Nathanael Greene
an American Biography

Transcribed by Vernon Aldrich , courtesy Anthony Appa

From THE NATIONAL CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY 

BEING THE 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES 

AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE LIVES OF THE FOUNDERS, BULDERS, AND DEFENDERS OF THE REPUBLIC, AND OF THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO ARE
DOING THE WORK AND MOULDING THE THOUGHT OF THE PRESENT TIME 

EDITED BY 

DISTINGUISHED BIOGRAPHERS, SELECTED FROM EACH STATE REVISED AND APPROVED BY THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS, SCHOLARS, AND
STATESMEN OF THE DAY 

VOLUME I

________

NEW YORK
JAMES T. WHITE & COMPANY
1898 

GREENE, Nathanael, soldier, was born at Warwick, R. I., May 27, 1742, the fifth in descent from John Greene, surgeon, a native of Salisbury, Eng., who came to America in the next company after Roger Williams. This Greene was a persecuted man, moreover—driven first from his native country for conscience’ sake, and then forced to flee from Massachusetts Bay to Rhode Island.  The father of the subject of this sketch was Nathanael, a Quaker preacher, known as well, however, as a large landed proprietor and owner of a grist-mill, flour-mill, saw-mill, and forge, in constant and profitable operation.  The subject of this sketch had seven brothers, of whom six, including himself, were the children of Mary Mott, his father’s second wife. 

The sect to which his father belonged being “prejudiced against literary accomplishments,” at the age of thirteen years he could only “read, white and cipher.”  But in a winter-day ramble he met a young man named Giles, a collegian, who stirred within him desires for the acquisition of knowledge which never left him.  An old teacher by the name of Maxwell, at East Greenwich, taught him Latin and geometry, and he has been represented as perfectly familiar in after life with the Latin poets.  But he had few respites from manual labor, and little money of his own.  Small anchors, and other toys of iron, he made, however, grinding off the callous skin from his hands that he might hold the tiny things more easily, and selling them when his father’s sloop went to Newport, R. I.  He spent the proceeds for books.  At Newport he one day met in the book-store a young clergyman, who subsequently became President Stiles of Yale College.  The two grew to be acquainted, and the counsel of Dr. Stiles as to the purchase of books was of great service to Greene.  “Locke on the Human Understanding, “Watts’s “Logic,” Rollin’s “History of Europe,” and the writings of Dean Swift, particularly “Drapier’s Letters,” thenceforward moulded [sic] his mind and strengthened its powers.  In his trips to Newport he came in contact with other men of cultivation; but there seems to have been no expectations on his part that he should ever change his lot in life.  He was born to the plough and anvil, and, it might be, the limited place in public life which had been occupied by two or three of his ancestors. 

On one of his visits to New York city he was inoculated against the smallpox—a fact worth noting as an illustration of the process of vaccination had been formally rejected by the Massachusetts house of representatives, and also by the Rhode Island assembly, as late as 1772.  Interest in a family lawsuit led him to study Jacobs’s “Law Dictionary,” and a few years after procuring it he got and read the immortal Blackstone.  He grew up a young man of fine physique, impetuous temper (early brought under control), orderly in his habits and in the management of his father’s farm and business.  Part of the latter’s works being at Coventry, R. I., it was decided that Nathanael should reside at that place, to supervise them, which he accordingly did after 1770.  Here he began to be brought out, and testimony is not wanting that his capacity and strength of character were widely recognized.  “Mr. Greene is a very remarkable man,“ said David Howell, then a tutor in Rhode Island College, but afterward distinguished at the bar, on the bench and in congress. 

He had been admitted as a freeman at Warwick, in April, 1765, by virtue of his possession of an estate at West Greenwich, which had been left him by his half-brother, Nathaniel.  In the year of his removal to Coventry he was chosen to represent his new home in the general assembly, where his first public act was to set on foot a movement for the establishment of a school.  In this early participation in public affairs he was apparently already among the broadest minded of his associates.  Observing the doings of the British home authorities in relation to colonial affairs from 1770 to 1775, he wrote to a friend:  “the ministry seem to be determined to imbrue their cursed hands in American blood.”  He soon came into intimate relations with popular leaders.  In the session of the Rhode Island assembly in December, 1774, although he was not a member, he was put upon a committee to revise the militia laws of the colony, and report “as soon as may be.”  Events were hastening, and his part in them became daily more important.  He entered the Kentish Guards, a new military organization, as a private; went to Boston, then occupied by British troops, bought a musket, and induced a British deserter to go back to Rhode Island with him, as a drill-master for the “Guards.”  That musket still has a place on the wall in the Greene homestead. 

