Philip Lee (valet)

Philip Lee
"Liberty to the Captive" February 6, 1829
Born	c. 1785 Virginia, U.S.
Other names	Phil, Uncle Phil

Philip Lee (c. 1785^[1] – ?), also known as Phill and Uncle Phil, was an enslaved American of mixed race who lived for most of his life at Arlington House plantation, now the site of Arlington National Cemetery. Lee was kin to a number of key servants at Mount Vernon plantation in Virginia. Lee served as valet and body servant to George Washington Parke Custis—step-grandson of U.S. president George Washington and father-in-law of Confederate Army general Robert E. Lee—for at least 32 years, beginning in 1800. Custis repeatedly described Lee as a man of sterling character, and considered him as a friend. Custis trusted Lee with long-distance errands such as delivering Washington memorabilia to New York City and delivering four Virginia opossums to the Marquis de Lafayette.

In 1829, Lee's wife and seven children, who had a different legal owner than Lee and lived on a different plantation, were to be sold to slave traders and transported to Georgia. With fundraising publicity organized by Custis, businessmen Arthur Tappan, Richard Varick, and Eleazar Lord, and ministers Ralph Randolph Gurley and Samuel Hanson Cox, New Yorkers and people of the District of Columbia donated the $1,000 necessary to purchase Lee's wife, and his seven children under 11 years old, thus saving them from being sold south.