Biography of Roswell Walter Lee: Military Officer, Surveyor, and Public Servant (1810–1873)

Roswell Walter Lee, military officer of the United States, Republic of Texas, and Confederate States; public servant; and surveyor; was born on August 12, 1810, in Hamden, Connecticut, to Col. Roswell Lee and Phebe (Potter) Lee. The family moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where Lee and his siblings attended public school and were raised in the Episcopalian tradition. In 1827 he attended the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy (a private military college that later became Norwich University) in Middletown, Connecticut, and continued his studies with that institution when it relocated to Orange, New Jersey. He graduated in 1829. Lee enrolled in the United States Military Academy at West Point and received his appointment as a cadet on July 1, 1829. He graduated eighth in his class in 1833 and was promoted and commissioned as a brevet second lieutenant in the Third U.S. Artillery on July 1, 1833.

Lee served at Fort Monroe, Virginia, and at Fort Preble and Fort Sullivan, Maine, before he was sent to Florida during the Seminole Wars in 1836–37. On April 28, 1837, Lee, suffering most likely from malaria, was ordered to St. Augustine, Florida, for the benefit of his health. He was promoted to first lieutenant on May 18, 1837, and the following year was sent to the Northern frontier during the  Canada Border Disturbances. He was cashiered on July 16, 1838, after a court-martial trial at West Point for “Signing false certificates,” “Absence without leave,” and “Disorderly conduct.” This dismissal marked a significant turning point in his life and career. After leaving the United States Army, Lee, having probably been influenced by Lysander Wells (a former classmate with him at the American Academy), headed to Texas. On December 24, 1838, Lee arrived in Galveston, where he was sworn into the Texas Army. He was assigned to Company F of the First Infantry Regiment under Capt. James B. January. On February 23, 1839, Lee was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Army of the Republic of Texas. By the spring of 1840 he was promoted to first lieutenant and was stationed at Mission San José near San Antonio. That May, Lee served as a second for Lysander Wells in his duel with William Redd. For his involvement in the duel, he was demoted to second lieutenant. He served posts at Camp Chambers, and, after he was promoted back to first lieutenant in 1841, at Timber Creek Camp, where he was part of the Military Road expedition. He moved to Bonham in 1841. He was promoted to captain in the Republic of Texas Army and stationed at Fort Warren on the Red River. He served in that role until May 1841, when he resigned.

Roswell W. Lee married fifteen-year-old Susannah (Moody) Jackson, already a widow, on November 29, 1841, in Bonham, Texas. They had three children: Caroline, Martha Johnnie, and Ella. Lee was appointed the first postmaster at Warren in Fannin County. From 1841 through 1852 he worked as a surveyor in Bonham, and from 1852 to 1854 he served as surveyor of the Fannin Land District and worked as county surveyor for Fannin County numerous times between 1840 and 1861. At some point he was also appointed “Indian Commissioner.” From 1855 to his death, Lee continued surveying and was a general land agent and notary public in Bonham. He also served as probate clerk, clerk of the district court of Fannin County from 1842 to 1844, and clerk of the county courts for ten years, from 1842 to 1852. Lee trained his wife, Susannah, in the procedural record-keeping of the county, and she filled in during his absences. He served as a colonel in the Fannin County militia from 1843 to 1861, but he did not serve in the Mexican War due to recurring bouts of malaria from his service in Florida.

Lee was active in the Masons and presented his petition for initiation into Constantine Masonic Lodge No. 13 at Warren (Fannin County) on August 29, 1842. After the lodge moved to Bonham in 1844, he served as secretary pro-tem and progressed through the degrees of Fellow Craft and Master Mason. He was secretary of Constantine Lodge for the 1849–50 Masonic year. Many of his colleagues saw Lee’s potential to become a prominent man in Texas, but alcoholism seemed to affect those ambitions. Lee was disciplined by the lodge on January 23, 1851, for “not keeping a true and faithful record of the proceedings” and apparently expelled.

After the death of daughter Martha Johnnie in late 1859, Lee’s alcoholism worsened, and he developed erratic business practices. In 1860 the census reported Roswell Lee as a surveyor having $7,000 in real property and $2,500 in personal property, including two slaves, but his wife soon filed for divorce, and Lee’s assets were frozen. No decisive court outcome occurred at that time, and the couple stayed together.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Lee applied for a commission with the Provisional Army of Confederate States in Montgomery, Alabama. On May 9, 1861, Lee and a company of men captured fifteen Federal wagons from Fort Cobb near Fort Arbuckle, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). He was transferred to the newly-organized First Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles and the staff of Col. Douglas Hancock Cooper at Fort Washita on May 31 and was made acting adjutant by order of Cooper at the same time. He was appointed second lieutenant on June 19, 1861. On August 1, 1861, Lee was mustered into Capt. Jerry Wade’s Company H of the First Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles and was soon appointed adjutant of the regiment, which, on November 19 engaged the Creek Indians, allied with the Union, at the battle of Round Mountain, where R. W. Lee led a combined force of fifty Choctaws and Texans. His command was remembered for its “great coolness and courage” in the field, and Cooper stated that Roswell Lee was " worthy of high commendation." On December 9 in the battle of Chusto-Talasah, Cooper's regiment pursued the Creeks, which were routed before retreating. Lee was afoot in the battle when he was slightly wounded. Douglas Cooper’s report regarding Lee’s injury stated, “…his life probably being saved by his pistol-belt turning the ball.” Nevertheless, Lee was sent home to Bonham to recover from his wound.