Meanwhile, the cultivation of his mind went on with the system, and to advantage, in the acquisition of a library of some hundreds of volumes, which was the marvel of his neighborhood.  But all this, especially his interest in military affairs, was contrary to the genius of Quakerism, and after due investigation and remonstrance he and his brother (Griffin) were “put from under the care of the meeting until they make satisfaction for their misconduct.”  There seems to be no record that the satisfaction was ever furnished.  July 20, 1774, he was married to Catherine Littlefield, a niece of the wife of the governor of the colony.  Public events crowded each other more and more, until, on the afternoon of Apr. 19, 1775, a messenger, fresh from the field, reached Providence, R. I., with the tidings that British regulars and American colonists were fighting at Lexington, Mass.  Greene forthwith mounted his horse and rode to the alarm post of the “Kentish Guards” at Greenwich, stopping at the house of a friend to borrow a few dollars in hard money.  The “Guards” set out for Boston, Mass., at dawn.  At Pawtucket the tory governor, Wanton, turned back the company by a messenger, but Greene, procuring a horse, pushed on with three companions—two of them his brothers.  Going forward, they found that the British troops had been driven into Boston.  Apr. 22d the Rhode Island legislature voted to raise 1,500 men, as an army of observation, and, “if it be necessary for the safety and preservation of any of the colonies, to march out of this colony and join and co-operate with the forces of the neighboring colonies.”  During the next week he was appointed brigadier-general of the army of 1,500, his commission dating from May 8, 1775.  At once he threw his private cares upon his brothers; and, after being engaged with details of organization and preparation, set off for the American camp at Boston which was a model of patriotism and of conjugal affection.  In it he said:  “The injury done my country, and the chains of slavery forging for the posterity call me forth to defend our common rights, and repel the bold invaders of the sons of freedom.  The cause is the cause of God and man.  . . .  I am determined to defend my rights and maintain my freedom or sell my life in the attempt; and I hope the righteous God that rules the world will bless the armies of America.” 

He found the Rhode Island camp at Jamaica Plains, Mass., in great commotion, but succeeded in improving it, and was soon summoned to a meeting with other generals, each of these colonial dignitaries, prior to the coming of Washington, commanding the troops of his own colony independent of the others.  On the day of the battle of Bunker Hill he was in Rhode Island.  On the 15th of June, 1775, two days before its occurrence, Washington was chosen commander-in-chief of the army, and on July 2d, about 2 P. M., reached Cambridge.  On the 14th of July, Greene wrote:  “Gen. Washington has arrived among us, universally admired.”  Straightway, in the reorganization of the army, three divisions were created.  Greene performed his duties with faithfulness during the period before the evacuation of Boston by the English troops, July 19th.  As early as January of that year he had written to Gov. Ward, of Rhode Island, recommending a declaration of independence on the part of the colonies.  After the evacuation and the reoccupation of Boston by the colonial troops, he traveled to New London, Conn., at the head of his forces, a brigade; and going thence with his troops, by water to New York, found Washington engaged in preparation for a defense against the British army, which had been transferred from Boston to the neighborhood of that city.  Here Greene was put in command of his old Rhode Islanders, and here he also came in contact, for the first time, with Col. Anthony Wayne.  After two of his regiments had been sent elsewhere he was ordered into encampment on Long Island; and at that time the hill in Brooklyn, N. Y., which has since been known as “Fort Greene,” appears to have begun to be called by his name.  In August he was appointed one of the four new major-generals.  In the severe labors incident to fortifications he was finally attacked by fever, and entirely prostrated.  His place being taken by Gen. Sullivan, and then by Gen. Putnam, Greene removed to New York city, and while the battle of Long Island was fought, Aug. 30, 1776, he lay so ill at the present corner of Broadway and Ninth street, that at one time the issue of the sickness was quite doubtful.  Beginning to recover, he was one of the council of war (Sept. 7th), at which, not withstanding the defeat of the American army on long Island, it was decided to try “to hold New York city with 5,000 men, posting the most of the army at King’s Bridge and intermediate points.”  Greene opposed this plan with great earnestness, advocating a total and immediate removal from the city.  So intense was his feeling that on the 11th he put into Washington’s hands a petition for a second council, signed by himself and six brigadier-generals.  This council reversed the judgment of the first with but three dissenting votes, it being decided to leave 8,000 men for the defense of Mount Washington and its dependencies.  But on Sunday the 13th, Lord Howe, the British commander, and his army entered the city between Kip’s and Turtle bays.  The disorderly American retreat which ensued, in which Washington’s life was imperiled, is well known to history.  Early the next day, in a skirmish of outposts, heavy fighting took place, in which Greene had his baptism of fire, and, with his fellows, made both British and Hessians run.  The day following this fight at Harlem, he was ordered to take command in New Jersey, with headquarters at Fort Constitution (now Fort Lee), on the “Palisades,” and opposite Fort Washington on the east side of the Hudson, which latter fort was to be held by the Americans.  His total force for this assignment consisted of three brigades and two regiments, an aggregate, on the 29th of Sept. (1776), of 3,521, rank and file, present and fit for duty.  He was thus charged with a great responsibility.  “He is, beyond doubt,” wrote one of Washington’s own staff, “a first-rate military genius, and one in whose opinions the general places the utmost confidence.”  His task was one of sleepless watchfulness.  In accordance with instructions from the commander-in-chief, while stationed at Fort Constitution, he began, moreover, the discharge of some of those duties which finally led to his appointment as quartermaster-general of the Continental army.  Little skirmishes happened every day, but were “thought so little of that they were seldom mentioned as news.” 

