Washington's General by Terry Golway

Author:Terry Golway
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2005-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

9 “It Wounds My Feelings”

In his short service as quartermaster general, Nathanael Greene had shown himself to be the right man for the job. The assignment required organization; he was organized. It required an understanding of logistics and supply; he was a businessman. It helped to have a field-level understanding of the army’s needs; he had been in the field since the siege of Boston.

In one way, however, Greene was poorly suited to the position. Being quartermaster general of the Continental army was a thankless job. But Nathanael Greene liked to be thanked.

More to the point, Nathanael Greene wished to be recognized–for his service, for his sacrifice, for his competence. The slightest hint of underappreciation was likely to inspire waves of self-pity and occasional threats of resignation. Even while he was considering the quartermaster’s job, when the army still was encamped in Valley Forge, he confided to his brother Jacob and his cousin Griffin that he might quit the army. “It would be agreeable to retire if no injury was to follow to the public,” he told Jacob, “for the Splendor of the Camp is but a poor compensation for the sacrifices made to enjoy it.”

Hardly the sentiments of a selfless, liberty-loving patriot. But Greene missed his wife; he missed the children he fathered but did not know; he missed the opportunity to make himself wealthy. He wished for recognition but believed he had received only slights. Most recently, he was disappointed that his role in the fighting at Monmouth had been overlooked, just as it had at Brandywine. And Washington had said little or nothing about Greene’s heroic efforts in transforming the quartermaster’s office. But although Greene may have taken this oversight to heart, he did not hold it against the man he worshipped. Often, when he was depressed or feeling sorry for himself, all Greene needed was an acknowledgment, even if unspoken, that he was useful and appreciated. When he felt that way, he rarely complained or indulged in flights of self-pity. There is no question that he was not happy in his new role as the army’s quartermaster general. His duties truly were thankless: he would win no medals for keeping the supply wagons running; he would garner no praise for dealing with skeptical civilian merchants and farmers reluctant to accept Continental currency; he would find no laurels in supervising a sprawling bureaucracy.

Instead of plotting strategy in Washington’s headquarters, he spent his nights squinting by candlelight at accounts that recorded, for example, the number of axes and blacksmith’s tools and tables and blankets that were in the army’s possession and which states had provided them. A more secure but less ambitious man might have have found this kind of work its own reward, for without such attention to detail, the army would collapse for lack of supplies. But Nathanael Greene–the insecure soldier who walked with a limp; the amateur general among professionals; the self-educated Quaker who corresponded with learned men in camp and in Congress–needed frequent affirmation.

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