Colonel Francis L. Lee

Enlisted in the 44th Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in Boston in mid 1862 when the unit was formed. Became Colonel and commander of the Regiment during the engagements in North and South Carolina in the Civil War.

Came from Newton. A Major in one of the many local paramilitary organizations that sprung up before the war called the Massachusetts Rifle Club.

Died September 12, 1886 at Westport.

His papers are in the Massachusetts Historical Society files here:

http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0336

Extract: "Born on 10 Dec. 1823, Francis Lowell Lee of Brookline, Mass. was the son of Boston merchant Henry Lee (1782-1867) and Mary Jackson Lee (1783-1860). He entered Harvard College in 1839. While working as a supercargo for the Lee family business during the 1840s, he traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cuba; and Calcutta, India. He built his country home, "Stoney Sides," on Lake Champlain in 1847, where he farmed and became involved in the Champlain Valley Horticultural Society. In 1848 he married Sarah Wilson Lee, with whom he had six children: Mary Lee (later Hale), Francis W. Lee, Alice Lee, Thomas Lee, Anne Lee, and Robert Lee.

On 26 May 1862 Lee became major of the 4th Battalion of Infantry in First Brigade and First Division of the Militia of the Commonwealth. Lee was commissioned as the colonel of the 44th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in August 1862, and in October the regiment was sent to North Carolina, where it joined with Stevenson's Brigade. The regiment returned home from North Carolina and disbanded in June 1863. After his honorable discharge, Lee became a military advisor at the Massachusetts State House. He died in 1886".