GREENE,
NATHANIEL

(August 7, 1742–June 19, 1786), was a General in the Revolutionary War. He served in the Rhode Island Legislature, 1770–72, 1775. On January 4, 1776, while at Camp Prospect Hill, General Nathaniel Greene wrote a letter to Samuel Ward, Rhode Island’s representative to the Continental Congress:

Permit me, then, to recommend from the sincerity of my heart, ready at all times to bleed in my country’s cause, a declaration of independence; and call upon the world, and the great God who governs it, to witness the necessity, propriety and rectitude thereof. …

Let us, therefore, act like men inspired with a resolution that nothing but the frowns of Heaven shall conquer us.1177