Reviews of Books

These five volumes of the papers of General Nathanael Greene cover the period from December 26, 1780, through September 30, 1782, almost the entire span of Greene's service as commander of the Southern Army. Like the previous volumes of Greene papers, they maintain the highest standards of editorial excellence. Historians owe the editors, Richard K. Showman and Dennis M. Conrad, as well as their fine assistants, a debt of gratitude for the huge labor of producing these important contributions to the study of the Revolutionary War, particularly to the war in the Lower South. Their publication offers an opportunity to examine American conduct of the military effort in the South, primarily by assessing Greene's role as commander of the Southern Department. They also offer the opportunity to explore the value of such "official" papers for the writing of military history.

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Nathanael Greene is considered by historians to be one of the best American generals produced by the Revolutionary War, an assessment confirmed by most of his contemporaries. George Washington declared that Greene was one of the few officers who could be relied on to become commander in chief should the need arise. Washington biographer Douglas Southall Freeman noted that the general respected Greene for his intelligence, courage, and promptitude. Thomas Jefferson, who as governor of Virginia had his differences with Greene during the war, declared in 1822 that Greene was a great man, second to none in military talent. Frances Kinloch, a prominent South Carolinian who fought in the war, asserted that Greene was "the greatest military genius produced by the War of Independence" (Letters from Geneva and France [Boston, 1819], 2:142). Historian Christopher Ward believed that Greene may have been Washington's superior, both as a strategist and as a tactician. These volumes of Greene's papers do nothing to refute the assessments of contemporaries and scholars that Greene was a military genius. More than that, they add to his reputation as a soldier with many talents, political as well as military, and they become an indispensable tool for the study of the Revolutionary War in the South.

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