Robert E. Lee's Cheating (And Incestuous) Half-Brother

them at some point fuck their wives sisters. Like why did that keep happening? I don't know. I feel like at the time it was like, you know, if you did that, that was technically considered incest. Also, it's just not a nice thing to know, like just don't have sex with your wife's sister. I feel like that is like one of the main rules of you know, being married and also sisterhood. I just don't understand it. But this week on American Filth, you're going to be hearing

the other story. This time it is about Henry Lee the Fourth, who is the older half brother of none other than Robert E. Lee himself and the doozy he got himself into for being a big pile of trash filth. One might say, cue the theme song, this is American filth, and I'm Gabby Watts. Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history. This week's episode Robert E. Lee's cheating and technically incestuous half brother. So let's set

the scene, why don't we. Henry Lee the fourth he was born in seventeen eighty seven in Virginia, specifically Stratford, Virginia, and there is where he lived with his mother and father, and the Stratford Hall Plantation. Wow, they had many enslaved people.

And here's the thing. His father, Henry Lee the third, he had been a revolutionary war hero, one of those people I was talking about in the intro of this podcast the problem with old pop pop. Henry Lee the third is daddy had a bit of a gambling problem and a bit of a spending problem, and he would spend two years of his life in a debtor's prison. Whoopsies. I think that's what's gonna happen nowadays, now that sports gambling is legally again, soon many of our fathers will

be in debtors prison. But alas also Henry Lee the fourth, the son, his mother died at a very young age. And so his father remarried another lady, and that's the lady who is the mother of Roberty Lee. Okay, so robert Y Lee is about twenty years younger than Henry Lee. But Henry Lee at the time, he had a lot of promise, He had a lot of potential. People are like, oh my god, you're gonna be the next big guy

in America. Like, even though your debt has all these gambling problems, all these debt problems, he was a war hero, and you get that war hero blood in you. Also, you share his name, Henry Lee. You're gonna be awesome. Unfortunately, sometimes you can just be a wealthy white man in this country and people are like, you're gonna be amazing, But actually, you have no skills, you're nothing like your father.

And also you're gonna ruin everything because you suck. So let's hear a little bit about what he's actually like. So first let's start with his physical appearance. Okay, one person described him as quote rather meaty, yummy, meaty. But you know what type of meaty did they mean? Did they mean more like a pork chop or kind of more like a salami. People also said he had a very fleshy face. I don't know, meaty fleshy. These aren't very nice descriptors, but maybe it's because his mom and

dad were cousins. Classic the old meaty incest gene. Though back then, remember marrying your cousin was an incest. What was incest is fucking your wife's sister. But we'll get to that. Speaking of fucking people's sisters, another thing about Henry Lee the Fourth is he was a bit of a womanizer. Specifically, he would go after his friend's sisters.

Isn't that rude? Like he'd be hanging out with his friends, he'd be like, so, it's your sister up to and they'd be like, Henry Lee the Fourth, I'm not telling you what's up with my sister because you're gonna be a big fuck boy to her. This happened a lot of times. He would like seduce women his friend's sisters and then just leave them immediately, like this one lady. She wrote a letter and said that Henry Lee the

Fourth part took from her. Don't you guys hate it when a man just partakes from you and then just leaves you. On Red That's basically what happened to her. They were gonna meet up, he sent her a letter, but then he never showed up. Isn't that annoying? She's just waiting for him, pining for him, looking at his love note, and then he's just like, just gidding, girl. I was just putting feelers out there. I was just seeing who was available, and I'm actually not gonna partake

from you ever. The freak again, What a shitty guy. Also, some of Henry Lee's friends didn't even seem to like him that much, like apparently he was very sarcastic quote filled with mirth. I hate that. Not too much mirth around me. No, thank you. As you guys know, this is a very serious podcast where no mirth is involved. In terms of his actual biography of things that he

was doing at the time. He started getting into politics in eighteen ten when he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, and then right after that there was a War of eighteen twelve and he served. He became a major in the infantry, and then after the war he was like, I'm trying to follow my daddy's footsteps. Well, had the part when dear Papa went to the debtors prison, but he tried to win his father's congressional seat in the US Congress, but alas he lost. So what did

