by Terry Golway
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. The
y 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.
Sullivan, his dreams of a glorious victory fading as the French warships disappeared from view, wrote a letter of protest to d’Estaing on August 22, accusing the French of treachery, cowardice, and any number of unmanly vices. The fleet’s retreat, Sullivan’s letter charged, was “derogatory to the honor of France . . . and highly injurious to the alliance formed between the two nations.” Greene unwisely signed this indiscreet and inflammatory missive, avoiding a confrontation with his more experienced colleague. Before the Battle of Monmouth, he had joined Washington’s other generals in signing a document containing advice with which he did not agree, and now he refused to confront the ill-tempered Sullivan over a letter he knew was bound to cause problems. The French action disappointed Greene as much as it did Sullivan, but Greene understood that a highly charged letter might cause permanent damage to America’s vital alliance with France. But, rather than give voice to his objections, he meekly signed the letter, as he had at Monmouth.
As Greene suspected, the letter became an international incident. Lafayette sent a letter of his own to d’Estaing, assuring him that he had had nothing to do with it and, in fact, condemned it. But Sullivan was not finished: he issued an order to his remaining troops, confidently asserting that they didn’t need the French after all. American arms, he wrote, would prevail despite France’s “refusal to assist.”
Sullivan might well have believed what he told his troops–that they needed no help from their ally–but Greene knew better. Sullivan’s assertions, Greene realized, had implications beyond the alliance. To Greene’s chagrin, many delegates in Congress continued to insist that the war could be won with a small regular army reinforced with citizen soldiers in the militia service. The Rhode Island campaign, however, demonstrated the folly of such thinking. The militia melted away at the first sign of adversity. So the Americans needed the French, and needed them desperately.
Greene sent a private, conciliatory letter to Lafayette, which tempered the young Frenchman’s anger. Greene was “sensible,” Lafayette told Washington, and had offered views “very different from the expressions I have a right to complain of.” Washington, who readily agreed that Sullivan’s letter to d’Estaing was “impolitic,” deputized Greene to resolve and contain the dispute that Sullivan had started. “I depend much upon your temper and influence to conciliate that animosity, which I plainly perceive . . . between the American officers and the French in our service,” Washington wrote. The commander in chief clearly was worried that publication of the offensive documents would inflame public opinion against the French. So, Washington told Greene, it was imperative to make sure that Sullivan’s words remained secret.
I beg you will take every measure to keep the protest. . . from being made public. . . . [My] dear Sir, you can conceive my meaning better than I can express it, and I therefore fully depend upon your exerting yourself to heal all private animosities between our principal officers and the French, and to prevent all illiberal expressions and reflections that may fall from the Army at large.
Working with Lafayette, Greene soothed relations with d’Estaing, who actually offered to march the French marines from Boston to Newport if that would help the Americans. It was a fine gesture, but it was clear the expedition would not achieve its goal without a fleet in Narragansett Bay. Nevertheless, even with a depleted force, Greene urged Sullivan to attack. Choose three hundred experienced troops, Greene told Sullivan, put them aboard boats “with good Oars Men,” and land them south of the British redoubts. The flanking maneuver would place the Newport garrison between Sullivan’s main force and the detachment.
Greene later admitted that his plan was far too risky, and Sullivan wisely decided to withdraw to the northern part of Aquidneck Island under cover of darkness on August 28. If d’Estaing changed his mind and chose to return to Rhode Island–a vain hope–Sullivan believed he still might salvage something from this campaign. He deployed his troops along the two-mile width of the island and again assigned Greene command of the shrunken army’s right wing. Sammy Ward, temporarily in command of the free black troops whom Christopher Greene had organized, was entrenched on a redoubt guarding Greene’s right flank. Christopher Greene was deployed in the center of the American line, while Varnum’s Rhode Islanders were arrayed on the left of Greene’s line.
