The LuLac Edition #5, 559, January 31st, 2026

 

 

NATHANIEL GREENE

UNDERRATED BUT

ESSENTIAL

 

Major General Nathanael Greene was an American military officer and planter who served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He emerged from the war with a reputation as one of George Washington's most talented and dependable officers and is known for his successful command in the Southern theater of the conflict.

Born into a prosperous Quaker family in Warwick, Rhode Island, Greene became active in the colonial opposition to British revenue policies in the early 1770s and helped establish the Kentish Guards, a state militia unit. After the April 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord, the legislature of Rhode Island established an army and appointed Greene to command it. Later in the year, Greene became a general in the newly established Continental Army. Greene served under George Washington in the Boston campaign, the New York and New Jersey campaign, and the Philadelphia campaign before being appointed quartermaster general of the Continental Army in 1778.

In October 1780, Washington appointed Greene as the commander of the Continental Army in the southern theater, where he was involved in several engagements, primarily in Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina. After taking command, Greene engaged in a successful campaign of guerrilla warfare against a numerically superior British force led by Charles Cornwallis. He suffered a series of tactical defeats at Guilford Court House, Hobkirk's Hill, and Eutaw Springs, which nevertheless eroded British control over the American South.

Defense analyst Robert Killebrew writes that Greene was "regarded by peers and historians as the second-best American general" in the Revolutionary War, after Washington. The historian Russell Weigley believed that "Greene's outstanding characteristic as a strategist was his ability to weave the maraudings of partisan raiders into a coherent pattern, coordinating them with the maneuvers of a field army otherwise too weak to accomplish much, and making the combination a deadly one.... [He] remains alone as an American master developing a strategy of unconventional war."  Historian Curtis F. Morgan Jr. describes Greene as Washington's "most trusted military subordinate." According to Golway, "on at least two occasions, fellow officers and politicians described Greene... as the man Washington had designated to succeed him if he were killed or captured." He was also respected by his opponents; Cornwallis wrote that Greene was "as dangerous as Washington. He is vigilant, enterprising, and full of resources–there is but little hope of gaining an advantage over him." Alexander Hamilton wrote that Greene's death deprived the country of a "universal and pervading genius which qualified him not less for the Senate than for the field."  Killebrew argues that Greene was the "most underrated general" in American history.

During the Revolution Greene supported numerous campaigns with his own money. Greene was in debt. In 1782 and 1783, Greene had difficulty supplying his troops in Charleston with clothing and provisions. He contracted with Banks & Co to furnish supplies but was compelled to put his name to the bond for the supplies. An order was given by Greene to Robert Morris for payment of the amount; this was paid by the Government of the United States to the contractor, who did not use it to pay the debt and left the bond unpaid. Greene paid the debt himself, and in 1791, his executrix petitioned Congress for relief. Greene had obtained some security from a partner of Banks & Co named Ferrie on a mortgage or lien on a tract of land, but the land was liable to a prior mortgage of £1,000 sterling to an Englishman named Murray. In 1788, the mortgagor in England filed a bill to foreclose on the mortgage, while Greene's family instituted proceedings against Ferrie, who was entitled to a reversionary interest in the land. The court ordered the land be sold and the sale proceeds to be first used to extinguish the mortgage, with the balance to go to representatives of General Greene. The land was sold, and after the £1,000 mortgage had been paid off, the residue of £2,400 was to go Greene's representatives. However, the purchaser never took title and never paid the money on the grounds that the title was in dispute. In 1792, a Relief Act was passed by Congress for General Greene which was based upon the decree of the land sale; the sum of which he was entitled to (£2,400) was exempted out of the indemnity allowed him at that time, of which his heirs received $2,000 (~$61,965 in 2024). In 1830, the administrators of Murray filed a bill of Chancery against the land; however, his agent who had bought the land had not taken title to it, on the grounds that there was a dispute about the land. The claim to the title was not resolved, and the money was never paid. Meanwhile, from 1789 to 1840, the plantation had gone to ruin; under the original decree, the land, instead of bringing the sum it had first bought, was sold for only $13,000. This left Greene's representatives only about $2,000 instead of £2,400. In 1840, they applied to Congress for the difference between the two sums. In 1854, the case was put to Congress for the relief of Phineas Nightingale, who was the administrator of the deceased General Greene.

Major fighting on land came to an end following the surrender of Cornwallis at the siege of Yorktown in October 1781, but Greene continued to serve in the Continental Army until late 1783. After the war, he settled down to a career as a plantation owner in Georgia, but his rice crops were mostly a failure. He died in 1786 at the Mulberry Grove Plantation in Chatham County, Georgia. Death was attributed to sunstroke. He was only 43.(LuLac, wikipedia, Bicentennial archives.