives us insights into Marion’s and many email address changes cause us to lose contact so we famous partisan war. need to refresh the list of our reader’s snail mail addresses as well. Also, do forward friend’s email addresses who may be interested. William Thomas Sherman has shared with us his compilation of We will not sell your address. stories about members of Lt. Col. Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee’s Legion who served with distinction in the Southern Campaigns Cover art under Gen. Nathanael Greene as taken from both volumes of Thomas Kelly Pauley interprets a contemporaneous portrait of Lt. Alexander Garden’s Anecdotes. Garden served with Lee’s Legion Col. Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee as painted by artist Charles near the end of the war. Willson Peale. Lee, refusing the plum of serving on Gen. George New website look Washington's staff, accepted command of an independent partisan corps of light dragoons. For in-depth reading: Charles Royster's SCAR is indeed fortunate to have our talented webmistress, Light Horse Harry Lee, And The Legacy Of The American Caroline Baxley, present the updated and face-lifted Revolution; Paul C. Nagel's The Lees of Virginia; and Noel B. http://www.southerncampaign.org website. SCAR’s new website Gerson's Light Horse Harry Lee, A Biography of Washington's is having its birthing pangs at the same time. Please report any Great Cavalryman, General Henry Lee. Kelly paints historic glitches, broken links and additional suggestions to improve its subjects spanning the Revolutionary War and the War Between the organization and access to our pension affidavit transcription and States. Kelly also brings to life old tintypes of ancestors, faded digitization operations. On the homepage, we added an easy access photos of family and contemporary subjects through his oil to the Pension Records project with its new powerful search portraits. To view samples of his work or obtain further capabilities, and a direct link to the current Calendar of Upcoming information call the artist at 803-628-0424, email Kelly at Events, Roundtables and Corps of Discovery. We also plan to add [email protected] or view his website at a link to an index to all back issues of SCAR. www.pauleyportraits.com. New staff at SCAR A Net of Work and Submissions SCAR is truly pleased to welcome new, key volunteers to our staff. SCAR is pleased with the great articles, photos, maps, and news Dave McKissack of Blacksburg, Va. brings his experience as a shorts our generous researchers and authors share with us, but we researcher, writer and reenactor to be a feature editor. The SCAR are always looking for more! We also could use additional team also welcomes Ed Salo, professional historian with columnists and feature editors. Volunteers should contact SCAR Brockington Associates, a cultural resources firm in Charleston, publisher Charles B. Baxley. Be a part of preserving SC, and graduate student in history to try his hand as a SCAR something much larger than ourselves – our revolutionary feature editor. Those who have marveled at Bob Yankle’s past before it is consumed by sprawl or forgotten by neglect. beautiful photo albums of Revolutionary War events posted on the i NCSSAR website and published in SCAR will be glad to know that Bob has agreed to join SCAR as a staff photographer. Historian, manuscript librarian and Southern Campaigns scholar Sam Fore of 2 Colonial Williamsburg to Exhibit the flags adorned the walls of Tarleton descendants’ homes in Great Britain -- most recently Capt. Christopher Tarleton Fagan’s Four Rare Revolutionary War Battle Flags country estate in Hampshire, England. They were never publicly displayed until late May 2006 for four days at the Spoleto Festival Four rare and prized battle flags of the American Revolution return in Charleston, S.C. to America more than 225 years after being taken to British soil as trophies of war. These are on special exhibition in the DeWitt The special exhibition will be on view until January 9, 2009. For Wallace Decorative Arts Museum of Colonial Williamsburg. more information about Colonial Williamsburg, call 1-800- “Captured Colors: Four Battleflags of the American Revolution,” HISTORY or visit Colonial Williamsburg’s Web site at opened on December 22, 2007 and will be on display for a year www.history.org. before the flags return to their private owner. Erik Goldstein, Curator of Mechanical Arts and Numismatics at Little more than two dozen Revolutionary War flags are known to Colonial Williamsburg. i exist in museum and other institutional collections. Most consist only of fragments with scarce historic documentation available. By contrast, these four flags are in very good condition and their A New Way to Bring the histories are well documented. The dashing and sometimes Southern Revolutionary War to Students despised firebrand, British cavalry officer, Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton, captured the flags in two battles nearly a year apart and SCAR recently learned of a new effort to educate our young. the flags had remained in the Tarleton family’s possession until Anderson, SC native, Peter Delorme and his staff at Captain their sale at auction at Sotheby’s New York on Flag Day, June 14, Sadler’s Living History Camp work to bring colonial life to the 2006. [See related article by Scott Miskimon in SCAR, Vol. 3, No. classroom. Captain Sadler’s Living History Camp’s mission is to 6-8, at p. 3, June-July-August 2006.] Three of the flags represent teach young men and women colonial and early American history the Virginia Detachment of Continentals led by Col. Abraham in an authentic historical environment.