General Greene
Greene, F. V. (Francis Vinton), 1850-1921
Se Trt het rt pastes > Cet ee ee et = et ee pe eee eae Larutote Ss ~ a =H 3 Serpe epee rae ge ae = ae eae = er ph teks > * < ee he = as Great Commanders EDITED BY SAMES GRANT WILSON GENERAL GREENE _Large Paper Edition Limited to One Thousand Copies, of which this is Number_2— 2 Ine HHal) de New sarc ; GREAT COMMANDERS xe KR GENERAL GREENE id Sa NEW YORK D. APPLETON ARD COMPARYT Tye G GREAT COMMANDERS ; kkk GENERAL GREENE BY FRANCIS VINTON GREENE AUTHOR OF THE RUSSIAN ARMY AND ITS CAMPAIGNS IN TURKEY IN 1877-’78, THE MISSISSIPPI (CAMPAIGNS OF THE CIVIL WAR), ARMY LIFE IN RUSSIA, ETC. NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY "By D. APPLETON AND COMPA é "AU rights reserved. — CONTENTS. CHAPTER I.—ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION, 1742-1770 II.—Ear.y Lire IN RHODE ISLAND, 1770-1775. III.—Boston anpD Lone ISLAND, 1775-1776. IV.—ForT WASHINGTON, 1776 V.—THE JERSEYS, 1776-1777. VI.—THE BRANDYWINE AND GERMANTOWN, 1777. VII.—APPOINTED QUARTERMASTER GENERAL — VALLEY FORGE—MONMOUTH AND NEWPORT, 1777-1778. VIII.—QUARTERMASTER GENERAL— SPRINGFIELD, 1778- 1780 IX.—RESIGNS AS QUARTERMASTER GENERAL— WEST POINT, 1780 X.—TAKES COMMAND OF THE SOUTHERN ARMY, 1780. XI.—THE RETREAT TO THE DAN AND THE BATTLE OF GUILFORD CourRT Houss, 1781. XII.—THE BATTLE OF HOBKIRK’S HILL AND THE SIEGE OF NINETY-SIX, 1781. XIII.—TuHE BATTLE oF EUTAW SPRINGS AND THE CLOSE OF THE SOUTHERN CAMPAIGN, 1781-1783. XIV.—CLOsSING YEARS AND DEATH, 1783-1786 INDEX PAGE 10 23 43 60 76 . 118 war 161 - IgI . 228 . 263 + 303 32a LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. \ FACING PAGE Portrait of General Greene . . ; 9 Frontispiece From the picture by John Trumbull. The Engagement at Harlem Heights. ° 48 From The Campaign of 1776 around New York, by Hasty P. Johnston, published by the Long Island Historical Society. Fort Washington . i ; 58 From The Campaign of ne kona New York, by Weary P. Johnston, published by the Long Island Historical Society. Operations at Newport 116 From Marshall’s Life of Washington) Portrait of General Greene . : : : 5 ' . 160 From a painting by Charles W. Peale. Theater of Operations in the Southern Campaign 190 The Battle of Guilford Court House . ; 226 From Johnson’s Life of Greene. The Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill . : 5 242 From Johnson’s Life of Greene. The Siege of Ninety-Six . : , : 4 258 From Johnson’s Life of Greene. The Battle of Eutaw Springs . : ee re 6 276 From Johnson’s Life of Greene. LIST OF AUTHORITIES CONSULTED. Life of Nathanael Greene, by George Washington Greene, 3 vols., 1871. Life of Greene, by William Johnson, 2 vols., 1822. Life of Nathanael Greene, by Charles Caldwell, 1819. Life of Nathanael Greene, by W. G. Simms, 1849. Life and Writings of George Washington, by Jared Sparks, 12 vols., 1858, Correspondence of the American Revolution, by Jared Sparks, 4 vols., 1853. Life of Washington, by John Marshall, 2 vols., 1832. Life of Washington, by Washington Irving, 5 vols., 1859. Memoirs of the War in the Southern Department, by General Henry Lee, 1813. Campaign of 1781 in the Carolinas, by Henry Lee, third edi- tion, 1824. Battles of the United States, by Henry B. Dawson, 2 vols, 1858. Field Book of the Revolution, by Benson J. Lossing, 1859. Battles of the American Revolution, by Henry B. Carrington, 1876. Campaign of 1776 around New York, by Henry P. Johnston, published by the Long Island Historical Society, 1878. Life of Steuben, by Friedrich Kapp, 1859. Life of General Kalb, by Friedrich Kapp, 1884. Life of Knox, by Francis S. Drake, 1873. Treason of Charles Lee, by George H. Moore, 1860. History of the Independence of the United States, by William Gordon, 4 vols., 1788. History of the American Revolution, by David Ramsay, 3 vols., 1793. Journals of the American Congress, 1774-1788, 4 vols., 1823. The Clinton-Cornwallis Controversy, by Benjamin F. Stevens, 2 vols., 1888. History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781, by Lieutenant- Colonel Tarleton, 1787. History of the American War, by C. Stedman, 2 vols., 1794. Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War, by Alexander Garden, 1822, GENERAL GREENE, CHAPTER I. ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION, NATHANAEL GREENE was born in 1742, “on the 27th day of the fifth month,” according to the entry in his father’s diary. The Gregorian Calendar was not adopted in England or its colonies until ten years later, and March was then considered the first month. ' His birth was therefore on August 7, 1742. He was of the fourth generation of the descendants of John Greene, surgeon, of Salisbury, England, whose ances- tors had lived for several generations in Dorsetshire, and are referred to in the parish records of births, marriages, and deaths, as gentlemen and landed pro- prietors. John Greene sailed from Hampton in the ship James, on April 5, 1635, and landed at Boston sixty days later. Like many others, he had left Eng- land in order to make his home in a land where he could worship God according to his own conscience; but he soon discovered that the theocratic govern- ment of Massachusetts Bay was more intolerable than that of the land he had left. He therefore fol- lowed