Catherine littlefield greene miller

I became aware of Catharine Greene’s role in Revolutionary Rhode Island when I visited the Coventry home of General Nathanael Greene. I learned more about her as I read biographies of her husband. One of my goals this month (Women’s History Month) is to tell the stories of Rhode Island women who endured the hardships of the Revolutionary War and I will start with Catharine Littlefield Greene.

Her family called her Caty and she was born on Block Island in 1755. Her mother descended from Block Island founders and her father, John Littlefield, was a member of the Rhode Island legislature. Her Block Island childhood ended with her mother’s death when she was only 10 years old, and Caty went to live with and aunt and uncle. At that time her uncle, William Greene, was a Supreme Court justice, but he went on to being Governor of Rhode Island. Under the guidance of her aunt and uncle, Caty learned how to read and write and how to manage a household.

Nathanael Greene was a frequent visitor to Caty’s household and the pair married on July 20, 1774. The couple had little time together before the battles in the Revolutionary War began. Nathanael moved quickly from commander of the Rhode Island militia to general in the Continental Army. She opened her home in Coventry as a hospital when the Rhode Island troops were inoculated for small pox.

Caty traveled to wherever her husband was stationed (New York City, Valley Forge, Carolinas), even after the birth of their first child in 1776. There were women and children were “camp followers” who served as cooks or clothes washers. Caty had more comfortable quarters than they did, and she put her efforts into organizing events for the soldiers. She became friends with Martha Washington because they were often in camp together. She gave birth to five children during the years of the Revolution, but when she travelled she often left her children in the care of others. Being away from her children and being away from her husband were heartaches for Caty

We don’t have the letters that Caty wrote to her husband because she burned them. We do have some of his letters to her and we can get a sense of what her letters were like from how he answered her. During the Siege of Newport, Nathanael wrote:

“I am sorry to find you are getting unwell. I am afraid it is the effect of anxiety and fearful apprehension. Remember the same good Providence protects all places, and secures from harm in the most perilous situation. Would to God it was in my power to give peace to your bosom, which I fear, is like a troubled ocean….” Caty, like many other spouses of Americans in the Rhode Island Campaign, must have been fearful of the battle ahead.

Caty hoped that with the end of the war she could return to life in Rhode Island, but that did not happen.

In order to care for his troops, her husband had taken out loans, but Congress later denied his petitions to help him pay off the loans. Rhode Island properties were sold off to cover debts and the Greene moved to a plantation in Georgia. By 1786 Greene died of a sunstroke and Caty was left a young widow.

There is more to her story that I will tell in a later blog.

https://wams.nyhistory.org/settler-colonialism-and-revolution/the-american-revolution/catharine-littlefield-greene-miller/

Quote from Pg 115 Life of Nathanael Greene, by George Washington Greene,Vol.2.