On the 16th of November the British took Fort Washington, which was poorly defended by the Americans.  Greene had advised its retention by the colonial forces, on the supposition that it would be well defended.  When it had been taken, and its garrison made prisoners of war, Fort Lee was abandoned and Greene’s troops retreated to Hackensack, and thence, via New Brunswick, to Trenton, N. J.  “Here,” says one writer, “was the darkest hour of the war.”  But Greene’s views and his letters were hopeful, and his constant proximity to Washington is noted, as well as his being deep in the counsels of the commander-in-chief.  It was at this juncture that he wrote to congress, urging that for existing emergencies, at least, its scattered powers should be concentrated in a single hand, and Washington be authorized to do whatever the occasion required, without waiting to consult a distant and dilatory assembly.  His representation was effectual, and this was done by a resolution of congress, passed on the 8th of December.  And now, the Americans have turned away from Trenton and made again for the Delaware river, the capital of New Jersey was occupied by the British and Hessian troops, but these were surprised at Trenton by the Americans, Dec. 25th, under Gens. Sullivan and Greene.  Part of Greene’s troops entered the town by a street (Queen) which now bears his name.  The action was decisive, ending in the rout of the Hessians and the killing and making prisoners of over 1,100 of them by the Americans in about three-quarters of an hour.  Greene advocated following up the victory by rapid pursuit of the enemy, but was overruled.  The action was succeeded, instead, by entry into winter quarters at Morristown, N. J.  While here Greene’s relations with Washington assumed still greater closeness and familiarity, and it was at this time that, by the entry of Alexander Hamilton into Washington’s military family, Hamilton’s intimacy with Greene was extended and cemented.  Again he resumed his correspondence with John Adams.  Now, also, he was sent by plans in reference to the conduct of the war, in order that insidious plotting and opposition to the commander-in-chief might be counteracted.  The issue of his embassy was that, by formal vote, more power than he had before possessed was placed in Washington’s hands, and before the next year was over, the battle of Monmouth, fought in opposition to the decision of a council of war, showed how wise and timely the resolution to grant this power had been. 