Roger Williams into the wilderness, and aided him to found the colony of Rhode Island. The serv- 2 GENERAL GREENE, ices of this little community in establishing civil and religious liberty have not received in public estima- tion the credit to which they are entitled. The col- ony was so small that it was overlooked among its more powerful neighbors, but “tall oaks from little acorns grow.” The opinions of Roger Williams were shared by such an infinitesimal minority of mankind, two hundred and fifty years ago, that it was neces- sary that they should first be put into practice by a small community; and it is the glory of Rhode Island that the opinions of this handful of settlers on Narragansett Bay should now be the foundation principle of government among more than one hun- dred millions of English-speaking people scattered over the four quarters of the globe. The principles on which Roger Williams founded his colony were: the right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; the right of the people to choose their own public officials of all classes; and the right of property— which last is upheld by all governments, but was carried so far by Williams that he denied the au- thority of any one to give or receive original titles to land in America without the consent of the Indians as primary owners. These rights were fully and com- pletely secured by the charter for Providence Plan- tations which Williams secured from the Earl of Warwick and his associates under the Protector in 1643, and in that which Clarke secured from Charles II in 1663 for Rhode Island and Providence Planta- tions. The latter charter gave such complete civil and religious liberty, that, when the colonies revolted in 1776, and the others formed their State constitu- tions, it was only necessary in Rhode Island to pass ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION. 3 an act of the Assembly substituting allegiance to the colony for allegiance to the King. No other change was necessary in its fundamental law, and under this charter its affairs were successfully administered, un- til 1843. With Williams and Clarke and Gorton, John Greene helped to found this colony. He was in the - first company to follow Williams from Salem, and he arrived at Providence in the spring of 1636, bringing with him his wife and five children—four sons and an infant\daughter. Williams had bought his land at Providence from the Indian chiefs who owned it, and he conveyed it for a consideration of £30 to his “loving friends and neighbors,” twelve in num- ber, among whom was John Greene. Five years later John Greene, in company with a few others from Providence and a few from Newport, purchased from the Indians a tract on the west side of Narragansett Bay, about four miles wide and twenty miles long, which was at first called Shawomet, but afterward named Warwick in gratitude for tne kindness shown them by the Earl of Warwick, then Governor-in- Chief and Lord High Admiral of the Colonies. Here John Greene passed the remainder of his days, and here his descendants were born. He received his full share of persecution from Massachusetts. When in 1637 he returned to Salem to sell his house, he was arrested and thrown into jail for having spoken disre- spectfully of the magistrates, and having charged them with “usurping the power of Christ over men’s con- sciences.” In 1643, when Massachusetts attempted to claim jurisdiction over Shawomet, and seized Gor- ton and his neighbors and carried them to Boston for trial, Greene was obliged to escape across the 4 GENERAL GREENE, bay to Newport with his sick wife, who died a few weeks afterward. Inthe following year, with Gor- ton and Holden, he was sent to England to lay their grievances before the Earl of Warwick’s Committee, and from him they secured a decision in their favor, which, though appealed by Massachusetts, was never materially reversed. He died in 1659, his last public service being as one of a committee of ten selected in 1647 to organize the colony under the charter of 1643. His son was one of the ten “ Assistants”’ to the Governor named for the first year in the charter of 1663. His descendants multiplied rapidly in Warwick; they married young, lived long, and reared large families. Each generation in succession furnished men prominent in the community—governors, deputy governors, secretaries of the colony, and delegates to the General Assembly. Nathanael Greene was of the fourth generation of these descendants. He was the fifth of a family of nine children—two by a first marriage and seven by a second. His father, also named Nathanael, was a Quaker preacher of the most vigorous as well as the most narrow-minded and superstitious type. His son described him in after years as “a man of great piety, of an excellent understanding, and governed in his conduct by hu- manity and kind benevolence, but his mind was over- shadowed with prejudice against literary accomplish- ments.” He was also a large landed proprietor, and the owner of a forge, grist mill, flour mill, and saw mill, as well as a store for the sale of general mer- chandise. The forge and mills had been established by his father Jabez, and at his death the property passed equally to his six sons without being