Washington's General (19 page)

It did, but not for several months and not until after Caty recovered from a frightening bout of pneumonia, which led to weeks of bedrest. None of Greene's family members saw fit to inform him of his wife's condition, leading him to conclude that she was ignoring his letters.

The coming of spring brought mystery. What were the intentions of General Howe, now that the snow and ice had been replaced by budding trees and green grass? Through winter, Nathanael Greene had insisted that the British would be drawn, inevitably, to Philadelphia. They had been so close to the capital at the end of 1776, so close that they sent Congress fleeing to Baltimore. They still had two posts in New Jersey, New Brunswick and Perth Amboy. Moving troops from New York, perhaps across Staten Island, to join the New Jersey garrisons for a march toward the rebel capital seemed like a logical move.

Howe was not without other options, however, as the Americans knew all too well. The Hudson River remained a tantalizing prize. A joint offensive from Canada and New York City retained its potential to split the states in half and allow the British to isolate New England while moving against the mid-Atlantic region.

The Americans had little choice but to wait upon events. Although Greene, at Washington's request, devised a plan for an attack on New Brunswick, he actually voted against implementing it (as did every other general) during a council of war with Washington on May 2, 1777. The generals agreed that they could not afford to risk an attack against a well-fortified position. While recruitment had improved during the winter, increasing Washington's troop strength by early spring to slightly more than seven thousand fit for duty, they still were not strong enough for offensive action. So the Americans remained in New Jersey even as the air grew warmer and the days longer. Greene couldn't understand why the enemy remained listless, just as he couldn't understand why so few of his fellow countrymen were willing to defend their infant nation. “It is to be
regretted,” he said, “that the cause of freedom rests upon the shoulders of so few.” To Caty, he wrote of British delay and American reluctance.

What has kept them in their Quarters we can't imagine. We have got together a small force although by no means equal to our expectations. . . . O that the Americans were but Spirited and resolute! How easy the attempt to rout these miscreants. ... I am sure America will be Victorious finally, but her sufferings for want of Union and publick Spirit may be great first.

It was Caty's sufferings, however, that commanded his attention through the spring. He finally learned how sick his wife was in a letter, which has been lost, from Caty herself. On May 3, he wrote:

I was almost thunderstruck at the [receipt] of your letter. How different its contents from my wishes: a lingering disorder of five Weeks . . . and from the present symptoms a confinement of two months longer. Heaven preserve you and bless you with patience and fortitude to support yourself under the cruel misfortune. . . . Oh that I had but wings to fly to your relief. The healing balm should not be wanting to mitigate your pain.

Greene feared that her illness would keep her away from camp until the start of the campaign season, which would put off a reunion until winter, eight months away. He applied a little tenderness–“my Heart mourns the Absence of its counterpart”–and, just for good measure, he tried to arouse a little jealousy. He again mentioned the daughters of Lord Stirling and Governor Livingston, who, as Caty didn't need to be reminded, shared Lord Stirling's mansion with the general. Greene told Caty, “You never was among a more agreeable set of young Ladies in your life.”

In mid-May, Greene rode with Knox and several other officers from
Morristown to Peekskill, New York, to examine American defenses along the Hudson River south of West Point. He had a hard time keeping his mind on the task at hand–Caty, or more to the point, Caty's absence, continued to weigh on his mind. After the generals pronounced their dissatisfaction with the river's defenses and recommended that they be made stronger, Greene set out for Morristown. He wasn't riding long before he fell from his horse, slicing open his lip and otherwise bruising himself. In that condition, he rode to the New Jersey home of a friend, Abraham Lott, a patriot merchant. There, he heard that Caty had arrived in Morristown. He could hardly believe it! “O, how my heart lept with joy!” he later recalled. Bruised and battered, he got back on his horse and rode to Morristown, only to discover no trace of Caty. He was the victim of faulty intelligence; his wife, in fact, still was home in Rhode Island.

