06/19/2026
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When Nathanael Greene arrived in Charlotte in October 1780 to take command of the American army in the Southern Department, he discovered that he had only 1500 men fit to take the field. Of these, the survivors of the disastrous defeat at Camden four months earlier, only about 800 were adequately clothed and equipped. It was with this army that General Greene was to face the experienced, disciplined, and well-provisioned army of Charles Lord Cornwallis, one of the very best generals in the British army. At the end of 1780 the British were securely in control of Georgia and South Carolina and there seemed little chance that Greene’s ragtag force would be able to prevent Cornwallis from taking North Carolina and Virginia as well. That he might not only stop Cornwallis but go on to liberate the Carolinas and Georgia would have seemed a virtual impossibility.
But Greene went to work immediately, employing the talent that George Washington had recognized in him. While working tirelessly to provision and reinforce his army, he boldly sent a detachment under Daniel Morgan into northwest South Carolina, where it won a stunning and decisive victory at the Battle of Cowpens. Then Greene led his army on an arduous and perilous retreat across North Carolina and into Virginia, saving it from destruction. After resting and resupplying for only a week, Greene daringly took his army south, challenging Cornwallis and luring him into the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, where Cornwallis lost a quarter of his army and was forced to withdraw to the coast. In the eight months that followed, Greene and his army pressed and harried the British, recapturing nearly all of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. By 1782 only the port cities of Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington remained under British control. Greene had become one of the greatest heroes of the Revolutionary War.
In gratitude for his service, the Georgia legislature awarded General Greene a rice plantation near Savannah called “Mulberry Grove.” Greene had been financially ruined by the war, having personally guaranteed payment for supplies purchased for his army, so he gratefully accepted the gift and the former Quaker merchant from Rhode Island made the unlikely transition to Deep South rice planter.
But unfortunately, General Greene was not to grow old on his plantation, nor would he live to attain high political office. Less than a year after moving onto Mulberry Grove he collapsed and died at age 43, likely the victim of heatstroke.
General Greene is widely regarded as one of the greatest American generals of the Revolutionary War, second only to George Washington. At least 38 counties, towns, and cities in the United States are named in Greene’s honor.
Nathanael Greene died on June 19, 1786, two hundred forty years ago today.