The British and Hessian forces from Newport attacked the American position not long after sunrise on August 29. The Americans fell back but then held as both sides began exchanging artillery fire. Greene favored more aggressive tactics, telling Sullivan he should move the entire force forward to crush the British. And once again, Sullivan chose to defend rather than attack, a prudent decision Greene later praised. As the battle continued into the afternoon, the British brought up four small warships to pound Greene’s position, but he turned his artillery east toward the bay, firing on and eventually chasing away the warships.
At about two o’clock, Greene’s position came under heavy assault as a Hessian unit tried to break through the American right. Greene counterattacked with a combination of Continental regulars, Massachusetts militia units, and a unit of light troops. Ward’s black troops fought with conspicuous bravery, twice beating back a Hessian assault with bayonets and bare hands. The enemy soon retreated, to Greene’s delight. “We . . . put the Enemy to the rout and I had the pleasure to see them run in worse disorder than they did at the battle of Monmouth,” Greene later told Washington. He expressed his emotions more colorfully in a letter to one of his friends, the Unitarian minister John Murray.
To behold our fellows, chasing the British off the field of battle, afforded a pleasure which you can better conceive than I can describe. If, my dear Murray, I had before been an unbeliever, I have had sufficient evidence of the intervention of Divine Providence to reclaim me from infidelity.
The Americans suffered about two hundred casualties; the British and Hessians, nearly three hundred. The battle was a draw, but once again, the Americans had fought well and bravely, particularly those under Greene’s command. Greene soon learned, however, that the battle was not quite over. Sullivan, bitter over what he considered a lost opportunity, continued to criticize the French, adding to Greene’s bulging diplomatic portfolio. He wrote another discreet letter to d’Estaing, saying that he was “Exceedingly hurt” and “astonished” by Sullivan’s continued carping. “We consider ourselves under great obligations to France for their generous . . . interposition, and I should be very sorry to be thought [ungrateful] or to be wanting in respect to your Excellency, who came for the sole purpose of befriending us.” The Americans were relieved when d’Estaing replied to Greene, saying that his letter “was of a nature to console me.”
The grand alliance survived.
After Sullivan’s withdrawal from Newport, Greene returned home to Coventry to be with his family again. Caty’s child was due momentarily, but Greene left for Boston before the birth. It is unlikely that he relished the journey, for his agenda in Boston was a reminder that he once again was quartermaster general and not a field commander. His tasks in Boston included an accounting of new shoes, uniforms, shorts, and blankets for the army, as well as meetings with Massachusetts politicians during which he pleaded for price controls on such goods as hay and corn. It was exhausting, detail-oriented work (he told Washington that the “cloathing department” had purchased “7669 pairs of shoes”), a far cry from his most recent service in Rhode Island.
“My appointment is flattering to my fortune,” Greene conceded, referring to the 1 percent commission he shared with his two deputies on all department orders. He added, however, that the post was “humiliating to my Military pride.” He kept his business in Boston brief and was on his way home from John Hancock’s house on September 24 when he came upon a family servant dispatched from Coventry to fetch him. Caty had given birth to a baby girl the day before, and neither was doing well. Greene rode through a wet, raw night and arrived home, soaked to the skin, at nine o’clock. Caty was ill and in bed; their baby was weak and seemingly destined for a tragically early grave.
They named the girl Cornelia Lott, a tribute to the daughter of their friend and host in New Jersey, Abraham Lott. With Nathanael at their bedside, Caty and little Cornelia grew stronger in the days after his arrival. This respite in his own home, now filled with laughter and hope, reminded Greene of the life he had given up for his country. It also brought to mind words he had written in the early months of the war, when he warned that militiamen would prove unreliable because, as part-time soldiers, they retained “all the tender feelings of domestic life” and so were not “sufficiently fortified” for the “shocking scenes of war.” Now, Greene’s own “tender feelings” softened his heart, or at least his resolve. But it was not the shock of war he sought to avoid, but the tedious paperwork and unheroic duties of the job he loathed. The Rhode Island campaign and the Battle of Monmouth had reminded him of why he had joined the army. But now it was time to return to Washington’s side as the general in charge of making sure the soldiers had enough blankets and tents and hammers. Important work, to be sure. But not the work Nathanael Greene wished to perform.