Read Online Washington's General by Terry Golway - Free Book Online Page A

political career that would lead to his election as governor of Rhode Island during the Revolution, and so his home became a meeting place for colonial patriots and other ambitious men. Young Caty Littlefield prospered in this highly masculine world, and not just because of her beauty. Though not especially well-educated, she was smart and charming, and men gravitated toward her.
    After an apparently short courtship, the wedding between Nathanael Greene and Catherine Littlefield took place on July 20, 1774, in East Greenwich. The ceremony was small, restricted, in Nathanael’s words, to “only a few Choice spirits.” Among those choice spirits were several well-connected friends of Greene, including not only Sammy Ward but a lawyer named James Varnum and a future member of the Rhode Island Supreme Court named Thomas Arnold. They were typical of the kind of company Nathanael Greene cultivated. Both men were younger than Greene, were college educated, and were involved in the colony’s civic affairs. Though Greene still remained self-conscious about his incomplete education, he surrounded himself with young friends who had the schooling he wished for himself. He knew he still had much to learn, and he was comfortable in the company of those who could teach him something.
    He brought his bride back to his home in Coventry, a three-story house that no longer seemed such a lonely place. Relatively late in life, at a time when his friends despaired of him ever finding a bride, thirty-two-year-old Nathanael Greene began his new life as a married man with all its attendant responsibilities.
    It quickly became obvious, however, that he was hardly settling down.
    Just a few weeks after his wedding, Greene joined his friend JamesVarnum and other leading citizens from and near East Greenwich in raising money for the suffering citizens of Boston. Greene’s was among eighty signatures on a public subscription that deplored the “Late, Cruel, malignant and more than savage Acts of the British Parliament.” Greene contributed two pounds, eight shillings to the fund, the second-highest single donation. The money was used to buy food and livestock for Boston.
    As America’s emerging political leaders convened in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress, Nathanael Greene was moving beyond rhetoric and subscription lists. The avid student of battles past took his first step toward a military career of his own by joining a private military company based in East Greenwich. It was one of many militia units forming throughout the colonies as tensions over Boston worsened. The new militia met several times a week to drill, train, and study under the supervision of two former officers in the British army. Tradition has it that Nathanael Greene was responsible for recruiting one of the officers after they met during one of Greene’s visits to Boston. Greene also brought back a musket from Boston, hiding it in a farmer’s load of hay until they were safely beyond the watchful eyes of British soldiers.
    In October 1774, after a few weeks of training, the amateur soldiers of East Greenwich asked the Rhode Island Assembly to incorporate them as a recognized state militia for Kent County. Approval was quick in coming, and so Nathanael Greene became a private in the new Kentish Guards. With their red coats with green trim, white waistcoat and pantaloons, and hats with a black cockade, they were a frequent sight in East Greenwich.
    Few of these citizen soldiers were more enthusiastic than the newly married Nathanael Greene, who expected to become one of the company’s leaders. It is hard to imagine, then, the wound he suffered in late October, when the troops overlooked Greene in electing their officers. Several militiamen took Greene aside and told him he was an embarrassment to the company. It was, they said, his limp; slight though it was, it took away from the company’s manly, martial appearance. It