Free Washington's General by Terry Golway Page A

Rhode Island troops technically were an independent army, accountable only to Greene and to the colony’s political leaders. As militia from other New England colonies dug in outside Boston, there was no attempt to coordinate a common supply system or command structure, no sense that the troops were part of a unified army. Each colony jealously guarded the independence of its militia.
    In one of his first acts as a professional soldier, however, Nathanael Greene rose above the petty, parochial pride that would often be the baneof this fledgling army. Greene realized, far earlier than most of the Revolution’s political leaders, that this would be a national struggle, requiring strong, centralized leadership. In placing his troops under the command of an officer from Massachusetts, Greene in an instant swept aside local and regional distinctions for the good of a common cause and foreshadowed his arguments on behalf of strong national government and a standing army of professional soldiers. To his bitter frustration, however, the young nation’s political leaders were skeptical of both.
    After his consultations with Ward, Greene and his troops were assigned to the right wing of the besieging army in Roxbury, under the immediate command of Major General John Thomas of the Massachusetts militia. Greene scoured the area near Jamaica Plains to locate a suitable camp for his army and found one in the former estate of a onetime governor of Massachusetts, Francis Bernard. Its sixty acres of fields and hills lay behind a large pond, a perfect defensive location. Greene told Thomas that the pond would protect his troops from a surprise frontal assault, and that a hill to the rear of his position would allow “a most excellent post for observation.” Greene had yet to fight his first battle, but it was already clear that his self-education in military science had not been in vain.
    Soon after establishing camp, Greene appointed the Reverend John Murray as the Rhode Island army’s chaplain. Chaplains were common among the intensely religious New England units–their fiery sermons would soon become the object of some curiosity when troops from other regions joined the siege–but the likes of Reverend Murray were not. He was the American founder of Universalism, a creed that shocked the rock-ribbed congregationalists of Massachusetts. Greene had met Murray in 1772 at James Varnum’s home after the minister delivered a sermon in Newport. Greene’s onetime tutor, Adam Maxwell, also was acquainted with the clergyman. Neither Greene nor his friends seemed offended by Murray’s heretical beliefs, including his insistence that there would be no eternal punishment in the hereafter, and that salvation was available to all people.
    It is hardly surprising that Rhode Island in general and NathanaelGreene in particular would find a place for such an unconventional clergyman in the colony’s army. Murray’s clerical colleagues were less welcoming, however, and the reverend’s presence in camp became something of a minor scandal as the siege wore on. But Greene’s support for Murray never wavered; in fact, two years later, he came to Murray’s defense when critics questioned not only the clergyman’s theology but his political allegiance as well. Murray was accused of spying for the British, a charge that prompted Greene to write a public letter describing the reverend as an “honest man and a good Christian.” The latter assessment was a good deal more controversial than the former.
    Greene himself often sounded like a New England moralist as he attempted to turn his Rhode Islanders into a disciplined fighting unit. The behavior of his troops, most of them backwoodsmen and farmers–not the pious Quakers or eager college students of his youth–shocked him. They certainly exhibited no working knowledge of the Ten Commandments, particulary the proscription against taking