General Nathaniel GREENE

  General Notes:

Major General Nathanael Greene
3rd Quartermaster General
March 1778-August 1780
Born: May 27, 1742; Died: June 19, 1786
Birthplace: Rhode Island (his family was among the earliest settlers to the state)
Married: July 1774 to Catharine Littlefield (also a Rhode Islander)
Motto: "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again!"

Nathanael Greene was born in Rhode Island in 1742 of Quaker parentage. From boyhood he was trained to work in the mills and the forge owned by his father. While he attended no college, he displayed an aptitude for study, and his reading was guided by Ezra Stiles, who became president of Yale.

In the face of the impending struggle with England he had helped to organize a militia company in 1774, but his fellow members denied him a lieutenancy because of his limping gait, and some went so far as to suggest that even as a private he would detract from the smart appearance of the company. Greene was deeply mortified, but his character is revealed by the fact that he remained in the company as a private. In 1775 he was a member of the General Assembly as he had been in 1770 to 1772. When the news of the Battle of Lexington arrived, Greene and his fellow militiamen set out for Boston. Although the Loyalist governor recalled them, Greene and three others continued on.. It was there that Greene's ability began to be realized. The private became a brigadier general in the Continental Army on June 22, 1775. For the next three years he was in constant service as a field commander.

He was the general in whom Washington most confided. Though resolute and firm, Greene was a pleasant man, who controlled a naturally impulsive and nervous temperament. A man of great integrity, he later treated with scorn the accusations made against him as Quartermaster General. When Mifflin began to neglect his Quartermaster duties, General Washington relied more and more upon General Greene's energy and wisdom in matters of supply. The dire distress of the army at Valley Forge during the winter of 1777-78 forcibly called the attention of Congress to the necessity of filling the vacancy in the Quartermaster's Department. Under pressure from Washington, Greene reluctantly agreed to accept the post. Congress met the conditions of his acceptance and permitted Greene to retain his rank of Major General in the line and appointed John Cox and Charles Pettit his assistant quartermasters general.

Greene entered upon his duties with characteristic energy and began preparations for the spring campaign. He attacked the knotty problem of transportation, he established a chain of forage depots and he struggled to obtain funds from Congress for the purchase of horses, wagons, forage, tents, and other necessary supplies. So effective were his measures that the condition of the soldiers was much improved and their movement greatly facilitated, enabling them to pursue the British promptly when they evacuated Philadelphia in 1778. During the campaign that summer, Greene often combined the functions of Quartermaster General with the duties of a field commander.

His activities as Quartermaster General required unremitting, annoying, and thankless labor. The mounting expense of the Department alarmed him and gave rise to considerable criticism. Congress, concerned with reducing expenses, appointed three commissioners late in January 1780 to introduce such reforms as were necessary in the Department. In the midst of making preparations for the campaign soon to be launched by Washington, Greene learned that Congress insisted upon holding the Quartermaster General personally and financially liable for the acts of his subordinates. Greene flatly rejected this doctrine, and when he observed that the reorganization at the same time took away his two trusted officers, Pettit and Cox, he immediately sent in his resignation, on July 26. 1780. His letter of resignation so angered Congress that there was even talk of dismissing him from the service entirely. This move failing, Congress elected Timothy Pickering to the office of Quartermaster General on August 5, 1780.

General Greene returned to commanding troops. In the fall of 1780, when Congress suspended General Gates from his command after his crushing defeat at Camden, South Carolina., and asked Washington to name a successor, he promptly chose Greene. General Greene proved himself competent and thwarted the plans of trained British professionals, such as Generals Rawdon and Cornwallis, brilliantly leading the southern army to victory.. His military exploits brought him the renown he had sought, and ranked him second to Washington in military leadership. The administrative ability he exhibited as head of the Quartermaster's Department, his quick, comprehensive grasp of complex details, and the indomitable energy and industry with which he carried out his duties make him rank among the ablest of Quartermasters General.

General Green died when he was forty-four, less than three years after the war ended. His early death was attributed to a sunstroke suffered while viewing, bald headed, the extensive rice plantation of a friend. He had expended much of his personal fortune in support of the war in order to keep the southern army form starving. He died on June 19, 1786, and was buried in the cemetery of Christ Episcopal Church in Savannah. In 1902 his remains were reinterred beneath the Greene monument erected in Johnston Square, Savannah. General Greene was inducted into the Quartermaster Hall of Fame in 1989.

Born with a stiff knee that actually disqualified him from military service early on, Greene emerged from the Revolution second only to Washington in reputation as a strategist and commander. His successful Southern campaigns of 1780-81 helped drive Cornwallis into Yorktown-although Greene technically "lost" every battle. Even as a young man, Greene showed a voracious interest in military science. He was an avid reader and saved his money to buy books (he eventually bought his own library!) In spite of his devotion to reading, he was also active in his community, and helped found one of the first public schools in the area. In 1770, he was elected to the General Assembly of Rhode Island. When the first shots of the Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord, Rhode Island put Greene in charge of a small force and sent him to Boston in June 1775. Washington arrived as Commander-in-Chief a month later, and from the moment they met, a lasting friendship was formed. When the Continental army spent its miserable winter of December 1777 in Valley Forge, Washington appointed Greene as Quartermaster-General. It was not Greene's ideal job: he wanted to be with his troops and fighting. But Washington knew that Greene would do as he asked, and promised Greene his time in the field would come. Little did Washington or Greene know that "Greene's time in the field" would be some of the most important military action of the entire war.

After Horatio Gates' disaster at Camden, South Carolina, Washington kept his promise. Greene was given command. Washington had wanted Greene in charge of the South all along because Greene embodied the Commander-in-Chief's military strategy: never go for a victory that would cost too many men. Greene jumped into action. He pulled together the scattered and demoralized troops, and put his plans into place. His tactics against the British are still regarded by military strategists as brilliant. Instead of just taking things he needed from the Southerners, Greene was careful to make the Continental presence there as non-intrusive as possible. Being from Rhode Island, he was sensitive to Southern attitudes about "Yankees." He led Cornwallis further away from his base, forcing him to pillage for food and supplies. By the time Cornwallis finally gave up and headed into Yorktown, Greene had reclaimed Georgia, South and North Carolina-effectively negating all the earlier British conquests-without winning a single battle.

After the war, Congress gave him long overdue recognition for his spectacular service. Washington was also finally able to express publicly his own deep-felt gratitude for not only a great general, but also a friend. Surprisingly enough, Greene retired in the South, opening a plantation on the Savannah River in Georgia. He died a few years later from an illness contracted while visiting a friend's plantation. The entire nation, led by George Washington, mourned his untimely passing. But the country did not forget his service. Greensboro, North Carolina, as well as many other cities and counties, bear his name in tribute.

Nathaniel married Catherine LITTLEFIELD. (Catherine LITTLEFIELD was born on 17 Dec 1753 in Block Island, Newport, RI and died on 2 Sep 1814 in Cumberland Island, Dungeness, GA.)