He began learning tin and copper smithing when he was thirteen and spent some time working for different firms in St. Louis, Missouri.

After Gettysburg, the brigade was transferred to the Western army and sent to relieve General William Rosecrans, who was surrounded in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

When the Gettysburg Battlefield was declared a national park in 1892, he was one of the commissioners in charge of erecting a monument for Illinois soldiers who fought there.

He was also president of the National Cooperage and Woodenware Company of Peoria, one of the largest enterprises of its kind in the country.

[2] Greenhut and his business partners started the Great Western Distillery in Peoria, which was the largest in the world at that time.

[1] Greenhut was a director of the Montefiore Home and a member of the Royal Arch Masonry, the Chamber of Commerce, B'nai B'rith, the Grand Army of the Republic, and the Loyal Legion.

Loud spoke about Greenhut's military service and laid a wreath and a flag from the Legion of Honor on his coffin.

The honorary pallbearers were Jacob H. Schiff, Henry Morgenthau, former New York Supreme Court Justice David Leventritt, Isador Saks, Charles Strauss, and Elias Summerfield.

[8] The Grand Army of the Republic Memorial Hall in Peoria, Illinois was dedicated to Greenhut.