Born into a prosperous Quaker family in Warwick, Rhode Island, Greene became active in the colonial opposition to British revenue policies in the early 1770s and helped establish the Kentish Guards, a state militia unit.

In October 1780, Washington appointed Greene as the commander of the Continental Army in the southern theater, where he was involved in several engagements, primarily in Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina.

After taking command, Greene engaged in a successful campaign of guerrilla warfare against a numerically superior British force led by Charles Cornwallis.

He gained several strategic victories at Guilford Court House, Hobkirk's Hill, and Eutaw Springs, eroding British control over the American South.

Major fighting on land came to an end following the surrender of Cornwallis at the siege of Yorktown in October 1781, but Greene continued to serve in the Continental Army until late 1783.

Greene began to assemble a large library that included military histories by authors like Julius Caesar, Frederick the Great, and Maurice de Saxe.

[7] The same year, one of Greene's younger brothers married a daughter of Samuel Ward, a prominent Rhode Island politician who became an important political ally until his death in 1776.

[13] In 1774, after the passage of measures that colonials derided as the "Intolerable Acts," Greene helped organize a state militia unit known as the Kentish Guards.

During the withdrawal from Manhattan, Greene saw combat for the first time in the Battle of Harlem Heights, a minor British defeat that nonetheless represented one of the first American victories in the war.

[25] While in command of Fort Lee, Greene established supply depots in New Jersey along a potential line of retreat; these would later prove to be valuable resources for the Continental Army.

[34] In December, Greene joined with the rest of Washington's army in establishing a camp at Valley Forge, located twenty-five miles northwest of Philadelphia.

[35] Over the winter of 1777–1778, he clashed with Thomas Mifflin and other members of the Conway Cabal, a group that frequently criticized Washington and sought to install Horatio Gates as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army.

[37] Along with his top two assistants, Charles Pettit and John Cox, Greene reorganized his 3,000-person department, establishing supply depots in strategic places across the United States.

[40] In July 1778, Washington granted Greene temporary leave as quartermaster general so that he could take part in an attack on British forces stationed in his home state of Rhode Island.

[46] In June 1780, while Washington's main force continued to guard the Hudson River, Greene led a detachment to block the advance of a British contingent through New Jersey.

[49] By October 1780, the Continental Army had suffered several devastating defeats in the South under the command of Benjamin Lincoln and Horatio Gates, leaving the United States at a major disadvantage in the Southern theater of the war.

[51] By the time he took command, the British were in control of key portions of Georgia and South Carolina, and the governments of the Southern states were unable to provide much support to the Continental Army.

Outnumbered and under-supplied, Greene settled on a strategy of guerrilla warfare rather than pitched battles in order to prevent the advance of the British into North Carolina and Virginia.

[53] Among Greene's key subordinates in the Southern campaign were his second-in-command, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, cavalry commander Henry Lee, the Marquis de Lafayette, Daniel Morgan, and Francis Marion.

[54] While en route to the Southern theater, Greene learned of the October 1780 American victory at the Battle of Kings Mountain, which postponed Cornwallis's planned advance into North Carolina.

Greene's contemporaries were impressed by the speed and efficiency of the retreat through difficult territory; Alexander Hamilton wrote that it was a "masterpiece of military skill and exertion."

On March 14, he led his army to Guilford Courthouse and began preparing for an attack by Cornwallis, using a strategy based on Morgan's plan at the Battle of Cowpens.

[62] After skirmishes on the morning of March 15, the main British force launched a full attack in the afternoon, beginning the Battle of Guilford Court House.

[75] He also corresponded with Robert Morris, the superintendent of finance of the United States, who shared Greene's view on the need for a stronger national government than the one that had been established in the Articles of Confederation.

[83] On November 14, 1902, through the efforts of Rhode Island Society of the Cincinnati President Asa Bird Gardiner, his remains were moved to a monument in Johnson Square in Savannah.

An order was given by Greene to Robert Morris for payment of the amount; this was paid by the Government of the United States to the contractor, who did not use it to pay the debt and left the bond unpaid.

In 1788, the mortgagor in England filed a bill to foreclose on the mortgage, while Greene's family instituted proceedings against Ferrie, who was entitled to a reversionary interest in the land.

In 1792, a Relief Act was passed by Congress for General Greene which was based upon the decree of the land sale; the sum of which he was entitled to (£2,400) was exempted out of the indemnity allowed him at that time, not one cent of which his heirs received except $2,000 (~$60,380 in 2023).

[86] Defense analyst Robert Killebrew writes that Greene was "regarded by peers and historians as the second-best American general" in the Revolutionary War, after Washington.

[87] The historian Russell Weigley believed that "Greene's outstanding characteristic as a strategist was his ability to weave the maraudings of partisan raiders into a coherent pattern, coordinating them with the maneuvers of a field army otherwise too weak to accomplish much, and making the combination a deadly one.... [He] remains alone as an American master developing a strategy of unconventional war.