Washington's General (27 page)

The leadership abilities of George Washington have won praise and admiration through the centuries, but even his fondest admirers will confess that he often seemed aloof and remote. On this occasion, however, Washington chose urgency and intimacy, and perhaps as he calculated, the combination had its intended effect. Greene's letter had been delivered to his headquarters by messenger; Washington replied to it immediately, even though he was surrounded by staff and had on his desk a pile of letters from the South that required his attention. To his wounded general, he wrote: “I can, and do assure you, that I have ever been happy in your friendship, and have no scruples in declaring that I think myself indebted to your Abilities, honour and candour, to your attachment to me, and your faithful services to the Public.”

Having written words Greene wished so desperately to read, Washington then reminded him that their friendship “must not debar” frank discussion of the army's concerns. For several hot, humid July days on the banks of the Hudson River, Washington could find nobody from Greene's department, nor, in fact, Greene himself. He was not happy
and believed he was right to bring this to Greene's attention. “But let me beseech you my dear Sir not to harbor any distrusts of my friendship, or conceive that I mean to wound the feelings of a Person whom I greatly esteem and regard,” he wrote.

A little more than two weeks later, on August 3, Washington sent Congress a letter filled with praise for Greene's transformation of the quartermaster general's office. “[In] justice to General Greene,” Washington wrote, “I take occasion to observe that the public is much indebted to him for his judicious management and active exertions in his present department. When he entered upon it, he found it in a most confused, distracted and destitute state.” But now, Washington said, the department “has undergone a very happy change, and such as enabled us, with great facility, to make a sudden move with the whole Army and baggage from Valley Forge.” Thanks to Greene's “method and System,” the army no longer suffered from lack of supplies and organization.

Greene returned with enthusiasm to his work. Washington had decided not to lay siege to New York, but to launch an assault on a place Greene knew well: Newport, Rhode Island, which the British had seized in December 1776. Greene was given the job of collecting wagons, teams, and boats to move reinforcements to his home state, where his friend General John Sullivan was in command. The attack would be the first joint Franco-American operation of the war, for the French fleet and its four thousand marines agreed to sail from Sandy Hook to Rhode Island to cooperate with Sullivan's forces.

Communications were paramount, and Washington was not happy with the slow speed of messages to and from Rhode Island. Greene, the army's problem solver, devised a system relying on express riders stationed in four outposts between White Plains and Providence. The problem was fixed.

Greene's bruised feelings were on the mend, but he still had a hard time reconciling himself to solving prosaic supply problems while his friend Sullivan was preparing for battle–and in Greene's home state, no less. Greene believed his place ought to be in Rhode Island, not in White
Plains arranging for wagons and for express riders. He lobbied Washington, who by now realized how brittle Greene could be, for a place on the line with Sullivan. It is impossible to know whether Greene's previous outburst influenced Washington, but the commander in chief suprisingly did not rule out the possibility of Greene leaving his duties as quartermaster general for a chance at glory in Rhode Island. In a letter dated July 23, Greene told Sullivan:

You are the most happy man in the World. What a child of fortune. The expedition going on against Newport I think cannot fail. ... I wish you success with all my Soul and intend if possible to come home and ... to take a command of part of the Troops under you. I wish most ardently to be with you.

Washington granted his wish the following day. After an absence of three years, Nathanael Greene was going home to help liberate Newport–and home was precisely where he was going first. His deputy Charles Pettit took over the quartermaster's department during his absence. He left camp and rode one hundred and seventy miles in three days, arriving at home in Coventry at nine o'clock at night on July 30. For the first time in the young lives of the Greene children, the family was together.

Young George was now four; Martha, who was nicknamed Patty, was three. Neither of the children knew their father except through stories from Caty and other Greene family members. Caty herself was in the eighth month of her third pregnancy, uncomfortable, often not well, and always anxious. They spent several days reintroducing themselves to each other and socializing with relatives and friends before Greene turned his attention to the coming Franco-American movement on Newport. “I am ... as busy as a Bee in a tar barrel,” he told a friend.

