That such a boiling, rebellious, beaky grave opener had become Washington’s most senior lieutenant reflected both Lee’s credentials and the fluidity of high command in the young American army. The son of a British colonel, Lee was commissioned in his father’s regiment at age fourteen, sailed to America to fight the French, survived a gunshot to the chest that shattered two ribs at Fort Carillon, and found time to take a Mohawk wife, a chief’s daughter who bore him twin sons. He never saw that family again after his unit left New York, and he never married conventionally. Lee later served in
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