Washington's General (25 page)

To his credit, though, he never let his doubts and his bitterness distract him from his duty. With his new title and new responsibilities, Quartermaster General Greene left the camp at Valley Forge and moved to bigger quarters in Moore Hall, the home of a nearby patriot. The work was urgent. But the immediate crisis at Valley Forge had passed.

The army's bitter civil war was over by the time the trees in southeastern Pennsylvania were in bloom, signaling the end of a terrible winter. The intrigue, which Greene took as evidence of a full-scale conspiracy, ended in a complete rout of his and Washington's critics. “General Conway is at last caught in his own trap,” Greene wrote with evident delight. “He is a most worthless officer as ever served in our army.” The Board of War was discredited and stripped of most of its influence; Conway and Mifflin were destined never again to play important roles in army affairs, while Gates escaped with his reputation because of Washington's conciliatory attitude toward the victor of Saratoga.

The soldiers themselves, while hollow-cheeked and dressed in rags, actually emerged from winter as a better drilled, more professional army, thanks to the arrival of a gruff but well-liked Prussian who called himself Baron von Steuben. He was not a baron at all, but he was a magnificent military instructor, even though he spoke no English. (Supposedly, he demanded that his swearing be translated into English for the benefit of
his pupils.) Despite Greene's skepticism about foreign officers, Steuben, like Lafayette, became a friend and an ally. He also became Conway's replacement as the army's inspector general.

The Board of War's downfall came after its members recommended a wintertime invasion of Canada in mid-February 1778. Gates, Mifflin, and the other board members offered nominal command to Lafayette–he was French, after all–but they tried to name Conway as second in command and de facto commander. The expedition soon fell apart and was condemned as folly from the beginning. This was one disaster that could not be blamed on Greene's poor advice or Washington's flawed leadership. The blame lay squarely with the Board of War, whose members showed themselves even less adept at strategy than they were at politics. Conway assumed the pose of aggrieved party and submitted his resignation from the army. To his apparent surprise, Congress accepted it. Even more humiliation followed: Conway challenged one of Washington's subordinates, John Cadwalader, to a duel and was shot in the mouth. He survived and sailed to France in disrepute. Mifflin resigned from the Board of War, although he remained a major general. Gates avoided the criticism heaped on his two allies when Washington signaled that he bore him no ill will.

As the crucible of Valley Forge passed into history, there was more good news for Greene personally and the army in general. The early winter tensions between Greene and his wife had given way to the inevitable, and Caty was pregnant again. (Caty's biographers indicate that she may not have welcomed this development.) Congress approved an extra month's pay for every soldier in camp, along with an extra ration of rum to celebrate the end of winter. News arrived in camp that the British commander in Philadelphia, Lord Howe, was about to be sacked and replaced by General Henry Clinton–a sign of British discontent with the war. And, best of all, in late April the army in Valley Forge learned that the French had signed a treaty of alliance with the fledgling United States. Greene joined Washington in reviewing a grand parade in camp to celebrate the occasion. The troops, under Steuben's command, marched and drilled with more energy,
discipline, and inspiration than ever before. It was hard to believe that only months ago they were starving, ragged, and seemingly beaten.

Still, though, this revived army would be only as good as its supplies. And nobody knew that more than the new quartermaster general. Greene and his two capable deputies, Cox and Pettit, circulated a flyer addressed to “the Inhabitants of the United States,” in which they promised “punctuality in payment” for goods and services, “a proper deportment” when dealing with civilians, and an end to the “many irregularities” that had taken place under Mifflin's leadership, or lack thereof. The circular also informed civilians that because cash payments in exchange for goods or services would be “impracticable,” civilians would be given printed certificates, which they could then exchange for cash at payment offices. That was more easily said than done, although there was little Greene could do about late or nonexistent payments.

