The ground is hallowed where thy place is made.
A spot all aftertimes shall sacred keep
Sharer with it the weeping willow’s shade.
And when to see where he, the great man, lies
Hither hereafter pilgrim patriots come,
Remembered shalt thou be, and tearful eyes
Shall mark thy grave beside the hero’s tomb.
* * * *
One of history’s shadowy figures who lived at the Hermitage for the better part of two years was Major Henry Lee of Virginia, scapegrace son of General Henry (Lighthorse Harry) Lee by his first wife. As his father’s eldest son Major Lee had become the master of Stratford Hall, the seat of the Lee family in Virginia; but as the result of an amour with his wife’s sister he had been forced to leave Stratford and exile himself beyond the boundaries of his native state. Attracted by the rising star of General Jackson, under whom he had served in the War of 1812, he came to Nashville to seek a connection with him; and Jackson, despite the social stigma attached to the expatriated Virginian, gave him asylum and gave him secretarial employment.
Major Lee’s polished diction is to be seen in many of Jackson’s formal state papers of this period, notably his first inaugural; and during the campaign of 1828 he wrote copiously in behalf of the General’s candidacy. He was on Jackson’s staff at the time of Mrs. Jackson’s death; and tradition has it that he was the author of the gem-like epitaph inscribed on her tomb. When the Indian boy, Lyncoya, died in 1828 Lee wrote a tribute to him which appeared in one of the Nashville daily papers and was greatly admired at the time.