divided, ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION. 5 and the business was continued by them. It was situated on Potowomut, a peninsula on the west side of Narragansett Bay just south of Warwick. In 1741 a second forge was established by the brothers at Coventry, about ten miles northwest of Potowomut, and the two establishments continued in operation till the close of the century. The property at both places gradually passed into the hands of Nathanael the preacher, and all of his eight sons were put to work in the forges or mills at an early age. At his death, in 1771, his sons inherited the property and continued the business jointly under the name of Jacob Greene & Co., but Nathanael Greene never paid any attention to it after he joined the army in 1775. Its value, exclusive of real estate, was ap- praised in 1743 at £8,055, with £2,408 of uncollected debts—a considerable sum in those days. The prin- cipal product of the forges was anchors, and these, together with the flour made at the mills, were trans-, ferred across the bay in sloops to Newport, bringing back return cargoes of ore and black sand from Penn- sylvania, and wheat and coal from Virginia. At the age of thirty Nathanael Greene wrote sadly to one of his intimate friends: “I lament the want of liberal education. . . . I was educated a Quaker, and among the most superstitious sort; and that of itself is enough to cramp the best of geniuses, much more mine.” Certainly his disposition and temperament and sympathies were very different from those of his father. The latter was vigorous of mind and body, but extremely narrow and prejudiced. He believed that no books were worthy of study but the Bible, was opposed to war and strife, abhorred worldly amusements. The son, on the other hand, had an 6 GENERAL GREENE. active and alert mind, a happy disposition, and a strong, well-formed body. He craved knowledge from his childhood, possessed a sympathetic nature which formed lasting attachments, and was quick to resent a fancied injury ; took pleasure in athletic con- tests, delighted in society, and, above all, was pas- sionately fond of dancing—in spite of the corporeal punishment which he invariably suffered when de- tected in a sin so peculiarly offensive to Quakers. When he attended a military parade in 1773 and pre- pared to organize the Kentish Guards, the “ meeting ” gave him three several warnings and asked him for an explanation, being reluctant to take extreme meas- ures against the son of a father so highly respected; but these warnings had no effect upon him, and he con- tinued his military investigations. No alternative re- mained but to dismiss him from their communion, which they promptly did. All of his differences with the Quakers were, however, of small consequence, except in the matter of education. This was of last- ing importance. His father was one of the most prosperous men in the colony, and abundantly able, had he so chosen, to give his son a thorough educa- tion and send him either to Harvard, Yale, or King’s College. (Rhode Island College, afterward Brown University, was not fully established till he was thirty years old.) But his father did not so choose; such a course would have seemed to him most sinful. He employed an itinerant teacher in the long winter evenings to teach his eight boys to read, write, and cipher. Having mastered these, the Holy Scriptures and the writings of George Fox and Robert Barclay were considered as affording all knowledge that was needful or useful. Against this programme Nathanael ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION. 7 the younger instinctively rebelled. At the age of fourteen he made the acquaintance of a young man named Giles, who was passing his college vacation in the village of East Greenwich, a short distance from his father’s home. The result of his conversations with Giles about college and books led him to ask of his father better means of study; and after much hesitation his father so far yielded as to allow him to study geometry and a little Latin under a teacher named Maxwell, in East Greenwich. This taste of knowledge suggested to the lad that he devise means within his own control for procuring books, and ac- cordingly he made toy anchors and other toys of iron. The next time the sloop took her load of wares from the forge and the mill to Newport he went in it, and promptly sold his toys for cash. With this he proceeded to the bookstore and re- marked that he wanted to “buy a book.”” The book- seller sharply asked, “ What book?” And the boy, abashed, was unable to reply. But it happened that in the bookstore at the same time was the Rev. Ezra Stiles, then pastor of the Second Church in Newport, and afterward for many years President of Yale College. He was much interested in a lad who showed such positive but ill-defined desire for knowl- edge, and at once began to give him welcome advice about the choice of books. Through this kindly as- sistance young Nathanael became acquainted with Locke on the Understanding and Watt’s Elements of Logic, which, in connection with Euclid, formed strong, wholesome food for an acquiring and eager mind of fifteen. In his trips to Newport he also formed the acquaintance of Lindley Murray, the