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<em>Harry Raymond Lee</em> was born in Providence, Rhode Island, March 28, 1866, the son of John Mosely Lee and Josephine Raymond Lee. He was educated in the public schools of Providence, graduating from the Classical High School in 1885. Immediately on graduation he received an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which he was graduated in June 1889. He received his commission as Second Lieutenant of Infantry and was assigned to duty with the Eleventh Infantry at Madison Barracks, New York. As First Lieutenant he was assigned to the Sixth Infantry at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, and during the Spanish-American War was in command of that Post, then a Hospital Base.</p>
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On his promotion to Captain he went again to the Eleventh Infantry, stationed in Puerto Rico. Thence he went to the Philippines where he took part in the Lake Lanao Expedition in 1902. On his return to the United States with the Eleventh, he was stationed at Fort D. A. Russell and shortly after was sent in command of a relief expedition to San Francisco, following the earthquake and fire. Later in the same year he went to Cuba with the Army of Cuban Pacification.</p>
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After four years of service with troops he was sent to the Army War College for one year and remained in Washington the following three years as a member of the General Staff.</p>
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At Laredo, on the Texas Border, he was Provost Marshal of the district during the encampment of the National Guard, preceding World War I. Later he took his regiment to Syracuse, N. Y. for camp and training and in September, 1917 took the Ninth Infantry to France and remained with it in the training area, Haute Marne, until it was ready for combat. He afterwards reorganized and commanded the Base Port of La Rochelle La Pallice. His last duty in France was command of the Base Depot at Bloise. After over a year with Regular Army troops in the United States he served with the Organized Reserves in Denver, Colorado, as Chief of Staff of the 103rd Division until his retirement on December 15, 1922.</p>
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The Army was his life and to it he gave high loyalty and unremitting service. He liked service with troops, took pride in the care of his men and was ever ready to further their comfort and welfare. Although a strict disciplinarian, he was still considerate, and received in return the respect and affection of his soldiers. But a large part of his work was organization and administration, and in these he excelled.</p>
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On his retirement he received letters from General Pershing and from General Frank McCoy, in appreciation of his long and faithful service and regretting his separation from active duty.</p>
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Outside his activities he had varied interests. He cited music as one of his hobbies. It was more than a hobby—almost a need. One of his memories of West Point was that of singing in the early choir and on some occasions playing the organ for choir practice. This memory was revived and the experience repeated when, at Laredo, Texas, he played the organ in Christ Church for Sunday School Service. But the piano was his instrument. The first piece of furniture he bought after leaving West Point was a piano, which he carried all over the country from frontier posts in Arizona to Washington, after his retirement. The old piano now rests at his summer home at Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania. On leave he liked to go to New York for the Opera and spent most of his vacation funds at the Opera House. In Washington after his retirement he enjoyed symphony concerts every winter until his failing health prevented him from going out.</p>
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Had he not entered the Army he thought he might have engaged in journalism. The study of newspapers, their form as well as their literary content, was one of his sources of entertainment. But he always refused to write, on the ground that he did not have the time. Nevertheless, he left two small bits of writing which he valued. One is a translation from the French, “The Regulations of the French Minister of War on Subsistence in Campaigns”, a voluntary piece of work in 1905, for which he received a letter of commendation from the Chief of Staff, “an excellent piece of translation”. The other, a monograph on the Gettysburg Campaign, written at the War College at the conclusion of a Staff ride.</p>
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Always interested in boys and their training, he led a Boy Scout Troop for two years in Denver, Colorado.</p>
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Colonel Lee was a loyal churchman. A classmate writes, “While a cadet at West Point, on Communion Sundays, Lee, Rhodes and Piper always walked to Highland Falls to the Church of the Holy Innocents. This Church was built by Professor Weir, Professor of Drawing, on the ground given by William B. Cozzens. There was no Episcopal Communion service at the Cadet Chapel. As a cadet Lee was a conscientious Christian man, a gentleman in every sense of the word and was loved and respected by his classmates and all who knew him”. As an officer he attended services in towns near his stations and served on the vestries of three churches, in addition to teaching classes of boys in church schools.</p>
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Colonel Lee was married twice. His first wife was Clara E. Sherman, who died in May 1905. In October 1906 he married Emma C. Watt, who survives him. He had one daughter, Josephine Watt Lee, now the wife of Edward C. Radue, of Washington. D. C., and two granddaughters.</p>
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<em>—E. C. W. L.</em></p>
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