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This episode investigates the vital, lifelong partnership between George Washington and Richard Henry Lee, examining the persistent historical rumors that Lee sought to undermine the Commander in Chief in favor of General Nathanael Greene during the desperate winter at Valley Forge. Long before the whispers of the Conway Cabal or the publication of forged letters designed to divide them, their alliance was forged in the Northern Neck of Virginia and tested within the House of Burgesses, where they stood together against the corrupt circle of Treasury Secretary John Robinson. From their joint resistance to the Stamp Act and the signing of the Westmoreland Resolves, Lee and Washington operated in lockstep.
When Washington took to the field to lead the Continental Army, Lee became his indispensable voice within the Continental Congress—securing critical food and ordnance, routing trans-Atlantic intelligence directly to the field, and eventually orchestrating the political destruction of the Conway Cabal to secure Washington’s supreme command. Though the ratification of the United States Constitution would later trigger a political rift—with Lee emerging as a leading Anti-Federalist critic—their personal bond endured until the master of Chantilly on the Potomac was laid to rest.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Founding Foes and Friends
3:48 The Great Northern Neck Alliance: George Washington and Richard Henry Lee
6:39 How Henry Lee and George Washington Led Stamp Act Resistance
8:38 Supporting the War and Washington
12:46 The Conway Cabal: Rumors and Reality
21:07 A Divide Over the Constitution
23:09 Old Friends Reunite
24:32 Shared Western Dreams
26:21 Final Political Alignment
Sources Referenced in this Episode:
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Nagel, Paul C.: The Lees of Virginia: Seven Generations of an American Dynasty, https://amzn.to/4uCI6o9
Hendrick, Burton J.: The Lees of Virginia, https://amzn.to/4uCN4BF
Lee, Cazenove G. Jr.: Lee Chronicle: Studies of the Early Generations of the Lees, https://amzn.to/4vGzbDe
Maier, Pauline: The Old Revolutionaries, https://amzn.to/3RdsNEU
McGaughy, J. Kent: Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ewtGA4
Chitwood, Oliver Perry: Richard Henry Lee, Statesman of the Revolution, https://amzn.to/4ghdkxM
Unger, Harlow Giles: First Founding Father: Richard Henry Lee and the Call to Independence, https://amzn.to/4oYRYaB
Burt, Nathaniel: First Families: The Making of an American Aristocracy, https://amzn.to/3Sopnj2
Evans, Emory G.: A “Topping People”: The Rise and Decline of Virginia’s Old Political Elite, 1680-1790, https://amzn.to/43UPMaK
Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia VOLUME II Westward Expansion and Prelude to Revolution, 1710-1763, https://amzn.to/4vynVJw
Potts, Louis W.: Arthur Lee: A Virtuous Revolutionary, https://amzn.to/4vpFLOF
Dowdey, Clifford: The Virginia Dynasties, https://amzn.to/4vlqoqN
Dowdey, Clifford: The Golden Age, https://amzn.to/3QbGNi4
Dowdey, Clifford: The Great Plantation, https://amzn.to/4gdOxKR
Wright, Louis B.: The First Gentlemen of Virginia, https://amzn.to/4ekuR5z
Transcript