With Cox and Pettit already in place, Greene gathered around himself other competent and creative problem solvers to oversee the department's cumbersome bureaucracy, which employed three thousand people, from deputy quartermaster generals to wagon masters to laborers to clerks. The quartermaster's agents operated in defined geographic districts and were responsible for purchases and supply within that area. They reported to a regional quartermaster's office, which employed clerks, messengers, and other support staff, which in turn reported back to the quartermaster general himself. The efforts of many of these agents and deputies, like Cox and Pettit, have been lost to history, but they achieved nothing less than the army's salvation. Washington did not exaggerate when he told Greene that all would be lost without a dependable supply system. They had barely survived Valley Forge. They could not survive a repeat.

Greene's work in reorganizing the quartermaster's department was just as critical, and in some ways just as astonishing, as Steuben's achievement in turning the stooped-shouldered soldiers of Valley Forge into a steel-spined fighting force. Through springtime, Greene assessed the department's most pressing needs, which included a severe shortage of wagons to transport supplies and the persistent need for feed for the army's horses and livestock. It was, as Greene knew it would be, unglamorous
work, but vital all the same. He ordered hundreds of thousands of bushels of grain to be stored in strategically placed depots along the Delaware, Schuylkill, and Hudson rivers, in or near Reading, Trenton, and Lancaster, and throughout the strategic state of New Jersey. His command of detail was obvious in a letter dispatched to Colonel Biddle, the officer in charge of forage.

In forming your magazines, give all sorts of grain the preference to wheat. Oats first, Corn next, Rye next and so on. You must get a number of Screws made to Screw all the Hay and employ Hands to do it either at the farmers barns or at the magazines. . . . There must be a number of forage carts provided to be employed in no other business.

All of this cost money, and Greene was not afraid to spend what he believed was needed. He said as much to the president of Congress, Henry Laurens. A “large Sum of Money is absolutely ncessary for the Quarter Master's Department to enable us to make due Preparation for the coming Campaign,” he wrote. And because Congress seemed reluctant to concede this point, Greene informed Laurens that he had, in essence, written a check for fifty thousand pounds against the national treasury to pay for supplies gathered in Easton, Pennsylvania.

Among the beneficiaries of Greene's spending spree was a small, family-run business in Rhode Island whose proprietor, Jacob Greene, was familiar with the quartermaster general. Jacob was more than just the quartermaster's brother. He was the quartermaster's business partner, too. Jacob and Nathanael, along with their cousin Griffin Greene, were now the sole owners of the family business, renamed Jacob Greene & Company. The other Greene brothers had sold their interest in the firm just before Nathanael became quartermaster–unfortunate timing on their part. Jacob Greene & Company's appointment as a contractor for the quartermaster general was not one of Nathanael Greene's best decisions. The company was not a major vendor, but quantity didn't matter. The conflict of interest should have been obvious, for the Greenes did
little to conceal their plans. Nathanael promised brother Jacob that he would provide him with “all the information” he could without departing “from the lines of honor.” Of course, Greene himself would define where those lines were drawn.

Griffin Greene was not reluctant to ask his cousin the quartermaster for favors, even when they involved private business. He told Nathanael that the company needed a little help “to git our goods” through the states of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. States imposed duties on goods shipped across borders, but Griffin wanted cousin Nathanael to designate the company's private cargo as military goods and thus exempt from taxes. It's uncertain whether he did so.

Greene, convinced of his own patriotism and purity of motive, would later lash out at critics who deplored this cozy relationship with his brother and cousin. Greene certainly was not the only officer or politician who maintained private business interests that benefited from inside information, contacts, and the war in general. George Washington, for example, invested in private vessels that raided British ships, made off with whatever goods they captured, and then sold them. Jacob Greene & Company also invested in these vessels, called privateers, thanks to the profits they made off government contracts. And although there is no indication that the family company ever sold goods to the army at anything more than standard market rates, Greene must have believed he had something to hide. He told his brother Christopher that he made a practice of burning letters containing what he called “family secrets.”

