(1755-1814)
The wife of the American Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene, who accompanied her husband during numerous wartime campaigns and after his death successfully petitioned the U.S. government for reimbursement of the personal debts he incurred to supply his troops.
Catharine "Caty" or "Kitty" Littlefield married Nathanael Greene in 1774, one year before General George Washington appointed him brigadier general in the Continental Army. Catharine initially remained in her home state of Rhode Island at the start of the war but soon joined her husband at camp. Confident, pretty, and witty, she became renowned for her social graces and enjoyed the acquaintance of such preeminent Revolutionary figures as Henry Knox, Alexander Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette, as well as the close friendship of Martha Washington and Lucy Knox.
Catharine gave birth to four children during the war years, yet spending much of the year at camp, she chose camp life and the company of her husband over a more isolated domestic life. Her children on occasion would accompany her, but they were more often left in the care of family in Rhode Island. Catharine cheered spirits during the bleak winters at Valley Forge and Middlebrook, nursed the sick and wounded in South Carolina, and took part in dances, balls, and quilting circles that maintained gentility amid hardship.
In 1780, Nathanael took command of the southern troops, and he supplied them by any means available, even using his personal credit. He incurred debt that weighed heavily on the Greene family in the years following the war. In 1785, two years after the war’s end, Nathanael was unable to support the family in New England, and they moved south to a plantation land near Savannah that had been granted to Greene by South Carolina and Georgia in thanks for his service. He died of a stroke less than a year later.
After Nathanael’s death, Catharine submitted an indemnity petition to the government for reimbursement of his wartime debts. She received private encouragement from President Washington and personally presented her case to the U.S. Treasury Department in 1791. The next year, Congress approved an award of $47,000 to be paid to her in installments. Later in life, she married Phineas Miller and was instrumental in supporting Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin.
Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow with her daughter in the courtyard of the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C., ca. 1862.
