Washington [139]
Nevertheless, within a year, by dint of dawn-to-dusk work habits, Greene emerged as general of the Rhode Island Army of Observation, leading to his promotion by the Continental Congress. Washington must have felt an instinctive sympathy for this young man restrained by handicaps and with a pretty and pregnant young wife. He also would have admired what Greene had done with the Rhode Island troops in Cambridge—they lived in “proper tents . . . and looked like the regular camp of the enemy,” according to the Reverend William Emerson.46
Nathanael Greene had other qualities that recommended him to the commander in chief. Like Washington, he despised profanity, gambling, and excessive drinking among his men. Like Washington, he was temperamental, hypersensitive to criticism, and chary of his reputation, and he craved recognition. As he slept in dusty blankets, tormented by asthma throughout the war, he had a plucky dedication to his work and proved a battlefield general firmly in the Washington mold, exposing himself fearlessly to enemy fire. Years later Washington described Greene as “a man of abilities, bravery and coolness. He has a comprehensive knowledge of our affairs and is a man of fortitude and resources.”47 Henry Knox paid tribute to his friend by saying that he “came to us the rawest, the most untutored being I ever met with” but within a year “was equal in military knowledge to any general officer in the army and very superior to most of them.”48 This tactful man, with his tremendous political intuitions, wound up as George Washington’s favorite general. When Washington was later asked who should replace him in case of an accident, he replied unhesitatingly, “General Greene.”49
Washington’s other favorite officer was the warm, ebullient Henry Knox, who weighed almost three hundred pounds and was promoted to colonel of the Continental artillery that December. Like many overweight people, Knox walked in a slightly odd, pigeon-toed fashion, with his legs bowed outward and his paunch, big as a cannonball, bulging under his vest. Still, he dressed smartly and moved with an erect military carriage, cutting a fine figure despite his weight. From a shotgun accident while hunting in 1773, he had lost two fingers of his left hand, which he disguised by wrapping it in a handkerchief. Knox was genial and outgoing, savored food and drink, and enjoyed instant rapport with people. Good-humored and rubicund, with a ready laugh, he relished telling funny stories in his resonant voice while his blue eyes twinkled with merriment. There was something exceptionally winning about Henry Knox, and one French admirer concluded, “It is impossible to know [him] without esteeming him, or to see [him] without loving him.”50 For those who looked deeply, however, Henry Knox carried a private melancholy beneath all the hearty bonhomie.
Born near Boston Harbor, Knox was the son of a failed shipmaster who deserted the family when Henry was nine, forcing him to drop out of Boston Latin Grammar School to support his mother and younger brother. He clerked in a Boston bookstore and took advantage of every spare moment to read, preferring military history and engineering. In 1771 the twenty-one-year-old Knox opened his own shop, the New London Book Store, which offered a “large and very elegant assortment” of imported works, as Knox claimed in an ad.51 He soaked up military knowledge from the British officers who frequented the shop.