Henry Lee the fourth do? Well? He turned to home restoration. See, after his father had been in the debtors' prison, he had relocated his family from the Strafford Hall plantation to another place in Alexandria that was cheaper. But now that Henry Lee the fourth was in charge, he was like, I'm going to go back to that house and I'm gonna make it buttafall. I mean, we can all appreciate a straight man getting into interior design. So let's see

how he does. Another important thing for Henry Lee the fourth to do was to wed. And to wed, well, you know, he's the son of a revolutionary war hero, he's a gentleman of Virginia. He's got a plantation. So who did he marry? This woman named Anne McCarty. Anne had many great qualities. Most importantly, she was very rich and seventeen. Henry Lee was thirty at the time, AND's sister was named Elizabeth and was two years younger than her.

They had both lost their father when they were very young, and their mother married again, but then their mother died in childbirth out five years later, so the girls were raised by their stepfather. But the thing is their mom was super rich, and when she died, the girls got her money and they became some of the richest ladies in Westmoreland County. Conveniently, she was also very attractive. So Henry Lee the fourth was like, she's my mate, let's

get together. And Anne, perhaps she liked his meaty and fleshy appearance, or maybe she was just seventeen and was like, well, the Lee's their very established family in Virginia. I guess this would be a financially and socially responsible choice to wed this guy. I hate how his face is so filled with flesh. So Anne McCarty, she moved to the Stratford Hall plantation and now, unfortunately I have to tell

you something very sad that happened. So a very unfortunate feature of the Stratford plantation was there was a set of stairs that went from the main drive up into the second floor of the house where there was an entryway. These were outdoor stairs, and this is very sad. When Henry Lee was a little, tiny baby boy, his older brother who was four years old at the time, fell

down those stairs and died. And despite the fact that he was trying to be an interior designed king, Henry Lee the fourth did not think to get rid of these treacherous stairs during his renovations. Well, Henry Lee the fourth and his wife, Ann McCarty, they had a little beautiful baby girl, and when she was two years old, she was outside playing around, she went up those stairs and she also fell down the stairs and died. These are some terrible stairs, and Henry and the entire Lee

family were very upset. Obviously, Anne didn't know how to cope. She turned to Laudanum, remember the opiate of choice at the time. She was very distraught. Henry Lee also didn't know what to do, so Elizabeth, Anne's younger sister, who was sixteen years old at the time, came to stay at the house to help her sister through her grief. When Elizabeth arrived, Henry was made her guardian. Not only was he in charge of her welfare in general, he

also became in charge of her money and property. And obviously, yes, Henry was grieving the loss of his daughter, but also remember he was a dumb piece of shit who liked to go after people's sisters, and this time his wife's sister was there. He was sad and a bitch. Elizabeth looked very similar to Anne, which I don't like that biographers kept mentioning that detail like who cares? So that

doesn't make it any better. The only difference was that Anne had long black hair and Elizabeth had these rich mahogany curls. And she was younger by two years, you know, fresh sixteen, and one biographer said that the two of them were thrown together and quote a state of unguarded intimacy. And what that means really is that Henry Lee took advantage of Elizabeth and at some point they had sexual intercourse.

Don't you love that power dynamic? A sixteen year old within a thirty two year old man who's technically your guardian, who's grieving, you're in his house. Terrible. And while Virginia's society liked to gossip and gossip they did, and there was a vicious rumor that was going around that a dead baby was found in an outhouse. Maybe it had been still born, maybe it had been killed, maybe there is no baby at all. And this was all made up.

But many people believe that this was the baby that came from the union between Henry Lee the fourth and his wife's sister. What a claim be right back after these soothing advertisements. And you gotta love gossip and how gossip gets around, and the gossip about the Stratford Hall plantation was certainly juicy. Somebody claimed that they had found a dead baby in an outhouse, or they had heard that somebody had found a dead baby in an outhouse, and they're like, was that the baby of Henry Lee

the fourth and Elizabeth McCarty, Henry Lee's wife's sister. Mm mm mmmm mm. The rumors were running them muck. And then it only got worse because people were realizing not only had Henry Lee taken advantage of this girl sexually, he also had taken her money. That's right, the man who'd been appointed her guardian of her welfare and her belongings and her monies, he had actually taken those monies and put them into the Stratford plantation. Because remember he's

