It is interesting how the stories of some dog owners are applauded through history, while other tales are mocked. Take for example George Washington and Charles Lee. Both had the ambitious goal of becoming Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. Both went on to experience highs and lows during the American Revolution. And as you shall soon learn, they were both devoted dog owners. However, their contemporaries described them with very different perspectives.
First a little background information for those not familiar with General Charles Lee. As with George Washington, Charles Lee also lived in Virginia, and volunteered to serve at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. At the Second Continental Congress some even argued that it was Lee who should be named commander of the Continental Army, due to his experience in the Seven Years War. However, as you know, George Washington got the job. Although Charles Lee served enthusiastically, things didn’t always go his way, and his military career ended on a very low note. Some may even argue that it was his devotion to dogs that lost him the respect of his peers early on in the war.
While serving as a representative of Virginia at the Continental Congress, George Washington was spotted taking a walk with his Foxhound, Sweet Lips. Elizabeth Willing Powel, the wife of the mayor of Philadelphia, couldn’t resist commenting to her friends, “His movements and gestures are graceful, his walk majestic, and he was walking with a tall, exceedingly graceful dog of the hound type as he strode down Walnut Street.” According to the article “Moral of the Story? Always Walk with a Dog,” this “chance meeting led to a dinner invitation where Washington was introduced to powerful movers and shakers of Philadelphia.” Not one to miss an opportunity to gain the advantage, Washington gifted to some of the men the hounds he bred. The article goes on to point out that “it was these men who would mount a campaign to help Washington win command of the Continental Army.”
Then there was Charles Lee, who also could be spotted around town with his dogs. However, whereas Washington was described as majestic with his dog, Lee’s contemporaries weren’t so kind. As Hugh T. Harrington noted in the article, “Unleashing the Dogs of War,” one peer observed, “His manners had deteriorated, although he could be the perfect gentleman when he chose; he had, in general, become slovenly about his person; and he had developed a strange passion for dogs, a train of which now followed him wherever he went.” One dog, who would often be seen by his side and even accompanied him to battle, was his Pomeranian, Spado. Yet as historian Samuel Adams Drake wrote, “his great fondness for dogs brought on him the dislike and frowns of the fair sex: for the General would permit his canine adherents to follow him to the parlour, the bed-room, and sometimes they might be seen on a chair next to his elbow.” Sweet Lips may have led to dinner invitations for Washington, but Spada probably did the reverse for Lee. In a letter written on December 10, 1775, Abigail Adams described to her husband her awkward dinner engagement with Lee and Spado. “The General was determined that I should not only be acquainted with him, but with his companions too, and therefore placed a chair before me into which he ordered Mr. Sparder [sic] to mount and present his paw to me for a better acquaintance. I could not do other ways than accept it. —That Madam says he is the Dog which Mr. . . . . . has rendered famous.”
However, in Lee’s defense, his odd insistence on Abigail shaking paws with his dog may have been done in response to some disparaging words her husband John Adams had written in a letter to James Warren dated July 24, 1775, that were intercepted and published in British newspapers. In it Adams candidly noted Lee’s eccentric nature and added, “You must love his Dogs if you love him, and forgive a Thousand Whims for the Sake of the Soldier and the Scholar.” Many at the time viewed these comments as an insult. However, when word got back to Lee, he took it as a compliment, as seen in this letter to Benjamin Rush on September 19, 1775:
“I am called whimsical and a lover of Dogs. As to the former charge, I am heartily glad that it is my character, for untill the common routine of mankind is somewhat mended I shall wish to remain and be thought eccentric—and when my honest quadruped Friends are equal’d by the bipeds in fidelity, gratitude, or even good sense I will promise to become as warm a philanthropist as Mr. Addison himself affected to be—to say the truth I think the strongest proof of a good heart is to love Dogs and dislike Mankind.”
The following month, Charles Lee addressed John Adams directly about his comments in a letter dated October 5, 1775:
“As you may possibly harbour some suspicions that a certain passage in your intercepted letters have made some disagreeable impressions on my mind I think it necessary to assure You that it is quite the reverse. Until the bulk of Mankind is much alter’d I consider, your, the reputation of being whimsical and eccentric rather as a panegyric than sarcasm and my love of Dogs passes with me as a still higher complement. I have thank heavens a heart susceptible of freindship and affection. I must have some object to embrace. Consequently when once I can be convinced that Men are as worthy objects as Dogs I shall transfer my benevolence, and become as staunch a Philanthropist as the canting Addison affected to be. But you must not conclude from hence that I give into general misanthropy.“
Lee then goes in the letter to discuss important matters concerning the war, but concludes in a postscript with a message from his beloved dog. “Spada sends his love to you and declares in very intelligible language that He has far’d much better since your allusion to him for He is carress’d now by all ranks sexes and Ages.” This most likely explains Lee’s insistence that Abigail Adams is bestowed the honor of shaking paws with him at that December dinner.
A few years later dogs did indeed prove to be Charles Lee’s dearest friend, when he found himself captured by the British. In a letter written to Washington on February 9, 1777, with permission by his captor, General William Howe, Lee requested, “I am likewise extremely desirous that My Dogs should be brought as I never stood in greater need of their Company than at present.” Although Washington did return the British general’s lost dog, Lila, during battle at Germantown, history does not reveal if he had any intentions of fulfilling his fellow Patriot Lee’s request. Sadly though what is clear is Spado was lost during Lee’s imprisonment. In March of 1777, a lost dog advertisement appeared in the Virginia Gazette, written by William Finnie, “LOST or STOLEN, a very remarkable black shaggy dog of the Pomerania breed, called SPADO. He belongs to our brave but unfortunate General Lee.” The notice went on to explain that around the time of Lee’s capture by the British in December, the dog was to be brought back to Virginia, but was either sold or lost. It is not clear if the dog was ever reunited with his owner, but the twenty dollar reward was quite a generous sum for the period, and further shows that not everyone viewed Lee’s devotion to his dogs as an “oddity.”
Lee was eventually released, yet his words in that October 1775 letter never did come to fruition. Charles Lee was never convinced that humans made worthy friends, and spent his later years surrounded by his dogs, having as little interaction with people as possible. However, according to Vivienne Peterson in the Story of Spado, Charles Lee did reemerge into society briefly to defend the honor of his beloved dog in 1779. Apparently his devotion to Spado was mocked in a magazine article, to which Lee responded by challenging the author to “step outside.” Thankfully the duel never happened, and Lee continued to dote on dogs to the day he died in 1782.