fu- ture grammarian, who, although younger than himself, 8 GENERAL GREENE. was being well educated and anxious to talk about books and studies. In his nineteenth year the death of his two stepbrothers led to a law-suit concerning the disposition of their property, of so complicated a nature that it was sent to England on appeal. His father instructed him to collect evidence and confer with the lawyers, and this induced him to purchase Jacob’s Law Dictionary and diligently study it. A little later he purchased an Oxford edition of Black- stone, in four quarto volumes; then the Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, in four volumes. Further addi- tions to his stock were made from time to time, but it was not until he moved to Coventry and built his own house that he could fully gratify his taste for books. Then he had a library of two hundred and fifty volumes, well chosen and solid books, which had cost him no little hard-earned money, and which he thoroughly studied, reading many of them over and over again—English and Roman History, Vattel and Hume, translations of Homer, Cesar, and Horace, But- ler’s Analogy, Plutarch’s Lives, Turenne’s Memoirs, Ferguson’s History of Civil Society, the Spectator, Pope, Swift, and Sterne, and others equally good. In these days of circulating libraries and count- less novels, magazines, and newspapers, we are apt to forget that a good education can be obtained from a library of one hundred well-selected volumes, especially if they be obtained only by persistent effort and the sacrifice of time and money. Then they are appreciated, are pored over and thought out, read and re-read, stored away in the memory with an enduring lodgment that no easily-gained and lightly-read book can secure. Such a library did Nathanael Greene slowly accumulate and ar- ANTECEDENTS AND EDUCATION. 9 dently devour, although to the close of his life he felt conscious of the defects of his early education. Doubtless he lacked the benefits of mental training and discipline, yet he overcame this deficiency, by his own unguided and persistent efforts, to such an extent that he was never considered by his asso- ciates an uneducated man; he acquired a good style, barring certain errors of grammar and spelling which were then almost universal; he wrote lucidly and concisely, and was agreeable in conversation, Above all, he had a clear mental vision and sound judgment. His mind saw realities, and not pictures. CHAPTER II. EARLY LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. In the year 1770, when Nathanael Greene was twenty-seven years old, his father gave him charge of the forge and mill at Coventry. This establish- ment had grown to such an extent that over one hundred families were dependent on it for their liveli- hood, and alocal manager was necessary. Nathanael Greene moved there, built himself a comfortable house, of which the best room was reserved for his books, and established himself. Ten years before, one of his half-brothers had left him in his will an estate in West Greenwich; with this he had qualified under the property test and had been admitted as a freeman in Warwick in 1765. Immediately after his removal to Coventry he was elected to the General Assembly, and he was re-elected in 1771, 1772, and 1775. His father died a few months after his re- moval to Coventry in 1770. At the time he took his seat in the Assembly the population of the thirteen colonies was about 2,300,- ooo, and of these, about 55,000, or one fortieth part, lived in “ The English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Newport was the principal town, having a population of about 11,000, which was reduced to less than half that number during the Revolutionary War, and which was not regained EARLY LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. Il until nearly a century later. It was then exceeded only by New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. It had an extensive commerce, about two hundred ships being engaged in the foreign trade with Europe, Africa, and the West Indies, and about four hundred in the coasting trade. It imported large amounts of sugar and molasses from the West Indies, and ex- ported New England rum to Africa. Its surplus stock of West India goods was shipped to Boston and New York, and there exchanged for British manufactures, of which its consumption was valued at £120,000 a year. Providence had a population of less than 4,000, and there were no other towns of any importance. But there were several villages scattered along its water front, which was singularly long in proportion to the area of the colony, and the inhabitants of these were for the most part en- gaged in maritime commerce in a small way. The rest of the population was employed in agriculture, though the soil was largely rock and sand, which yielded poor returns. The mother country looked askance at any attempt to introduce manufactures into the colonies, and called sharply for explanation of any efforts in that direction. In 1766 the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations called for “a particular and exact account of the several manufactures which have been set up and carried on within the colony since the year 1734, and of the public