After his return to Morristown, Greene was sent by Washington, with Gen. Knox, to examine the passes by land and water through the Highlands of the Hudson, since, if these were once lost by the Americans, their eastern states would be severed from the middle states.  This duty was discharged with celerity and wisdom, and after due report he was again at Morristown on the 19th of May.  In the campaign which followed, the Americans, under Greene, attacked and pressed the British forces at New Brunswick, N. J., June 21, 1777, clearing the town of their presence, and pursuing them as far as Piscataway.  Disastrous tidings came of the evacuation of Ticonderoga by the American forces in the north; and the fitness of sending Greene to command in that region was considered, but Washington was unwilling to part with him.  On the 1st of July, 1777, in view of a report that he was to be superseded in command by Monsieur Du Coudreay, “a French gentleman,” he wrote to the president of congress:  “If this be true, it will lay me under the necessity of resigning my commission,” the same mail carrying letters of kindred purport from Gens. Sullivan and Knox.  But nothing came of this and Lord Howe having taken his army, by water, to Chesapeake Bay, the American forces started by land for Philadelphia, and on Tuesday, Aug. 24, 1777, passed through that city on their way southward to confront the foe on the ground of their new choice.  When the two armies were near each other, it was Greene who selected a position for the American camp at Cross Roads, about six miles from Elk, in Delaware.  The removal of the stores with which the country abounded came next to his hand.  When this was done, and upon the advance of the enemy, the American forces fell back to Chad’s Ford, on the Brandywine river.  The morning of Sept. 11, 1777, wore away in skirmishes and in cannonading, but in the battle which ensued Greene’s part was arduous and decisive, for by his quickness of movement, his men marching four miles in forty-five minutes, he saved, not only the day, but the balance of the American army, resisting the determined bayonet charges of the Hessians until the broken divisions of Washington’s forces could make sure their retreat.  At the battle of Germantown, Oct. 4, 1777, after Lord Howe had occupied Philadelphia, Greene’s forces were again conspicuous, extricating themselves, under his personal lead, from a position of the direst peril, and, although pursued with the utmost fury by Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, saving all their cannon.  Close upon this disaster came the beginning of the famous “Conway Cabal” against Washington, succeeded by the unsuccessful attack of the British, Oct. 22, 1777, upon Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, on the New Jersey shore of the Delaware, where Col. Greene (a namesake of the general) won his spurs and received the thanks of congress and a sword.  After this, on Nov. 14th and 15th, came the more effective British attack upon Fort Mifflin, the other American fort on the Delaware river, which resulted in its abandonment by Thayer, the commandant; and, following this, Cornwallis’s descent along the eastern bank of the Delaware with a British force thought to be ample to open the river to the ascent of vessels to Lord Howe, at Philadelphia.  Gen. Greene was ordered to oppose him in this movement.  The “Conway Cabal,” although just detected, was yet at its height, and Gen. Greene knew that the first place among the “bad counselors” of Washington was assigned to him by their common enemies.  He resolved to do all he could with a force inferior to that of his adversary, but before he could reach Fort Mercer it had been evacuated, and after a period of indecision, the next movement of the American army was into its malodorous winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pa., their enemies still occupying the city of Philadelphia.  From this forlorn position, Greene was sent out to procure supplies for the almost starving camp.  Cares of a kindred nature more and more devolved upon him, until his eminent capacities for such duty marked him, in Washington’s mind, as the man beyond all others to bring orderly and efficient management into that branch of his service, without whose proper administration no purely strategic or tactical attainments, or even genius, can be of avail in military affairs, namely, the quartermaster’s department.  This Greene reluctantly entered upon, at Gen. Washington’s special request, his appointment from congress dating March 2, 1778.  By resolution of that body, he retained his rank of major general in the army. 

It is no part of our purpose to follow the record of his administration of the quartermastership from this date until his appointment to the command of the southern army, Oct. 14, 1780.  To say that he brought to the discharge of its important duties a vigor, a method, a power of resource, a dauntless courage in the performance of duty, which had hitherto been conspicuously absent in the department, and an aggressive personality which, while it not seldom baffled mercenary tricksters and thwarted political enemies, did much to inflame those enemies to the point of absolute hatred, is simply to say that in the work of his department he was himself.  But it is a pleasure to add that no evidence is discoverable that anything besides the highest honesty and the most unflinching loyalty, alike to his country and to Washington, marked this part of his career.  When it was concluded, the latter wrote to him: “You have conducted the various duties of it with capacity and diligence, entirely to my satisfaction, and, as far as I have had an opportunity of knowing, with the strictest integrity.  When you were prevailed on to take the office in March, 1778, it was in great disorder and confusion, and by extraordinary exertions you so managed it as to enable the army to take the field the moment it was necessary, and to move with rapidity after the enemy, when they left Philadelphia.  From that period to the present time your exertions have been equally great.  They have appeared to me to be the result of system, and to have been well calculated to promote the interest and honor of your country.”  The details of this two and a half years’ experience in the quartermaster’s department may be found in the “Life” by Greene’s grandson, G. W. Greene (3 vols., N.Y., 1871).  During their continuance, retaining his military rank, he was constantly consulted as to military operations.  He even commanded the right wing at the battle of Monmouth, N. J., in June, 1778.  He had a part in the ineffective expedition against the British at Newport, in his native state, August, 1778; commanded again in New Jersey, in the summer and fall of 1780—for a part of the time during Washington’s absence—and in the latter half of September and early October, 1780, he grappled with the treason of Benedict Arnold, serving as president of the military board of inquiry which condemned the British adjutant-general Andre to death. 

