Major General Nathanael Greene to George Washington, 1 May 1781
From Major General Nathanael Greene
Camp1 May 1st 1781
Dear Sir
My public letters to Congress will inform your Excellency of our situation in this quarter.2 We fight get beat and fight again. We have so much to do and so little to do it with, that I am much afraid these States must fall never to rise again; and what is more I am perswaded they will lay a train to sap the foundation of all the rest.
I am greatly obliged to your Excellency for ordering the Marquis to the Southward.3 I propose to halt him in Virginia until the enemies plan of operations is better explained. Baron Stuben will join this Army, he having offended the Legislature of Virginia cannot be as useful there as he has been.4 The Marquis is desird to keep your Excellency advisd of all matters in that quarter as it is too far first to come to this Army and then be sent back again.5
When I was appointed to the command of this Army, I solicited Congress to give Doctor McHenry a Majority that he might serve me in the character of an aid. This they refused. I was perswaded when I made the application of the necessity, and since have felt it, most sensibly. Your Excellency can scarsely tell how happy you are in your family; and therefore can hardly judge of my situation. I cannot make a second application to Congress upon the subject, nor should I have hopes of succeding if did; but I shall esteem it a peculiar mark of your Excellencys friendship and esteem if you will interest your self in the matter and get him a Majority. Your Excellency will judge of the propriety of my request; and if my wishes has prompted me to ask any thing that dont accord with your opinion or you⟨r⟩ feelings, I must beg you to decline the measure, and excuse me.6
It is a long time since I receivd a line from Mrs Greene, I am afraid they have miscarried before they got to Head Quarters. I am sorry that you had not leisure to call on her on your return from Newport, She would have tho’t her self greatly honord, and been peculearly happy on the occasion.7 With the greatest respect esteem & affection I am Your Excellency’s Most Obedient humble Ser.
N. Greene
I beg my most respectful compliments to Mrs Washington.8
ALS, DLC:GW.
Sgt. William Seymour of the Delaware Regiment reported that on this date “there were five of our men executed, who were deserters from our army, who were taken prisoners in the late action” (, 26). In his journal entry for this date, Capt. Robert H. Kirkwood, Jr., of the Delaware Regiment corroborates that “five Desserters Hanged that was taken in the Action of the 25th of April” (, 17). For the Battle of Hobkirk’s Hill, S.C., see Greene to Samuel Huntington, 27 April, printed as an enclosure with Greene to GW, same date.
1. Greene had established his camp at Rugeley’s Mill, about thirteen miles north of Camden, S.C., on 29 April (see General Greene’s Orders, that date, in , 8:172).
2. See Greene to Huntington, 22 April, found at Greene to GW, same date, n.1, and the source note above.
3. See GW to Lafayette, 6 April, and to Greene, 19 April.
4. For Major General Steuben’s difficulties with the Virginia executive and legislature, see John Walker to Thomas Jefferson, 9 March, in , 5:108; see also Lafayette to Greene, 4 April, Richard Claiborne to Greene, 2 May, and William Davies to Greene, 17 June, in , 8:51–52, 191–92, 406.
5. For Greene’s orders, see his letter to Lafayette, this date, in , 8:182–83.
6. Congress eventually granted James McHenry the rank of major (see Remarks on a Congressional Committee Report, 3 April, and n.11). McHenry never served as an aide-de-camp to Greene.
7. See GW to Greene, 21 March. For GW’s offer to forward communications from Catharine Littlefield Greene, see his letter to Nathanael Greene, 13 Dec. 1780.
8. GW acknowledged this letter when he wrote Greene on 1 June, postscript (NjP: De Coppet Collection).