encouragement which has been given thereto.” No answer having been returned, in 1768 the Earl of Hillsborough, Colonial Secretary, warned the Governor “to pay exact obedience ” to the request ; and the Governor (Lyndon) humbly replied: “Ten forges for making iron out of ore; two furnaces— 12 GENERAL GREENE. one for making iron into pigs and the other for mak- ing hollow ware out of ore; six spermaceti works ; twelve potash works; three rope walks; and one paper mill, at which is manufactured wrapping, pack- age, and other coarse paper. These, my Lord, are the only manufactures which have been set up in the colony since the year 1734; and neither for these nor for any other manufactures is any bounty or other public encouragement given by the colony.”” Rhode Island is now the most densely populated State (319 per square mile) on the American continent, - and three-fourths of its inhabitants are engaged in or dependent upon manufactures; but at the beginning of the Revolution none of these had come into ex- istence, except a few iron forges and furnaces, of which those owned by Nathanael Greene and his brothers were the most important. In means of education Rhode Island was behind its adjoining colonies. Land had been given for the support of a school in Newport in 1640, and in Providence in 1663, and subsequently in the other towns; but the free public schools had not been established until 1768, and then only in the face of active opposition on the part of those who would be most benefited by them. Harvard had been estab- lished in 1636, Yale in 1701, Princeton in 1746, and King’s College (Columbia) in 1754. Rhode Island College (Brown University) was founded in 1764, with the primary object of affording education for Baptist clergymen. It was first situated in the town of Warren, but in 1770 a change was determined upon, and the various towns offered subscriptions as an inducement to cause its removal. Nathanael Greene labored actively to secure it for East Greenwich, but EARLY LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. 13 the subscription of Providence exceeded that of any other place, and it was removed there. Failing to secure the university for his section of the colony, he set to work to establish a public school in Coventry, and in this humbler but still useful task he was en- tirely successful. The local politics of the colony when he took his seat in the Assembly had for many years turned on the contentions of the rival factions of Hopkins and Ward, the standing candidates for Governor. The origin of the contest was trivial, but the struggle was none the less active and bitter. Greene’s family was connected by marriage with that of Governor Ward, and his sympathies were naturally with that faction; but he does not seem to have taken, any very active part in the controversy. In fact, just before he entered public life the struggle was brought to a close in face of the vital issues then coming for- ward in reference to the right of the British Parlia- ment to tax the colonies without their consent. Gov- ernor Ward was in office when the Stamp Act was passed, in 1765, and was the only one of the colonial governors who refused to take the oath to enforce it.. He was re-elected in 1766, but was defeated by Hopkins in 1767. At the close of Hopkins’s term both parties agreed to withdraw from the contest; they joined hands in opposing the pretensions ‘of Parliament, and henceforth worked together in the interests of the colony, which, as it was now evident, were tending toward independence from Great Britain. They jointly represented the colony in the first Continental Congress, and Ward died in Phila- delphia in the spring of 1776. It does not appear that Nathanael Greene took a 14 GENERAL GREENE. prominent place in the Assembly during the four years in which he was a member of it. One or more of his brothers were deputies from Warwick at the same time, but no record has been preserved of any speeches or acts by any of them which attracted special attention. It is probable that he gained in- fluence among his fellow-members, for otherwise it is impossible to explain the confidence they showed in him on the outbreak of the war, but of the details there is no record. During this period he formed in- timate friendships with two men—Samuel Ward, Jr., and James Mitchell Varnum—which lasted through life. Ward’s father and grandfather had been gov- ernors of the colony, and the family had long been prominent. Varnum had come from Massachusetts, where his father owned property on the Merrimac; after a year at Harvard he had been sent to Rhode Island College, and graduated at its first commence- ment in 1769. The graduating exercises consisted of a “ Forensic Dispute’ on the question whether it was good policy for the colonies “to affect to become an independent State.” It fell to Varnum’s lot to argue in the negative, although for the rest of his life he fought and argued in the affirmative. The debate has escaped the usual oblivion of baccalaure- ate efforts, and has been preserved in full. At the time it attracted wide attention. In 1771 Varnum began the practice of law in Fast Greenwich. He afterward rose to distinction in the army, at the bar, on the bench, and in Congress, being particularly famous as an orator. Ward had also graduated at Rhode Island College, two years later than Varnum, and settled at his father’s home in Westerly. But Governor William Greene and Governor Samuel EARLY LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. 