On July 4, 1876—amid over 90‑degree heat and vast Centennial crowds—Philadelphians gathered to hear the Declaration of Independence read aloud once more. The honor fell to Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, grandson of the 1776 delegate who had introduced the original resolution calling for independence.
Lee came from the same Virginia family that produced Robert E. Lee, though he was not a direct descendant of the Confederate general, but rather a member of a related branch of the sprawling Lee dynasty. Only eleven years earlier, men from Philadelphia and Virginia had faced one another across Civil War battle lines. Now, in the uneasy aftermath of Reconstruction, a Lee stood in the cradle of American independence, reading the founding text to a reunited but still healing nation.
