Page:EB1911 - Volume 12.djvu/563

Rh the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville, the Vandalia, and the Terre Haute, Indianapolis & Eastern (electric) railways. It has manufactures of some importance, including lumber, pumps, kitchen-cabinets, drag-saws, lightning-rods and tin-plate, is in the midst of a blue grass region, and is a shipping point for beef cattle. The city has a Carnegie library and is the seat of the de Pauw University (co-educational), a Methodist Episcopal institution, founded as Indiana Asbury University in 1837, and renamed in 1884 in honour of Washington Charles de Pauw (1822–1887), a successful capitalist, banker and glass manufacturer. The total gifts of Mr de Pauw and his family to the institution amount to about $600,000. Among the presidents of the university have been Bishop Matthew Simpson, Bishop Thomas Bowman (b. 1817), and Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes (b. 1866), all of the Methodist Episcopal church. The university comprises the Asbury College of Liberal Arts, a School of Music, a School of Art and an Academy, and had in 1909–1910 43 instructors, a library of 37,000 volumes, and 1017 students. Greencastle was first settled about 1820, and was chartered as a city in 1861.

GREENE, GEORGE WASHINGTON (1811–1883), American historian, was born at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, on the 8th of April 1811, the grandson of Major-General Nathanael Greene. He entered Brown University in 1824, left in his junior year on account of ill-health, was in Europe during the next twenty years, except in 1833–1834, when he was principal of Kent Academy at East Greenwich, and was the United States consul at Rome from 1837 to 1845. He was instructor in modern languages in Brown University from 1848 to 1852; and in 1871–1875 was non-resident lecturer in American history in Cornell University. He died at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, on the 2nd of February 1883. His published works include French and Italian text-books; Historical Studies (1850); Biographical Studies (1860); Historical View of the American Revolution (1865); Life of Nathanael Greene (3 vols., 1867–1871); The German Element in the War of American Independence (1876); and a Short History of Rhode Island (1877).

GREENE, MAURICE (1695–1755) English musical composer, was born in London. He was the son of a clergyman in the city, and soon became a chorister of St Paul’s cathedral, where he studied under Charles King, and subsequently under Richard Brind, organist of the cathedral from 1707 to 1718, whom, on his death in the last-named year, he succeeded. Nine years later he became organist and composer to the chapel royal, on the death of Dr Croft. In 1730 he was elected to the chair of music in the university of Cambridge, and had the degree of doctor of music conferred on him. Dr Greene was a voluminous composer of church music, and his collection of Forty Select Anthems became a standard work of its kind. He wrote a “Te Deum,” several oratorios, a masque, The Judgment of Hercules, and a pastoral opera, Phoebe (1748); also glees and catches: and a collection of Catches and Canons for Three and Four Voices is amongst his compositions. In addition he composed many occasional pieces for the king’s birthday, having been appointed master of the king’s band in 1735. But it is as a composer of church music that Greene is chiefly remembered. It is here that his contrapuntal skill and his sound musical scholarship are chiefly shown. With Handel, Greene was originally on intimate terms, but his equal friendship for Buononcini, Handel’s rival, estranged the German master’s feelings from him, and all personal intercourse between them ceased. Greene, in conjunction with the violinist Michael Christian Festing (1727–1752) and others, originated the Society of Musicians, for the support of poor artists and their families. He died on the 1st of December 1755.

GREENE, NATHANAEL (1742–1786), American general, son of a Quaker farmer and smith, was born at Potowomut, in the township of Warwick, Rhode Island, on the 7th of August (not, as has been stated, 6th of June) 1742. Though his father’s sect discouraged “literary accomplishments,” he acquired a large amount of general information, and made a special study of mathematics, history and law. At Coventry, R.I., whither he removed in 1770 to take charge of a forge built by his father and his uncles, he was the first to urge the establishment of a public school; and in the same year he was chosen a member of the legislature of Rhode Island, to which he was re-elected in 1771, 1772 and 1775. He sympathized strongly with the Whig, or Patriot, element among the colonists, and in 1774 joined the local militia. At this time he began to study the art of war. In December 1774 he was on a committee appointed by the assembly to revise the militia laws. His zeal in attending to military duty led to his expulsion from the Society of Friends.

In 1775, in command of the contingent raised by Rhode Island, he joined the American forces at Cambridge, and on the 22nd of June was appointed a brigadier by Congress. To him Washington assigned the command of the city of Boston after it was evacuated by Howe in March 1776. Greene’s letters of October 1775 and January 1776 to Samuel Ward, then a delegate from Rhode Island to the Continental Congress, favoured a declaration of independence. On the 9th of August 1776 he was promoted to be one of the four new major-generals and was put in command of the Continental troops on Long Island; he chose the place for fortifications (practically the same as that picked by General Charles Lee) and built the redoubts and entrenchments of Fort Greene on Brooklyn Heights. Severe illness prevented his taking part in the battle of Long Island. He was prominent among those who advised a retreat from New York and the burning of the city, so that the British might not use it. Greene was placed in command of Fort Lee, and on the 25th of October succeeded General Israel Putnam in command of Fort Washington. He received orders from Washington to defend Fort Washington to the last extremity, and on the 11th of October Congress had passed a resolution to the same effect; but later Washington wrote to him to use his own discretion. Greene ordered Colonel Magaw, who was in immediate command, to defend the place until he should hear from him again, and reinforced it to meet General Howe’s attack. Nevertheless, the blame for the losses of Forts Washington and Lee was put upon Greene, but apparently without his losing the confidence of Washington, who indeed himself assumed the responsibility. At Trenton Greene commanded one of the two American columns, his own, accompanied by Washington, arriving first; and after the victory here he urged Washington to push on immediately to Princeton, but was over-ruled by a council of war. At the Brandywine Greene commanded the reserve. At Germantown Greene’s command, having a greater distance to march than the right wing under Sullivan, failed to arrive in good time—a failure which Greene himself thought (without cause) would cost him Washington’s regard; on this, with the affair of Fort Washington, Bancroft based his unfavourable estimate of Greene’s ability. But on their arrival, Greene and his troops distinguished themselves greatly.

At the urgent request of Washington, on the 2nd of March 1778, at Valley Forge, he accepted the office of quartermaster-general (succeeding Thomas Mifflin), and of his conduct in this difficult work, which Washington heartily approved, a modern critic, Colonel H. B. Carrington, has said that it was “as good as was possible under the circumstances of that fluctuating uncertain force.” He had become quartermaster-general on the understanding, however, that he should retain the right to command troops in the field; thus we find him at the head of the right wing at Monmouth on the 28th of June. In August Greene and Lafayette commanded the land forces sent to Rhode Island to co-operate with the French admiral d’Estaing, in an expedition which proved abortive. In June 1780 Greene commanded in a skirmish at Springfield, New Jersey. In August he resigned the office of quartermaster-general, after a long and bitter struggle with Congress over the interference in army administration by the Treasury Board and by commissions appointed by Congress. Before his resignation became effective it fell to his lot to preside over the court which, on the 29th of September, condemned Major John André to death.

On the 14th of October he succeeded Gates as commander-in-chief of the Southern army, and took command at Charlotte, N.C.,