Oct. 6, 1780, upon his own application, he received from Washington the command of West Point, which he proceeded forthwith to put into condition, besides administering the other duties incident to so important a position.  In eight days from the date of his appointment to that post, however, he was notified by Washington that a court of inquiry upon the conduct of Maj. Gen. Gates, as commander of the southern army, had been ordered by congress, and that, pending the decision of the court, he (Greene) was appointed as the head of that army, as successor to Gates.  This change of leaders was received with the utmost satisfaction by the army, and by intelligent friends of the patriot cause in all circles.  The chapter which records his discharge of duty in the southern section of the United States fills the record of Greene’s military service.  Hastening southward, without even the opportunity of seeing his wife, who was  then in Rhode Island, he reached the southern camp at Charlotte, N. C., where he found Gates, his unfortunate predecessor, Dec. 2, 1780.  On his way he had stopped at Philadelphia, Pa., at Annapolis, Md., and at Richmond, Va., that he might labor in these respective cities with congress, and with the two state legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, in order that his southern army might be supplied by each of them as soon as possible with the clothing, equipments and re-enforcements requisite for the ensuing campaign.  As soon as he entered North Carolina, moreover, he wrote to the governor of that state for the same purpose.  Reaching Charlotte, he found that the army of which he was to have the command consisted of 2,309 men, 1,482 of whom were present and fit for duty, 517 absent on command, and 128 detached on extra service.  These, with ninety cavalry and sixty artillery, made the total roster.  His whole force fit for duty, however, that were properly clothed and properly equipped, did not amount to 800 men.  Many of the soldiers were literally naked; others so nearly naked that it was impossible to put them upon duty.  The condition of the commissariat was equally discouraging.  There were not three days’ provisions in camp, and the army lived from hand to mouth, by daily collections.  The state of the quartermaster’s department was still more deplorable.  There were no wagons for transportation; of hard money there was not a dollar in the military chest.  At once Greene set himself to remedy this state of affairs.  He appointed an efficient quartermaster-general, and the same sort of commissary-general; he directed the immediate construction of a jail for the custody of prisoners of war; he put himself into communication with Gen. Francis Marion, that he might secure prompt knowledge of the whereabouts and purposes of the enemy under his old opponent, Lord Cornwallis.  Besides, he removed his camp to a new and better position on the Pedee river, near the present town of Chatham; he restrained his men from leaving camp when they chose and returning when they pleased.  No details were too trivial for his attention, and assuredly their number and their nature called for all the attention he had to given them.  But along with all which was discouraging, there were facts of an opposite character.  He found himself peculiarly fortunate in his officers.  There were Daniel Morgan, Henry Leland, William Washington of Virginia, and Huger and Marion and Sumter of South Carolina, Williams and Howard of Maryland, with Carrington and Davie—the last two the quartermaster-general and the commissary-general, whose appointments have already been noted.  It was thus poorly furnished with men, but so finely officered, that Greene found himself pitted against a British army of 3,224 men, encamped at Winnsborough, N. C., well equipped and every way in good condition. 

His first movement was to divide his own army into two, that he might secure for each an abundant supply of good food, confine his enemy in narrower bounds, cut them off from the supplies of the upper country, revive the drooping spirits of the inhabitants, establish rallying points for the militia of the East and West, give his friends opportunity to form small magazines in the rear of the troops, and compel Cornwallis to suspend his threatened invasion of Virginia.  The boldness of this movement was amply justified by its results, and in the brilliant battle of Cowpens, Jan. 17, 1781, fought by Morgan against Cornwallis, in that of Guilford Court House, March 15, 1781, fought under Greene against the same commander, he made such impression upon his enemy that Cornwallis was forced to fly before him, hastening northward, and ceasing to be the immediate opponent of the American general.  Straightway that general turned about, and marching upon the enemy’s posts in South Carolina, in a battle at Camden, Apr. 25, 1781, he measured swords with Lord Rawdon of the British army, who occupied that place.  The action terminated unfavorably to the American army, but the British forces pursued them only a short distance, and the loss of the battle made no alteration in Greene’s resolution to drive Rawdon from Camden, or in his general plan of operations.  The day after the battle he wrote to Marion, “We are now within five miles of Camden, and shall closely invest it in a day or two again.”  The issue was that early in May, 1781, the British general evacuated Camden, making good his retreat toward Charleston.  On the 11th of May the post of Orangeburg surrendered to Gen. Sumter, and on the 12th Fort Motte fell into the hands of Gen. Marion.  Other posts occupied by the British followed in surrender. 