After his recovery, in the early spring of 1862 Lee was unofficially borrowed by Gen. Albert Pike, commander of Indian Territory, to serve in Gen. Earl Van Dorn's campaign in Southern Missouri. In this capacity Lee fought in the battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern) and rode with his staff in charge of Pike’s Indian Regiment, comprised of about 100 Cherokees and an equal number of Texans. In July 1862 the recently promoted Captain Lee traveled to Richmond to apply for a command promotion; he was unsuccessful. His alcoholism, apparently well-known among associates, was possibly a detriment. President Jefferson Davis’s wife Varina, in a letter to her husband, commented about Lee, “the poor creature has been lying around half drunk.”

In late 1862 Lee took on the role of aide-de-camp and chief of ordnance on the staff of Maj. Gen. Thomas Hindman, Commander, First Corps, Army of the Trans-Mississippi, and later under Brig. Gen. William Steele. On April 1, 1863, Lee was given his command as he was commissioned as a captain, this time of Lee’s Texas Light Artillery in the “Trans-Mississippi” Department. General Steele authorized him to form a light howitzer battery for mobility—Lee’s Battery. Lee’s Battery rejoined Cooper’s command and participated in the battle of Honey Springs, a Confederate defeat, in July. Outgunned and lacking supplies, the battery still gave effective fire with shot, shell, and canister from their strong position in a wooden ravine. Cooper praised Lee for his “gallantry and good conduct” in the engagement. Lee saw little military action for the rest of the year.

By fall 1863 Captain Lee was made inspector general of Cooper's First Brigade in the southern region of the Territory. In this staff position he traveled back and forth between his home in North Texas and his command in the Indian Territory. Lee also inspected the towns, villages, and military installations in North Texas and Indian Territory.

On January 15, 1864, Samuel Bell Maxey, new commander of the Indian Territory, wrote to Gen. E. Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, requesting a new inspector and spoke of Captain Lee, stating he was “a man of fine sense and great energy, has agreed to serve. His habits were once occasionally bad; for twelve months they have been good, and I have no doubt will continue so.” Maxey worked with Lee to combat his alcoholism, mainly by keeping him busy. Lee subsequently became inspector general of the District of Indian Territory. He worked in the role of public relations to aid through governmental help through the military to the families of the Indian soldiers and keep peace among the various tribes. To relieve Maxey’s responsibilities, Lee served as “Assistant Superintendent” of Indian Affairs. In this role, he dealt with unjust taxation, homelessness, clothing shortages, and horse theft towards American Indians. By June, Lee had successfully arranged for medical provisions and beef to be issued to more than 3,300 Creek refugees near Warren. Maxey promoted Lee to full colonel on August 21, 1864, and he was given command of the First Chickasaw Regiment. Colonel Lee and the Chickasaw Regiment were ordered to Fort Washita and remained there into early 1865.

Colonel Lee organized American Indian units and was given command of the post at Fort Arbuckle in January 1865. On March 21, Lee, having gotten sick from the fevers he had endured in Florida years earlier, went on leave. When Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered in April, Colonel Lee was still on leave. His former command was surrendered to Union forces by Gen. Stand Watie on June 23, 1865, at Doaksville, Indian Territory. On July 7, Lee gave his parole of honor to Federal occupation forces in Marshall, Texas. He soon fell ill and continued eastward and was listed as sick in the former Confederate Hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana, from September 12 to 21.

In 1866, back in Bonham, Lee was made guardian of two Black minors, Lewis (age seven) and Kate (age six). That same year he applied for the licensing to practice as an attorney, but it was revoked as he would not be pardoned because of his West Point alma mater. After the war, Lee’s drinking escalated again. In January 1867 Susannah Lee filed for divorce again, citing his “drinkings and haughtiness,” which led to “outrage and abuse.” She also sued her husband; he unfortunately represented himself. Because of Lee’s habitual drunkenness, Susannah supported her family, paid school accounts, purchased clothing, paid bills by running a boarding house, and, according to court documents, supported Lee himself. On January 15, 1869, Lee’s marriage was annulled, and Susannah was awarded all property except for Roswell Lee’s grey horse, Rob. She moved to Fort Worth in 1870 to be closer to her family and died while en route to Bonham in 1872.

As Lee's bouts of malarial fevers and chills continued, he combatted them with quinine and copious amounts of alcohol. He continued his surveying career on both sides of the Red River. In 1871 he was finally awarded his license to practice law. That year, he put in a bid to survey the Cherokee Nation and elect monuments. He had performed some surveying jobs in Indian Territory, but his health was plaguing his abilities.

In 1872 former governor James Throckmorton recommended Lee as a good surveyor to Gen. Thomas A. Scott, owner of the Texas and Pacific Railroad, who was electing a route for the railroad. Lee surveyed much of the Texas frontier west of Fort Worth, and he often visited family in Fort Worth. His daughter Ella had married Randolph Clark, who had proposed that Roswell Lee teach math at the new Add-Ran Male and Female College in Thorp Spring. In September 1873 the Texas and Pacific Railroad was not going to continue to Fort Worth, and Lee’s further surveying prospects dried up.

At age sixty-three, weary and depressed, Roswell Walter Lee died of his vices in a “grogshop” in Hell’s Half Acre in Fort Worth on December 20, 1873. He was buried with a modest marker in Pioneer Rest Cemetery in the same city of Fort Worth.