He made an appointment to visit the count d'Estaing aboard his flagship in Narragansett Bay but was unable to keep it. “Accidents of the
day” and uncertain winds prevented their meeting, he explained to his new comrade in arms. The Frenchman was eager to meet Greene; he told Washington that the “reputation of this General Officer made his arrival to be wished.”

Greene left the children and Caty after about a week and set out first for Providence and then to the American camp in Tiverton. What had seemed like a mere sideshow was shaping up as a major confrontation. Washington, who had long favored an invasion of New York rather than an attack on Newport, now sensed the possibilities. A victory in Rhode Island, he said, would provide “the finishing blow to British pretentions of sovereignty over this country.” The presence in Rhode Island of not only Greene but also the marquis de Lafayette signaled the new importance Washington placed on this hastily organized offensive.

Sullivan assigned Greene to the American right wing, with Lafayette on the left and Sullivan himself in the center. Greene's men were mostly Continental army regulars who had marched to Rhode Island with Lafayette. Many of the troops streaming into camp were New England militiamen, including a unit under the command of John Hancock, the former president of the Continental Congress. Nathanael Greene's cousin Christopher Greene marched into camp with his small unit of free blacks from Rhode Island. During the early months of 1778, while the army was huddled in Valley Forge, Christopher Greene and Nathanael's old friend Sammy Ward had begun recruiting an all-black regiment from their home state. Southern political leaders were aghast, but Rhode Island, true to its tolerant roots, persisted. The state's assembly and governor agreed to purchase the freedom of any slaves willing to fight–as long as they passed muster with Greene, Ward, and other officers. About a hundred and thirty men joined what would become the army's first all-black regiment, and they were assigned not to menial tasks but to the front lines in the planned Rhode Island offensive.

While Nathanael Greene played no direct role in this enterprise, it reflected well on him that the men who defied the prejudices of the times were friends or relatives of his. General James Varnum, his onetime
commander in the Kentish Guards, formally approved the effort of cousin Christopher and friend Sammy Ward, as well as a lieutenant colonel named Jeremiah Olney.

The impending battle in Rhode Island brought these friends together again: Varnum, Ward, Christopher, and, of course, Nathanael Greene. Only four years had passed since Varnum and the two Greenes had so eagerly enlisted in the Kentish Guards, four years since they had drilled and trained in earnest on the green in East Greenwich, no doubt to the amusement of the town's elders and cynics. But their example inspired the likes of Sammy Ward, who followed his elders into the service when the war broke out and the Kentish Guards were transformed from play soldiers to the genuine article. Now they were officers and veterans who had seen the awful effects of war, who had persisted in the face of setback, defeat, and misery. Their Rhode Island upbringing and attitudes had inspired them to extend the cause of liberty to the young nation's outcasts.

And now, just miles from home, friends, and family, they were prepared to strike a blow for the freedom of Rhode Island.

The assault was to begin on August 10, when Sullivan's ten thousand troops were to cross a strait separating Tiverton from Aquidneck Island, north of Newport. At the same time, four thousand French marines would disembark from their ships and land on an island to the west of Newport. The allied forces would then squeeze the outnumbered British garrison from either side, with help from the French warships.

The day before the planned attack, however, Sullivan realized the British had abandoned their outer defenses on Aquidneck Island, so, without first informing the French, he ordered his men across the strait. The French were not pleased, and when a British fleet arrived off Rhode Island that very afternoon, d'Estaing and his thousands of troops weighed anchor and set sail to do battle on the sea. Sullivan, meanwhile, continued toward Newport while awaiting d'Estaing's return.