into interior design. Now he'll do whatever it takes to make this plantation really sing again. I love when a man becomes so obsessed with a project that it becomes everyone else's problem too, and don't accuse me of man hating it's women's history. Months shut up. Obviously, Elizabeth was really upset. She left Stratford and went to stay with her grandmother. She wrote to one of her friends that she was almost quote overpowered by a sense of desolation

and desertion, left friendless and alone. She ended up cutting off all her hair, her beautiful Mahogany girls because she blamed them for the reason that Henry Lee was attracted to her and why all this happened. For the rest of her life, she kept her hair short. Anne, Henry Lee's wife and Elizabeth's sister, was so distraught that she was using even more laudanum, and she went down to Tennessee to a rehab facility for whatever they had for

rehab back in those days. This was pre sanatorium. It was probably just like a church where you had like a lady say that you're a bad person for using laudanum. But anyway, she escaped the house as well. Obviously that makes sense. Your husband cheated on you, took advantage of your sister. Also, your daughter died. You're upset, get it. Meanwhile,

Henry Lee was not dealing with this very diplomatically. A lot of his friends were trying to stand by him, being like, yeah, he made one mistake, which was taking advantage of his ward and having sex with her and then also taking all of her money. One tiny it'd be mistake. We should forgive him. But society was like, no, he's a little bitch. We don't like him. And Henry Lee he was not being demure, he was not being mindful. No, when people were trying to insult him, he was like,

I'm going to argue with you. Meanwhile, people were like, hey, you actually not only did you do a morally bad thing, you also technically did an illegal thing. You did incest. But then Henry was like, shut up, I don't care. By the way, Thomas Jefferson did stuff like that all the time, and you guys like him, so shut the fuck up about me doing stuff like that. Thomas Jefferson did it, I can do it too. And this was a actually a pretty big moment for Henry Lee because

the Lee family notoriously hated Thomas Jefferson. Henry Lee's father, Henry Lee the Third, who at this point was deceased rip he hated everything about Thomas Jefferson. He was like, he did not behave himself well during the revolution. I should know. I'm a revolutionary war hero. So the fact that Henry Lee the fourth was comparing himself to Thomas Jefferson, he was really trying to make a point with that

because he hates that guy. He's like, I will deign to compare myself to Thomas Jefferson because you can't have a different standard for me than you had for him, because he was the fricking president. Also, remember, my father's a war hero. It's always a good sign when people are like, do you know who my father is. At this point, Henry Lee the fourth had been given a nickname. His father, Henry Lee third, had been called light horse

Harry because he was so swift at horseback riding. His horse was so fast it was as if he was not even upon the horse. But Henry Lee the fourth, after all this mess, people were calling him black horse Harry. That's no good. A black horse often symbolizes an omen like a famine. Biblically, at least, it's not a great thing to be called. And despite all of Henry Lee's protesting against everyone, he did eventually get sued by Elizabeth

McCarty herself, with the help from her stepfather. They're like, hey, you need to give us back all the money that you took from Elizabeth's inheritance that you used to restore your freakin' house. And so looks like, shit, you dumb bitch, so give it back to us. But see, Henry, he had already used up all that money, and also he had some gambling debts taken after his father. Isn't that cute. So unfortunately for him, despite all of his efforts with

this freaking house, he ended up losing it. He had to sell it off to a friend, which I'm sure was very humiliating because that plantation had been in their family for six generations. Wow, he really fricked that up, didn't he. So after he lost his big old mansion, Henry Lee was in a bit of a crisis. He needed to make money. He needs to get a job. Isn't that humiliating being a man who has to have a job. So he's like, I'll do the most stable

thing I can think of. I'll become a writer. Yes, a writer, that's the easy career you could go with. Back in the day. I suppose he fled down to Tennessee, where his wife was and attempted to reconcile with her. She still hated his guts and didn't really want to be with him. But the couple became acquainted with none other than Andrew Jackson, and Henry Lee, being a squirrely, meaty faced boy, was like, hey, Jackson, let me write stuff for you. And so Henry Lee started writing these