15 Ward had married sisters, and young Ward was a frequent visitor at “his aunt’s house in East Green- wich. Like Varnum, he served with distinction dur- ing the Revolution, but he did not enter political life. At the close of the war he removed to New York and established himself in mercantile pursuits, To both of these young men Nathanael Greene was strongly attracted. They were younger than himself—Varnum by six years and Ward by fourteen years—and from all accounts they were as manly, handsome, and fine young fellows as were to be found anywhere. But to Nathanael Greene, who was so sensitive and almost morbid on the subject of his education, their chief attraction was in the fact of their being college graduates, This leveled the dif- ference of age, and he wrote to them, on terms of equality, long letters on morals and manners and the theory of the universe—such letters as are common among thoughtful men at the collegiate age. ‘“ The pursuit of virtue where there is no opposition is the merit of a common man; but to practice it in spite of all opposition is the character of a truly great and noble soul... . What I call false modesty is not to have resolution to deny an unreasonable request or power to oppose a corrupt custom. ... Have you not felt, on seeing or reading of noble deeds or generous actions, pleasant emotions mixed with the desire of imitation? These are the advantages that spring from choice books and the best of company. They inspire the mind to action and direct the pas- sions.” Evidently he utilized his college friends to improve his own education and gain practice in the composition of letters. But he was no snob or syco- phant, “{t is very fortunate for you to be able to 16 GENERAL GREENE. enumerate a long train of noble ancestors, but to equal the best and excel the most is to have no oc- casion for any.” At this time he fell deeply in love with young Ward’s sister; but she did not return his affection. He took it much to heart, and his letters for several months were of the most gloomy and melancholy char- acter. But in the following year his spirits revived; he made the acquaintance of Miss Catharine Little- field, of Block Island, who was an orphan adopted by her aunt, the wife of Governor William Greene, at East Greenwich. The acquaintance rapidly passed into friendship, love, and marriage. They were mar- ried on July 20,1774, at East Greenwich, and he took his bride to his own home at Coventry. She was only twenty, while he was nearly thirty-two years old at the time of his marriage, but it was a happy union, blessed with two sons and three daughters, though for eight of the twelve years between his marriage and death he was absent in the army. But his wife, following the example of Mrs. Washington, joined him several times at the winter quarters dur- ing the long struggle. During the year of his marriage the strained re- lations between the mother country and the colonies were rapidly approaching a crisis. The Boston Port Bill had passed in the spring, and as soon as news of it reached Providence the freemen met and proposed _ the idea of a general congress of the colonies, to de- cide on the best means of maintaining their rights. The idea was formally approved by the Assembly at its meeting in June, and Hopkins and Ward were elected the delegates. In order to be able to main- tain their views, by force if necessary, military com- EARLY LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. 17 panies were organized in different parts of the colony. At the October session of the Assembly, Varnum, Nathanael Greene, his kinsman Christopher Greene, and Archibald Crary applied for and received a charter for an independent company to be formed in the towns of East Greenwich, Warwick, and Coven- try, and to be known as the “Kentish Guards.” Varnum was made captain, and Nathanael Greene was one of the privates. This little company en- joyed the distinction, as the war progressed, of sup- plying thirty-two officers to the regular or Continen- tal army. But Greene had no musket, and could not buy one in the colony. He therefore determined to go to Boston, ostensibly on business connected with his forges; his time, however, was employed on other matters. He watched the morning and evening parades of the British troops on the Common; he made several visits to Henry Knox’s bookstore, and bought copies of Czsar’s campaigns, Turenne’s memoirs, and other books; he purchased his musket, and he engaged a British deserter to go back with him as drill master for the Kentish Guards. He and the drill sergeant had to return by different routes, and the musket by still another, concealed in the straw of a farmer’s cart; but they all arrived in safety, and the drilling began. At the December session of the Assembly Nathanael Greene, although not a member of the Assembly and only a private in the Kentish Guards, was appointed one of a com- mittee of five—the other four being field officers of militia—to revise the militia