While the French chased the British and the Americans dug in outside Newport, the summer weather turned violent. Heavy winds and drenching rain on August 12 and 13 made life miserable and even fatal in
the American camp. Several soldiers in exposed positions died during the storm. Greene spent these stormy days in a farmhouse behind the lines. There, he had more than the weather and the coming battle to worry about. Caty had sent word that she was feeling ill, which was bad enough. But the recent visit with his children, however short, had reminded Greene of the risk he was taking on behalf of his country. Thoughts of little George and Martha haunted Greene as he and the American assault force moved to within a couple of miles of Newport. He wrote to Caty on August 16:

I am sorry to find you are getting unwell. I am afraid it is the effect of anxiety and fearful apprehension. . . . Would to God it was in my power to give peace to your bosom, which, I fear, is like the troubled ocean. I feel your distress. My bosom beats with compassion and kind concern for your welfare, and the more so at this time as your situation is criticial. I thank you kindly for your concern for my health and safety; the former is not very perfect, the latter is in the book of fate. I wish to live but for your sake and those little pledges of conjugal affection which Providence has blessed us with. Those dear little rogues have begun to command a large share of my affection and attention.

Greene's reference to a “troubled ocean” was not a coincidence. For even as he and the American troops suffered through the rain and gales, British and French sailors and marines in warships off Rhode Island were suffering, too. The storms brutalized ship and sailor alike, and both fleets were badly battered even though they never fired a shot at each other. The British eventually withdrew to New York, allowing the French to return to Rhode Island. Sullivan and Greene assumed that the offensive would resume, but d'Estaing decided he was not fit to fight. He told the Americans he had no choice but to leave Rhode Island and refit his ships in Boston. The joint offensive, which had offered much promise, would have to be scrapped.

Sullivan, a rough-hewn man not known for subtle language or delicate manners, was beside himself. “This movement has raised every voice against the French nation, revived all those ancient prejudices against the faith and sincerity of that people, and inclines them most heartily to curse the new alliance,” Sullivan wrote. Greene, too, was furious, telling a friend that the British garrison “would be all our own in a few days if the fleet and French forces would only cooperate with us, but alas they will not.” But Greene also understood that preserving the alliance with France was as important as preserving the Continental army. Sullivan's public criticism of the French threatened future cooperation. Greene, then, was thrust into the new and unfamiliar role of diplomat in the sudden crisis between America and France.

Sullivan sent Greene and Lafayette to d'Estaing's flagship, the
Languedoc,
to ask the French for more time. On the morning of August 21, as they boarded the small craft that was to take them to the
Languedoc,
Greene turned to Lafayette and said, presumably with a smile, “If we fail in our negotiations, we shall at least get a good dinner!” So he thought. Years later, Lafayette would recall that Greene became seasick once he was aboard the
Languedoc
and was in no mood to enjoy a fine French meal.

He persisted with his mission all the same. Using Lafayette as his translator, Greene pleaded with d'Estaing to remain in Narragansett Bay for forty-eight hours. They could still achieve their objective–the liberation of Newport–but success depended on the Americans and French operating together. The Frenchman told Greene that he agreed, but his captains wished to leave for Boston immediately. He asked Greene to summarize his arguments in a memorandum. Seasick and miserable though he was, Greene retired to a desk and spent the afternoon composing a formal and polite plea for cooperation. He promised the French that their warships could be repaired by his friends in Providence once the action in Newport was over. “The Garrison is important, the reduction almost certain,” he argued. “The influence it would have upon the British Politicks will be very considerable. I think it therefore highly worth running some risque to accomplish.”

Greene submitted his petition to d'Estaing that afternoon. Then, no doubt to his great relief, he and Lafayette left the pitching warship and returned to camp near Newport. The French answer arrived the next day, when they weighed anchor and sailed out of Narragansett Bay.

Thousands of militiamen saw the ships leaving that morning. Without the fleet's marines and firepower, they knew the expedition was doomed. So the militia companies left in droves. Sullivan's force of ten thousand quickly was reduced by half, further confirming Greene's low opinion of the militia's reliability.