He wrote to her twice the following day, May 20, and told her once again how much he missed her. With soft words and sweet language, he made it clear he wanted desperately to see her, but only if she felt she was well enough for the journey. If she was ready for camp, well, she ought to treat herself to new clothes for the occasion. And if she wanted something in Boston, why, she ought to write to Lucy Knox, who would be happy to send the items to camp.

Had Greene stopped there, Caty no doubt would have been charmed back to full health, especially after reading the line about the new clothes. But Greene could not help himself; he was self-conscious about not only his own lack of education but Caty's as well. Lucy Knox was a formidable figure, and not simply because she was almost as big as her prodigious husband. Greene told Caty: “But remember when you write to Mrs. Knox you write to a good scholar; therefore mind and spell well. You are defective in this matter, my love, a little attention will soon correct it. ... People are often laught at for not spelling well but never for not writeing well.”

For Nathanael Greene, few things in life were more dreadful than the prospect of being laughed at. Whether Caty was similarly insecure at this stage in her life is uncertain. But her husband's admonition may not have
served history well; Caty's letters to Nathanael, apparently filled with even more spelling errors than her husband's, have never been found. She may have seen to it that nobody would laugh at her spelling.

At the time, however, Greene's willingness to pay for a new wardrobe outweighed his criticism of her spelling. She arrived in his new camp in Middlebrook in June, dressed no doubt in something fine and new, and her husband reacquainted himself with the “pleasures of domestick felicity.”

Caty Greene's arrival coincided with a first-class row between the Continental army and Congress, a nasty, hasty, ego-driven, and ultimately foolish argument that cost Nathanael Greene his friendship with John Adams and nearly cost him his career.

Tension between the Revolution's military and political leaders was hardly new, but by late spring, relations were beginning to become even more disagreeable. Greene did nothing to help matters when he sent an undeservedly blunt letter to Adams on May 29 protesting rumors that gout-ridden General Philip Schuyler of New York was about to be elected president of Congress while still holding his commission in the army. That information turned out to be false–Schuyler, who was a delegate to Congress while serving as a general, was not elected president–but Greene's letter showed how passionately he believed in the separation of politics and the military. Not for the first time, however, his passion was inflamed by bad information, and he did not have the patience or the wisdom to check his facts before launching a misdirected tirade. To Adams, he wrote:

No free people ought to admit to a junction of the Civil and the Military; and no men of good Principles, with virtuous intention, would ask it or ever accept. . . such an appointment. ... I have no objections to General Schuyler as a General, neither have I to his being President of the Congress if he is thought to be the most suitable person for
that important post. But he must cease to be a General before he commences [to be] a member of Congress.

Adams certainly did not need such a lecture, as he politely assured Greene several days later. He, too, thought it was “utterly improper” for General Schuyler to serve in Congress, never mind become its president. Nevertheless, Schuyler resigned neither his commission nor his seat in Congress. Would that he had. Several months later, he was removed from command of the army's Northern Department after he bungled the defense of Fort Ticonderoga.

More troublesome was another complaint. A French military officer, Phillippe Tronson du Coudray, had received a commission to serve as a major general in charge of artillery for the Continental army. An American agent in France, Silas Deane, had arranged for du Coudray's appointment. Greene, protective of his allies as ever, saw du Coudray not only as an unreliable outsider but as a rival to his friend Henry Knox, the army's current commander of artillery. In the same letter to Adams, Greene condemned the “impropriety of putting a [foreigner] at the head of such a Department” and noted that such a move “will deprive the Army of a most valuable Officer,” meaning, of course, Knox. Once again, Adams was on Greene's side, echoing his concern about the “danger of entrusting so many important Commands to foreigners” and assuring Greene that du Coudray would have “few advocates” in Congress.

