Catharine Littlefield "Caty" Greene (1755-1814) was the wife of American Revolutionary War general Nathaniel Greene, a mother of five, and noted for being a supporter of inventor Eli Whitney.

She was born on February 17, 1755, off the coast of Rhode Island on Block Island, where her family had settled in the 1660s. She and Nathaniel had been married less than a year when he was called off to war. Thus, she had not yet settled into a comfortable life with her husband, their home in Coventry not having yet been completely furnished. Caty, as she was called, dreamed of spending cold winter nights with Nathanael, reading to each other by the firelight, surrounded by their children. She was energetic and independent, but she looked to her husband to take charge and make the decisions. With his involvement in the war, she was forced to assume this role.

Catherine was not content to remain at home without her husband, so she joined Nathaniel at his headquarters whenever possible. She had the responsibility of caring for her small children, however. Over the course of the war and shortly after, Catherine had five children that lived past infancy. Nathanael was present for only two of their births. She was faced with the conflict of mothering her children yet longing to be with her husband. She desperately wanted to have something like a normal family and when conditions allowed, she brought her babies with her to camp. At other times she left them in the care of family or friends. It was during these separations that Catherine most felt the effects of the war on her family.

When the war finally came to an end and the family was reunited, Caty looked forward to having Nathaniel there to share in the responsibility of raising the children and handling business and household affairs. His presence at home "brought a peace of mind unknown to her since the conflict began." She was prepared to let Nathaniel take charge and settle herself into the life of a respected, well-to-do gentleman's wife.

Though Nathaniel was not required to be of further service to his country, his involvement in the war had effects in other areas. During his command in the south, he faced very harsh conditions. In order to clothe his soldiers during the winter, he had to personally guarantee thousands of dollars to Charleston merchants. He later discovered that the speculator through whom he had dealt was fraudulent. At the end of the war, the merchants began pressing him for payment on the notes and judgments began coming down from South Carolina courts. He was without sufficient funds and heavily in debt.

Catherine did not adjust well to the idea of being poor. Though they had won the war, they had little to show for it. According to Stegeman, "her dream of wealth and leisure, once the war was over, had been shattered; she could no longer count on even the most basic security." Furthermore, Nathaniel decided to move the family to a plantation on the Savannah River called Mulberry Grove , granted to him by the Georgia legislature in gratitude for his services during the war. Here, he hoped to make a living by cultivating rice and pay off their debts by selling their other lands when the markets proved favorable. This was particularly hard on her. She had lived her whole life in the north. She would be leaving behind many friends and what was left of her family on Block Island.

She soon began to realize how heavily these burdens weighed on Nathaniel. The twinkle in his eyes was gone. Catherine now saw before her a "tired, haggard ex-soldier who had given himself to a belief, had signed away his future life, in fact, for that cause." Catherine resolved to do everything in her power to help him. She settled into the arduous domesticity that plantation life required, determined to make Mulberry Grove a success. However, her plan was interrupted when Nathanael died suddenly on June 19, 1786 of sunstroke.

Once again, she took on the familiar role of being both mother and father to her children. She met the pressures of rearing her children and handling Nathaniel's devastated finances with courage and determination. With the help of the new plantation manager, Phineas Miller, Mulberry Grove was thriving by 1788.

At the urging of a trusted adviser, she personally presented to Congress a petition for indemnity to recover funds that Nathaniel had paid to Charleston merchants. On April 27, 1792, President Washington approved and signed an act that indemnified the Greene estate. In a happy letter to a friend, she wrote:

That same year, Catherine met a young man named Eli Whitney, the tutor her neighbor's children. With her encouragement he took up residence at Mulberry Grove to pursue his inventions. Within a year he had produced the cotton gin.

At the end of a long courtship, Catherine was married to Phineas. Despite previous success and their best efforts, Mulberry Grove fell upon hard times by 1798. She was forced to sell the plantation, moving her family to Cumberland Island. There she and Phineas established a new home on land that had been given to Nathanael. The plantation, called "Dungeness," thrived. In 1803 Phineas died. Catherine stayed at the plantation until she died in 1814 and is buried there.

Sources

• John F. Stegeman and Janet A. Stegeman , Caty: A Biography of Catharine Littlefield Greene (Athens: Brown Thrasher Books, 1985), 109.

• Arden Williams , Catherine Greene, The New Georgia Encyclopedia.