Nathanael Greene

Nathanael Greene (. * 27 Julijul / August 7 1742greg in Potowomut ( Warwick, Rhode Iceland ). † June 19, 1786 in Mulberry Grove at Savannah, Georgia), after George Washington was the most important American general during the American war of Independence.

Life

Nathanael Greene was born into a Quaker family and acquired a good general education as an autodidact. He worked as an assistant to his father on a farm and in a forge. From the sect of the Quakers, he was expelled because of his advocacy of armed struggle against England.

1770 Greene was elected to the Parliament of Rhode Iceland, received after the outbreak of the American Revolution, in May 1775 the command of the troops of Rhode Iceland and led them to the Continental Army before Boston.

Greene, since August 1776 Brigadier General, was commissioned by General George Washington with the defense of the island Long Iceland. Shortly before the attack of the British, he had to relinquish the command due to illness, after which the island was occupied by the British. In September 1776, he was promoted to Major General, distinguished himself at the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776 and at the Battle of Princeton on 3 January 1777 covered in the Battle of Brandywine September 11, 1777 and in the Battle of German Town on October 4, 1777 the withdrawal of the army and was posted on March 2, 1778 Quartermaster General of the U.S. troops.

After the defeat of General Gates at Camden 1780 Greene the command of the Southern Army was passed in South Carolina. This he reorganized together with Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben. Although he lost the battle of Guilford Court House, the Battle of Hobkirk 's Hill and the Battle of Eutaw Springs, but he managed nevertheless to hold together his army to support the local guerrilla militias and the British finally end in 1781 to abandon the southern inland and force to the coastal cities to retreat.

Although Nathanael Greene lost every one of his battles conducted in the south, but still is considered one of the best American generals, because he was successful in the strategic sense and the numerically weak British defeated solely by the presence of its army and its continuous attacks in the south. Greene embodies the realization that you do not necessarily have to win battles to win wars. The U.S. Congress gave Nathaniel Greene to Its merits land in South Carolina and Georgia.

After the peace agreement on 3 September 1783, he retired to Georgia to his plantation Mulberry Grove back.

Honor

After Nathanael Greene some counties were named in the United States. (see Article Greene County)

In Washington, D.C. an equestrian statue was erected (Henry K. Brown ) him.