- Title: Nathaniel Greene
- Author: Johnson, Fry & Co.
- Date: c.1861
- Condition: A crisp steel engraving on a very clean sheet. Superb.
- Inches: 8 1/4 x 10 3/4 [Paper]
- Centimeters: 20.95 x 27.30 [Paper]
- Product ID: 308733
Clear eyed Strategist Who Bled Britain Dry
From the National Portrait Gallery of Eminent Americans, after a painting by Alonzo Chappel. A fine steel engraving printed on wove paper, issued as part of Johnson, Fry & Co.’s ambitious patriotic series celebrating notable figures in the nation’s political and cultural history.
Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) was a self taught Rhode Island ironmaster and Quaker who became George Washington’s most able lieutenant and one of the Continental Army’s finest strategists. Initially denied officer rank because of a limp, he immersed himself in military theory, rose quickly through the ranks, and served with distinction in the early northern campaigns, earning Washington’s deep trust and taking on the thankless work of quartermaster general without abandoning field command.
His greatest achievement came after 1780, when he took over the shattered Southern Department and waged a brilliant war of maneuver against Lord Cornwallis. Rather than seeking a single decisive victory, Greene adopted a “fight, retreat, and bleed them” approach—trading ground for time, harassing British forces from the Carolinas to Virginia, and coordinating with partisans like Francis Marion and Daniel Morgan to stretch British logistics to the breaking point. Though he lost some set piece battles on paper, his campaign ultimately helped drive the British into the coastal enclaves and set the stage for Yorktown, securing his reputation as the clear eyed strategist who rescued the southern war when it was near collapse.