Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene (August 7, 1742 (N.S.) – June 19, 1786), was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. When the war began, Greene was a militia private; he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer.

Before the war

The son of a Quaker farmer and smith, he was born at Potowomut in the township of Warwick, Rhode Island, on July 27, 1742 (old style)/August 7, 1742 new style. Greene was the son of Nathanael Greene, Sr. and his second wife, Mary Motte. Though his father's sect discouraged "literary accomplishments," Greene educated himself, with a special study of mathematics, history of military tactics and law. The Rev. Ezra Stiles, later president of Yale University, was a strong influence in the young Nathanael's life.

In 1770, Greene moved to Coventry, R.I., to take charge of the family-owned forge (foundry), shortly prior to his father's death. There, he was the first to urge the establishment of a public school and in the same year he was chosen as a member of the Rhode Island General Assembly, to which he was re-elected in 1771, 1772 and 1775. He sympathized strongly with the "Whig," or Patriot, element among the colonists. In 1774, he married Catherine Littlefield Greene. Catherine had been living in East Greenwich with her aunt and uncle since her mother died when she was ten years old. Her uncle was a Whig Party leader and governor of Rhode Island. Her aunt and namesake, Catherine, was a close friend and correspondent of Benjamin Franklin from 1751-1784.

In August 1774, Greene organized a local militia, chartered as the Kentish Guards, in October. At this time he began to acquire many expensive volumes on military tactics, and began to teach himself the art of war. In December 1774 he was on a committee appointed by the assembly to revise the militia laws. His zeal in attending to military duty led to his expulsion from the Quakers.

Early years of the war

In 1775, Greene helped raise a contingent of men to join the American forces around Boston. Due to a bad limp, he was passed over for an officer's commission. Committed to the cause, he took up a musket and became a private. On May 8, 1775, he was promoted from private to Brigadier General of the Rhode Island Army of Observation formed in response to the siege of Boston. He was appointed a brigadier of the Continental Army by Congress on June 22, 1775. Washington assigned Greene the command of the city of Boston after it was evacuated by Howe in March 1776.

Greene's letters of October 1775 and January 1776 to Samuel Ward, then a delegate from Rhode Island to the Continental Congress, favored a declaration of independence. On August 9, 1776, he was promoted to be one of the four new major generals and was put in command of the Continental Army troops on Long Island; he chose the place for fortifications, and built the redoubts and entrenchments of Fort Putnam (the site of current day Fort Greene) east of Brooklyn Heights. Severe illness prevented him from taking part in the Battle of Long Island.

Greene was prominent among those who advised a retreat from New York and the burning of the city so that the British might not use it. He was placed in command of Fort Lee on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River. On October 25, 1776, he succeeded General Israel Putnam in command of Fort Washington, across the river from Fort Lee. He received orders from Washington to defend Fort Washington to the last extremity, and on October 11, 1776, the Congress passed a resolution to the same effect; but later Washington wrote to him to use his own discretion. Greene ordered Colonel Magaw, who was in immediate command, to defend the place until he should hear from him again, and reinforced it to meet General Howe's attack. Nevertheless, the blame for the losses of Forts Washington and Lee was put upon Greene, but apparently without him losing the confidence of Washington, who himself assumed the responsibility.

At the Battle of Trenton, Greene commanded one of the two American columns. After the victory there, he urged Washington to push on immediately to Princeton, but was overruled by a council of war. At the Battle of Brandywine, Greene commanded the reserve. At Germantown, Greene's command, having a greater distance to march than the right wing under Sullivan, failed to arrive in good time: a failure which Greene himself thought would cost him Washington's trust. But when they arrived at length, Greene and his troops distinguished themselves.

At the urgent request of Washington on March 2, 1778, at Valley Forge, he accepted the office of Quartermaster general. His conduct in this difficult office, of which Washington heartily approved, has been characterized as "as good as was possible under the circumstances of that fluctuating uncertain force." However, he had become Quartermaster General on the understanding that he should retain the right to command troops in the field. Thus we find him at the head of the right wing at Monmouth on June 28, 1778. In August, Greene and Lafayette commanded the land forces sent to Rhode Island to co-operate with the French admiral d'Estaing, in an expedition (the Battle of Rhode Island) which proved unsuccessful. In June 1780, Greene was in command at the Battle of Springfield. In August, he resigned the office of Quartermaster general after a long and bitter struggle with Congress over the interference in army administration by the Treasury Board and by commissions appointed by Congress. Before his resignation became effective, it fell to him to preside over the court which, on September 29, 1780, condemned Major John André to death.