Luckily, however, enough letters escaped the pyre to offer a glimpse of how the Greenes worked the system. According to a letter from the barely literate Jacob to Nathanael, the family company had been paid to provide, among other items, fifteen thousand canteens to the army. But Jacob was perplexed: what kind of canteens did brother Nathanael require? “I am At A Loos To Know [whether] They Are to Be Wood or Tin,” he wrote. Meanwhile Griffin Greene won a contract to supply the army with four hundred tents–although not before he wrote to cousin Nathanael to complain that another vendor was bidding against him.

Welcome as this business was for Jacob Greene & Company, apparently Jacob wasn't counting on much in the way of long-term profits. He told his brother, “I Fear Billy How [Lord Howe] is ... preparing To Give you A Fatal Blow in the opening of the Campaign.” As it happened, Billy How was soon setting sail across the Atlantic to explain why he had not already adminstered a fatal blow to the Americans. General Henry Clinton was now in command.

The army still was encamped in Valley Forge on June 17 when Nathanael Greene reported to General Washington's headquarters for a council of war. Five other major generals attended the conference, including none other than Charles Lee, whom the British finally had released nearly two years after his capture. With Lee were his beloved dogs, and even an ordinary wit might have suggested that the British considered themselves better off, and the rebels that much worse off, with Lee and his companions in Valley Forge instead of New York. Joining Washington and the major generals were nine brigadier generals. Greene's place at the table for these deliberations was a minor personal victory. His primary responsibility was the quartermaster's office, and although he retained the title of major general, he was now a staff officer with no frontline command. Staff officers generally were not invited to councils of war, where strategy and tactics–not supply routes–were discussed. Washington, however, still valued Greene's insights, and so he allowed his quartermaster to participate in strategy sessions.

The topic of their deliberations would have seemed far too fantastic only five months before: the possibility of an attack on the British in Philadelphia. Word had been filtering into camp for nearly a month that the British were showing signs of leaving the once and future rebel capital. Though the Americans didn't know it, the British had decided they could no longer hold Philadelphia with the French and their navy now in the war. In fact, even as the American generals were debating their course of action, they learned that the bulk of Clinton's army had crossed the
Delaware into New Jersey, headed for New York by land rather than sea. Ten thousand troops, loaded down with more than a thousand wagons and other encumbrances, would have to make the ninety-mile journey along rutted roads and in full view of the New Jersey militia.

Quartermaster General Nathanael Greene was ordered to put the army in motion immediately. A glorious opportunity presented itself on the plains of New Jersey, and the energized and well-supplied American army was determined to take advantage of it.

The army left Valley Forge on June 19, and as the troops moved out toward New Jersey, Caty Greene bade farewell to her husband. She had been away from Rhode Island, from her children, for a momentous and difficult year. She was a survivor of Valley Forge, a witness to suffering and deprivation as well as the heroism and sacrifice of the patriot soldiers. She had strengthened her friendship with Martha Washington, her only true friend among the officers' wives. And she had experienced both the highs and lows of marriage: the joy of her reunion with Nathanael the previous June, the tensions of a cold winter camp, and the flowering of renewed love in the spring. She was pregnant, as usual after winter camp, but at least the tension between husband and wife was just another bitter memory from winter. Soon, Nathanael was sending her affectionate and gossipy letters. “Mrs. Knox,” he wrote in one, “is fatter than ever, which is a great mortification to her. The General [Knox] is equally fat and therefore one cannot laugh at the other.” Greene's news no doubt brought a smile to Caty's lips. She was proud of her own appearance and well aware that her beauty and demeanor made her the envy of other women in camp, including Lucy Knox.

As they moved out for a rendezvous with the enemy, the Americans marched roughly parallel to the retreating British, who were to the south. Clinton's troops, bogged down with hundreds and hundreds of wagons, were very slow, at one point traveling just twenty miles in three days. The Americans could travel lighter and faster because Greene had established supply depots along the route. “It has been and will be very expensive,” he noted of the depots, “but it is unavoidable.”