laws. They reported in time for the new law to be passed at the same session, 18 GENERAL GREENE. Four months later the first blood of the Revolu- tion was shed at Lexington. News of it reached Providence on the afternoon of April 19, 1775, and passing from mouth to mouth and house to house with extraordinary rapidity, the report came to Nathanael Greene at his home at Coventry after nightfall. He immediately mounted his horse and rode to the training grounds of the Kentish Guards at East Greenwich. The whole company was aroused and collected during the night, and at daybreak marched for Providence, Captain Varnum at the head, and Nathanael Greene with his brothers in the ranks with their muskets on their shoulders. They passed through Providence early in the morning, and on arriving at the colonial boundary line, a few miles farther on, they were overtaken by a messenger from the Governor with orders to return. The com- pany obeyed the order, but Greene, with two of his brothers and a third companion, obtained permission to goon to Boston, and they started forward on horse- back. Later in the day they learned that the British troops had returned to Boston, and they therefore retraced their steps to Providence, where, on the 22d, the Assembly, of which Nathanael Greene had this year again been elected a member, met in special session. It resolved that an army of fifteen hun- dred men should be raised for the defense of the colony, and to march out to the aid of other colonies if necessary. In order to co-operate with the ad- joining colony of Connecticut, a committee of two— Nathanael Greene and William Bradford—was ap- pointed to confer with the Connecticut Assembly concerning details. The Assembly met again on May 2d and passed an act in detail for raising the ‘EARLY LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. 19 “army of observation ” of fifteen hundred men, or- ganizing it into a brigade of three regiments, and prescribing rules and regulations for its govern- ment. A loan of £20,000 was authorized to be raised by the issue of colonial bills. In the foregoing pages has been recorded prac- tically everything that is known of the life of Nathanael Greene down to the time when he took command of the Rhode Islandtroops. It can hardly 20 GENERAL GREENE. be called an extraordinary or remarkable career. He had gained his education by his own efforts, against his father’s wishes and almost in spite of his father’s opposition. He was the managing partner of an iron factory which, although it would now seem small, was then in fact of the same relative importance to the population and wealth of the colony as the largest cotton mills are to the State of to-day. He had served three terms in the Assembly, and had been a member of a few important committees. His travels were limited by Boston on one side and New York on the other. He had had no military experience beyond service for six months as a private in a militia company. Suddenly he was elected to command all the troops of the colony, at the outbreak of a struggle which had been long preparing, and the importance of which no one underestimated. His office was, next to that of the delegates to the Continental Con- gress, the most responsible which the colony had at its disposal. What led the Assembly to select Na- thanael Greene for that office? From the records which have been preserved no satisfactory answer can be made to the question. His ancestor had been one of the founders of the colony, but this was one hundred and thirty-seven years before, and there were hundreds of his kinsmen who enjoyed this slight distinction ; and while members of other branches of the family had held high office with credit, his im- mediate progenitors and his near relatives had not been in public life. His only acquaintance or connec- tion of much influence in public affairs was Governor Samuel Ward, who was in Providence at the session of the Assembly in May, 1775, just before leaving for Philadelphia, where he took his seat in Congress on EARLY LIFE IN RHODE ISLAND. 21 May 15th. Probably he advocated the choice of Na- thanael Greene, who was well known to him through his intimacy with his son Samuel and otherwise; but of this there is no authentic record. If he did so, he not only showed his knowledge of character, but performed a signal service to Rhode Island and to the future United States. still young, was possessed of unusual intelligence, character, and determination. That the result was a most fortunate one, never regretted by the colony or the United States, the result abundantly proved. That he has now for more than a century been re- garded as the most illustrious man that Rhode Island has produced, no one will deny. When it was a question, in 1866, of selecting the two fore- most men of Rhode Island to be represented by statues in the Capitol at Washington, Roger Williams and Nathanael Greene were quickly chosen; but the latter solely by reason of what he had done after May,1775. There is no distinct clew to what caused his selection for her most important station at that time. We can only conjecture that there must have been something in his manner and action which im- pressed his associates in the Assembly with a sense of his ability