articles talking about how great Andrew Jackson was. And then when Andrew Jackson won the presidency in eighteen twenty eight, Henry Lee became one of his speech writers. At this point, Henry Lee probably thought he was on the up and up. He was like, yeah, I was involved in this scandal. Sure, I had sex with my wife's sister, stole her money, lost my house, blah blah blah, But look I'm Andrew Jackson's boy now. Andrew Jason liked him so much. They was like, hey, Henry, how would you like to be

basically the ambassador to Algeria? That would be a nice life. You don't even really have to do that much. This is just kind of like a vacation position where like I give you money to hang out in Algeria. How do you like the sound of that? And Henry Lee was like, that would be so dope. I would love to do that. The problem was was that when he was getting approved by the Senate, it actually caused a

fight to erupt. People hated Henry Lee the fourth so much that they were like, why would we make him the ambassador to Algeria? We don't want him to represent the United States abroad. He sucks, like Andrew Jackson, do you even know what he did? He did a lot of messed up shit. And Andrew Jackson was probably like, but that's my boy, and doing messed up shit my whole thing. But the Senate was like, fuck you guys,

and they didn't approve him. This was all happening in February eighteen thirty, and by the next month, basically everybody in the country knew Henry Lee's business, that he was a horrible person. And Henry Lee he was probably really upset. He was like, ah, I was about to have the best time in Algeria, not really having to do anything. It was gonna be great. Now what am I gonna do with my life? One thing he did is he

wrote a book. He got access to some of the writings of Thomas Jefferson, and he wrote this book called Observations on the Writings of Thomas Jefferson, with particular reference to the attack They contain on the memory of the late General Henry Lee. That's right. He was, like, I'm going to dedicate my time in the family tradition. I'm talking about how Thomas Jefferson is a little bitch boy who we all hate, and also how Thomas Jefferson spoke

badly of my dad. I mean, if you don't have anything else, I guess you might as well defend your father, the Revolutionary War hero. He also wrote a book about Napoleon, and at this point he was living in France, and that's where he lived until the end of his life, when he died of influenza in eighteen thirty seven. At this point, Henry Lee had reconciled with his wife and she lived with him in Paris until she died in eighteen forty. Though, honestly, how do you ever actually forgive

somebody for doing all of that? Women really just be settling and it's upsetting. It's like, yeah, sure, are you Like she had on me with my sister and then spend all of my sister's money and also all of my money on his stupid house. But you know what, it's what I deserve. I think this is what people mean when they say the bar is in Hell Women's

History Month. As for Elizabeth, she did end up marrying, and in eighteen twenty eight the owner of Stratford Hall Plantation passed away and that person didn't have anyone to pass it on to, so the plantation was for sale and Elizabeth and her new husband they're the ones who bought the house. Wow, take that, Henry Lee. Elizabeth's husband died young, and she lived in the house until her

death in eighteen seventy nine. She didn't have any children of her own, but she left it to her nieces and nephews, and a few generations later, her descendants sold the house to a foundation who wanted to make it a museum. Isn't that some sweet sweet justice? Don't We

love to see it? On every episode of American filth, we learn a lesson, and I think today it's not so much a lesson but sort of more a hope that sometimes men who take advantage of you sexually and then also spend all of your money, bad things can happen to them. I'm not saying karma exists, Okay, I'm just saying that there is a chance that maybe they'll be publicly disgraced and then try to be friends with Andrew Jackson and then get dismissed by the entire Senate.

You know, that could happen. But also I think maybe the lesson in this episode is mostly for the Fellas, which is just don't have sex with your wife's sister, Like, don't How hard is that for people to understand? Clearly, in the post Revolutionary War period, these dudes could not get that through their stupid, big, thick, meaty skulls. So get it through yours stupid heads. Cue the credits. American Field is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast.

This episode was hosted, written, and produced by me Gabby Watts. Our theme song is by Jesse Niswanger. Our excuted producers are Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr And. You can follow along with the show at American Field Pod on Instagram, or you can stalk me in Brooklyn, New York whatever makes you feel most comfortable. Also make sure

to leave a review leave. Some stars recommend the show to a friend, a family, an enemy, just really anybody, And I hope you guys have a wonderful freaking week. Talk to you guys next time. Peace and blessings. Also, fuck you if you've ever fucked your wife's sister. Bye. School of Humans.