And all this took place under the continual strain of disappointment and trial which arose from the failure to receive re-enforcement of regulars and militia, horses and other supplies, from the states with which Greene had zealously labored on his way in the South, as we have seen.  All this, moreover, with the added disadvantage that the militia of the several states, so far as they formed a part of his army, and fought in his campaign, did so under very brief enlistments, and often left their soldier companions, the Continentals, when their time had expired, in emergencies where their departure either resulted in the damage, or forced the abandonment, of plans which were in process of execution.  Despite this, the fortress of Augusta on the Savannah river, having previously surrendered to his subordinate, Gen. Lee, Greene sat down before that of Ninety-Six, then the only remaining stronghold of the British outside of Charleston, on the 25th of May, 1781, and besieged it for twenty-eight days, and although he failed to take it, Lord Rawdon coming with 2,000 troops to its relief, it was abandoned by the British on the 28th of June, and after some maneuvering, Greene went for a little time into camp upon the high hills of Santee, that he might reorganize and discipline his army, almost constantly changing in it make-up by the inclination of the states to make up their quotas of troops for the public service from the state militia, rather than by additions to the roll of the colonial army. 

On Aug. 23d he descended with his army into the plains of the Congaree, having 2,600 men, only 1,600 of whom were effectives.  He found the British under Stuart 2,300 strong, and on the 8th of September, at Eutaw Springs, S. C., routed them after a severe engagement, and compelled them to fall back upon Charleston, returning himself to the Santee Hills.  Later, he advanced toward Charleston, and by Dec. 10, 1781, the influence of the British arms was entirely confined to Charleston Neck and the adjacent islands.  On Jan. 18, 1782, in consequence of his success, the South Carolina legislature was enabled to meet at Jacksonboro’, and among its earliest acts was the passage of a special address to Greene, and of a bill “vesting in him, in consideration of his important services, the sum of ten thousand guineas.”  He now dispatched Anthony Wayne to Georgia with an appropriate force, and in the following September could write to Gen. Williams—“Georgia is ours.”  Dec. 14th, after long and patient waiting by the patriots, the city of Charleston was finally evacuated by the enemy’s forces, and the American army, led by Greene, entered it, literally at their heels—the British calling out, every now and then, to the Americans whose step exultation quickened—“You come too fast for us.”  The “Savior of the South”—it is not too much to call him such—had performed what he had undertaken when he accepted the command of its army at the hands of the Continental congress.  In March, 1782, Green’s wife reached camp.  On Apr. 16, 1783, came the news of peace, and this man, who for eight years had never laid his head upon his pillow without anxious care, who had known no home for all these years save a military camp, was free to come and to go at will. 

He proposed to live thenceforth as a private citizen, dividing his years between Rhode Island and Georgia, which latter state had presented him with a plantation at Mulberry Grove, on the Savannah river.  Journeying northward with Mrs. Green, in 1783, he met Gen. Washington at Trenton, N. J.; was welcomed in all his progress with enthusiastic greeting, received the thanks of congress for his service, with a present of two field pieces which he had taken from the British in South Carolina, and then went to Rhode Island for a brief season of rest.  His days were somewhat clouded, however by pecuniary embarrassments arising out of obligations which he had personally assumed in 1782, in order that his destitute southern army might be clothed.  He lived for a short time at Newport, R. I., but late in the autumn of 1785 was established at Mulberry Grove, Ga.  June 12, 1786, he visited Savannah, received a sunstroke from exposure on the following day, and died in consequence of it on the 19th, at his own house.  The mourning for him was wide, deep, sincere.  Congress voted that a monument be erected to his memory at Washington, D. C., which has not yet been done, although there is in that city a noble statue by H. K. Brown, a gift of the state of Rhode Island.  Washington’s grief was expressed in no stinted terms.  The best “Life” of Gen. Greene is that by his grandson, S. [sic] W. Green (3 vols, N. Y., 1867-71), and it has been freely drawn upon for this biographical sketch.

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