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

Robert E. Lee's much older half-brother cheated on his wife with his wife's sister and stole all her money! What an esteemed family! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans. I really don't know what was up
with the kids of the revolutionary heroes, you know, the revolution,
the American one specifically, this is American Fela. We're talking
about America. But like the kids of the people who
served in the war, like the sons of the founding fathers, etc.

(00:30):
They were kind of like Braddy and a little entitled
and also more than one of them, because you've heard
these stories already on the podcast, more than one of
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

(00:51):
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

(01:11):
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,

(01:33):
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

(02:00):
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.

(02:20):
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.

(02:45):
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

(03:06):
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,

(03:26):
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

(03:49):
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

(04:10):
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

(04:33):
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,

(04:54):
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

(05:16):
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.

(05:37):
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

(05:58):
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

(06:18):
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

(06:40):
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,

(07:01):
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,

(07:24):
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

(07:50):
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

(08:13):
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,

(08:35):
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

(08:57):
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

(09:20):
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

(09:44):
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

(10:04):
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

(10:25):
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

(10:48):
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

(11:10):
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

(11:31):
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

(11:54):
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

(12:17):
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

(12:41):
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

(13:07):
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

(13:28):
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

(13:53):
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

(14:14):
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

(14:36):
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

(14:58):
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,

(15:18):
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,

(15:40):
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

(16:02):
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

(16:22):
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

(16:43):
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

(17:06):
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

(17:26):
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,

(17:49):
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

(18:10):
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,

(18:34):
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,

(18:58):
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,

(19:23):
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,

(19:45):
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

(20:08):
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

(20:30):
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

(20:54):
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

(21:16):
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

(21:38):
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

(22:00):
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,

(22:24):
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

(22:45):
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

(23:08):
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

(23:29):
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

(23:50):
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

(24:14):
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

(24:35):
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,

(24:57):
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.

(25:18):
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

(25:39):
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.

(26:00):
School of Humans.