Command in the South

On October 14, 1780, he succeeded General Gates as Commander-in-Chief of the Southern army, and took command at Charlotte, N.C. on December 2. The army was weak and badly equipped and was opposed by a superior force under Cornwallis. Greene decided to divide his own troops, thus forcing the division of the British as well, and creating the possibility of a strategic interplay of forces. This strategy led to General Daniel Morgan's victory of Cowpens on January 17, 1781, and to the Battle of Guilford Court House (in North Carolina on March 15), in which after having weakened the British troops by continual movements, and drawn in reinforcements for his own army, Greene was defeated, but inflicted a great loss of men to Cornwallis. Three days after this battle, Cornwallis withdrew toward Wilmington. Greene's generalship and judgment were again conspicuously illustrated in the next few weeks, in which he allowed Cornwallis to march north to Virginia and himself turned swiftly to the reconquest of the inner country of South Carolina. This he achieved by the end of June, in spite of a reverse sustained at Lord Rawdon's hands at Hobkirk's Hill (2 miles north of Camden) on April 25. This action forced the British to the coast.

Greene then gave his forces a six weeks' rest on the High Hills of the Santee River, and on September 8, with 2,600 men, engaged the British under Lieutenant Colonel James Stuart at Eutaw Springs. Americans who fell in this battle were immortalized by American author Philip Freneau in his 1781 poem "To the Memory of Brave Americans." The battle, although tactically a draw, so weakened the British that they withdrew to Charleston, where Greene penned them during the remaining months of the war. Greene's Southern campaign showed remarkable strategic features. He excelled in dividing, eluding and tiring his opponent by long marches, and in actual conflict forcing him to pay heavily for a temporary advantage a price that he could not afford. He was greatly assisted by able subordinates, including the Polish engineer, Tadeusz Kościuszko, the brilliant cavalry captains, Henry ("Light-Horse Harry") Lee and William Washington, and the partisan leaders, Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion.

South Carolina and Georgia voted Greene liberal grants of lands and money, including an estate, Boone's Barony, south of Edisto in Bamberg County. This he sold to meet bills for the rations of his Southern army. On his Georgia estate, Mulberry Grove, 14 miles above Savannah, he settled in 1785, after twice refusing the post of Secretary of War. He died there on June 19, 1786 of sunstroke.

Greene was a singularly able, and like other prominent generals on the American side, a self-trained soldier. He was second only to Washington among the officers of the American army in military ability, and the only general, other than Washington, to serve the entire eight years of the war. Like Washington, he had the great gift of using small means to the utmost advantage. His attitude towards the British was humane and even kindly: he even generously defended Gates, who had repeatedly intrigued against him, when Gates's conduct of the campaign in the South was criticized.

Quotations

"I am determined to defend my rights and maintain my freedom or sell my life in the attempt."
"It had been happy for me if I could have lived a private life in peace and plenty, enjoying all the happiness that results from a well-tempered society founded on mutual esteem. But the injury done my country, and the chains of slavery forging for all posterity, calls me forth to defend our common rights, and repel the bold invaders of the sons of freedom." Nathanael Greene to his wife, Catherine Littlefield Greene.

Memorials

Two ships in the United States Navy were named General Greene for him. There is a monument to Greene in Savannah (1829). His statue, with that of Roger Williams, represents the state of Rhode Island in the National Hall of Statuary in the Capitol at Washington; in the same city there is a bronze equestrian statue of him by H. K. Brown. He is also memorialized at the site of the Battle of Guilford Courthouse near what is now Greensboro, North Carolina, the city named after him.

See also:List of places named for Nathanael Greene

References and further reading

The Papers of General Nathanael Greene. University of North Carolina Press:

Vol. I: December 1766 to December 1776. ISBN 0-8078-1285-4.

Vol. II: January 1777 to 16 October 1778. ISBN 0-807801384-2.

Vol. III: 18 October 1778 to 10 May 1779. ISBN 0-8078-1557-8.

Vol. IV: 11 May 1779 to 31 October 1779. ISBN 0-8078-1668-X.

Vol. V: 1 November 1779 to 31 May 1780. ISBN 0-8078-1817-8.

Vol. VI: 1 June 1780 to 25 December 1780. ISBN 0-8078-1993-X.

Vol. VII: 26 December 1780 to 29 March 1781. ISBN 0-8078-2094-6.

Vol. VIII: 30 March 1781 to 10 July 1781. ISBN 0-8078-2212-4.

Vol. IX: 11 July 1781 to 2 December 1781. ISBN 0-8078-2310-4.

Vol. X: 3 December 1781 to 6 April 1782. ISBN 0-8078-2419-4.

Vol. XI: 7 April 1782 to 30 September 1782. ISBN 0-8078-2551-4.

Vol. XII: 1 October 1782 1783 to 21 May 1783. ISBN 0-8078-2713-4.

Vol. XIII: 22 May 1783 to 13 June 1786. ISBN 0-8078-2943-9.

Francis Vinton Greene, Life of Nathanael Greene, Major-General in the Army of the Revolution (New York, 1893), in the "Great Commanders Series"
Golway, Terry. Washington's General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution. New York: Holt, 2005. ISBN 0-8050-7066-4.
Greene, George W. The Life of Nathanael Greene, Major-General in the Army of the Revolution. 3 vols. New York: Putnam, 1867-1871. Reprinted Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1972. ISBN 0-836969-10-3.
McCullough, David. 1776. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-2671-2. See David McCullough.

1742 births | 1786 deaths | Continental Army generals | Foundrymen | Quakers