Billy Lee is often noted and praised by contemporaries and historians for his constant presence during the war, without any reflection on or seeming awareness of the irony: Lee had no choice in the matter. The figurehead of American liberty was never far from a representation of its (and his own) deep-seated hypocrisy. And of course there wasn’t any question of Lee enjoying the same battlefield perks as his master. He received only one update about his family during the war: “If it will give Will any pleasure he may be told his wife and child are both well,” Lund wrote to Washington in late
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