and integrity, and enabled them in- stinctively to discern the qualities for leadership which he undoubtedly possessed, and which only needed an opportunity for their proper develop- ment. Whatever the cause, the choice was wisely made; 22 GENERAL GREENE. and at the age of not quite thirty-three he left his home, his young wife, his little manufacturing estab- lishment, and his colonial surroundings, to take his place among the military leaders in a war of tran- scendent importance. CHAPTER III. - BOSTON AND LONG ISLAND, On the 3d of June, 1775, Greene arrived at Boston. He had been detained at Providence during the month of May, collecting and forwarding his troops, and had not been able to visit his home and wife, to whom he wrote his farewell, commending her to the care of his brothers, from Providence on June 2d. He found two of his regiments encamped at Jamaica Plain, the third, under command of Varnum, not ar- riving until a few days later. The troops were with- out discipline or military training, and, although their fine tents and the artillery they had brought with them from old Fort George at Newport attracted much attention, yet they seemed to Greene sadly de- ficient in all the essential features of military profi- ciency. He set to work with all his energy to remedy these defects, instituted daily drills, instructed his men in the use of their arms, instilled in their minds the rudimentary principles of discipline—in a word, la- bored early and late to convert his enthusiastic, patri- otic farmer lads into a body of soldiers; and with such success, that by the time Washington reached camp, while fully appreciating what they lacked, he was not ashamed of them. “Though raw, irregular, and un- disciplined,” he thought they were “under much better government than any round about Boston.” 24 GENERAL GREENE. Colonel Reed, Washington’s military secretary, wrote not long after that Greene’s ‘command consisted of three regiments, then the best disciplined and ap- pointed in the whole American army.” He did not have an opportunity to test their quality at Bunker Hill on June 17th, for he was stationed at the opposite end of the line, and his troops were not brought into that engagement. In addition to organizing his little force, he kept up a constant correspondence with Governor Ward at Philadelphia, who was habitually chairman of the Committee on the War. To him Greene wrote fully of the condition and requirements of the troops gathered around Boston and Ward acted on this in- formation in the deliberations of Congress. Greene also carried on a daily correspondence with Govern- or Cooke, of Rhode Island, concerning the supplies and equipment of his troops; and he wrote frequently and fully to his brother Jacob Greene, who was a member of the Rhode Island Committee of Safety. From this very full correspondence it is possible to follow quite closely his life during the nine months of the siege of Boston. It contained no striking episode. The period was one of preparation and or- ganization, and Greene was incessantly hard at work, drilling, studying, writing, and thinking; but the fruits of this work were visible not at Boston, but in the Jerseys and the Carolinas in the years that followed. Washington arrived at Cambridge on July 2d, and Greene sent a detachment of two hundred men, under command of a colonel, with a letter of address to welcome him to camp. Washington “returned a very polite answer, and invitation to visit him at his BOSTON AND LONG ISLAND. 25 quarters.” Thus was formed an acquaintance which soon grew into a friendship destined to remain un- broken, and year by year to grow stronger through- out the rest of Greene’s life. On the one side it was based upon profound respect and admiration, un- questioning loyalty, willing obedience, and unbounded faith; on the other, upon the fullest confidence, af- fection,and esteem. Greene’s temper was quick, and in his voluminous correspondence he was not slow to criticise others, and particularly members of Con- gress—sometimes unwisely. But no word of his has ever been found in which he expressed a thought of jealousy, or lack of faith or confidence in Washing- ton. He had already studied with care Washington’s career in the French wars and the Virginia House of Burgesses, and it was a career which peculiarly ap- pealed to a man of his temperament and tastes. Per- sonal acquaintance only confirmed the high opinion he had formed in advance, and this opinion was never changed, or even for a moment clouded with a doubt. ; The arrival of Washington effected a complete transformation in the troops about Boston. They ceased to be colonial militia and became the Conti- nental army. Four major-generals were appointed by Congress—Artemas Ward, Charles Lee, Philip Schuyler, and Israel Putnam; and eight brigadiers— Pomeroy, Montgomery, Wooster, Heath, Spencer, Thomas, Sullivan, and Greene. Gates was appointed adjutant-general. Before the end of the war all of these, except Putnam, Gates, Heath, and Greene, had disappeared from the army list, and all but Greene had ceased to hold active command. The return which Washington called for immediately on his 3 26 GENERAL GREENE. arrival showed the strength of the army to be as follows: PRIVATES. 