Greene, ever watchful for the slightest sign of disrespect, was not satisfied. He told his brother Jacob, “Congress and I do not agree in politics; they are introducing a great many foreigners.” He thought such officers would be far more susceptible to “British gold,” never anticipating, of course, the treachery of his native-born friend Benedict Arnold.

Greene's grumbling turned to a piercing cry of rage when he learned that du Coudray's commission had taken effect on August 1, 1776. That meant the Frenchman would be senior to Greene, who had been promoted to major general on August 9, 1776.

Nathanael Greene, the man who nearly quit the Kentish Guards when
soldiers whispered about his limp, was not about to suffer such a slight in silence. And there was no question in his mind that the du Coudray appointment was, in fact, a deliberate personal slight. He instantly dispatched a message to John Hancock, the president of the Continental Congress.

A report is circulating here at Camp that Monsieur de Coudray, a French Gentleman, is appointed a Major General in the service of the United States, his rank to commence from the first of last August. If the report be true it will lay me under the necessity of resigning my Commission as his appointment supercedes me in command. I beg you'll acquaint me with respect to the truth of the report, and if true inclose me a permit to retire.

Greene was not alone in his rage. In separate letters that indicated close collaboration, Generals Henry Knox and John Sullivan also vowed to resign. The three generals apparently did not consult their commander in chief before issuing their threats, which made matters even worse.

The members of Congress were furious. In fact, they had not approved du Coudray's appointment, and as Adams already had indicated, many shared Greene's belief that a foreign officer should not be given such a high-level command. The deal had been struck between Silas Deane, America's slippery agent in Paris, and du Coudray, but Adams insisted that Congress believed Deane had overstepped his authority in offering the commission. Deane wasn't much of one for rules anyway. He saw the war, and the secrets he knew, as an opportunity to make money, and so intent was he on this pursuit that he never realized that his business partner, George Bancroft, was a British spy.

Even though Congress and Greene essentially agreed that the du Coudray appointment was inappropriate, months of suppressed tension between the politicians and the generals exploded in Philadelphia. On
July 7, Congress passed an angry resolution directing Washington to tell Greene, Knox, and Sullivan that their letters were “an invasion of the liberties of the people,” indicating “a want of confidence in the justice of Congress.” The politicians demanded that the three generals “make proper acknowledgments” for their “dangerous” interference with congressional powers. The scolding concluded with an invitation to Greene, Knox, and Sullivan to make good on their threats: “[If] any of those officers are unwilling to serve their country under the authority of Congress, they shall be at liberty to resign their commissions and retire.” Adams hoped the generals would take Congress up on the offer, without pausing to consider what such a loss would mean for the struggling army. What's more, this guardian of republican principles said that if he had his way, there would be “a new election of general officers annually.” A noble sentiment, no doubt, but perhaps not the most efficient way to win a war.

Adams then wrote a long, sad, and angry letter to his occasional correspondent from Rhode Island. “I never before took hold of a Pen to write to my Friend General Greene without pleasure, but I think myself obliged to do so now upon a Subject that gives me a great deal of Pain,” Adams wrote. He told Greene that Congress had not approved the contract between du Coudray and Deane, and that, like Greene himself, Congress was perplexed that such an offer was made to a foreign officer. But now, he wrote, it “is impossible for Congress even to determine that Deane had no authority to make the Bargain without exposing themselves to the Reflection that their own officers intimidated them into it.”

Adams properly pointed out that Greene could have written a private letter to himself or any other member of Congress to express his concerns, instead of sending a public letter threatening resignation. Greene indeed was guilty of Adams's charge of “Rashness, Passion and even Wantonness in this Proceeding.” Adams urged Greene to apologize and declare publicly that he had full confidence in Congress. Otherwise, he said, “I think you ought to leave the service.”

Greene's reaction to this dressing-down can be deduced by simply noting that he did not write again to Adams until 1782. Du Coudray
eventually entered the Continental army as a captain and, just two months after the controversy, drowned in the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania.