Washington's General by Terry Golway Page A

British troops in Boston gave the false impression that time was on America’s side. In fact, with American enlistments about to run out, the opposite was true. Washington concluded that he ought to attack Boston while he still had an army. The twenty thousand Americans were more than double the British force of eight thousand, and they were in better health. The British commander, Gage, had been ordered back to London to explain himself, leaving William Howe in charge of the ravaged garrison. Washington called a council of war in Cambridge on October 18. The topic: an attack on Boston, which Washington had first raised with them some four weeks before.
    Greene was one of eight generals who gathered in Washington’s headquarters to discuss the plan. It was a heady experience for the Rhode Islander. Surrounding him were professional soldiers (the Englishmen Charles Lee and Horatio Gates), veterans of the French and Indian War (Artemas Ward, John Thomas, Israel Putnam, and WilliamHeath), and an experienced militia officer (John Sullivan, a major in the New Hampshire militia who had led a raid on Fort William and Mary in New Hampshire in 1775). These were the best and most experienced military men fighting on the rebel side, and there was Greene, yet to see his first battle, seated among them. He was, comparatively speaking, a boy among adults. Voicing an opinion among such company must have seemed an intimidating prospect, especially with the self-assured, confident Lee in the room. Who, after all, was Nathanael Greene to have a seat in such a council? Why, he was a Quaker; he was self-educated; he had never fought a battle in his life!
    Washington asked his generals for their advice. Around the room they went. Gates said the proposed attack on Boston was improper. Lee said he was not familiar enough with the men and so considered the plan too risky. Sullivan thought winter would offer a better opportunity. Heath and Thomas said the plan was impracticable. Putnam said he disapproved, at present. Ward was solidly against it.
    All were opposed, except for the most junior, most inexperienced general in the room–and the one most eager to impress the commander in chief–Nathanael Greene. Actually, Greene hedged his views, saying that while he regarded the plan as impractical, if the Americans could land ten thousand troops in Boston–Washington’s plan did not specify the size of the assault force–he would support an attack.
    The attack did not take place. But a frustrated Washington could not help but notice that with all the military genius, experience, and leadership ability assembled around him, only the junior brigadier general from Rhode Island seemed at all willing to take a chance. Only Nathanael Greene seemed remotely and ever so cautiously on George Washington’s side. Events would soon prove that Washington had taken careful notice of the young general with the slight limp and the earnest manner.
    Greene’s assessment of their chances with a landing force of ten thousand was far too optimistic, as he would implicitly concede a few months later, in February, when Washington again pressed for agreement on an assault. Then, Greene would contend that “an attack upon a town garrisoned with 8,000 regular troops is a serious object,” which isexactly what the senior generals had said. He would add, somewhat disengenuously, “I always thought an attack with 20,000 men might succeed,” which not only contradicted his position in October but was more than a little wishful thinking, since the Americans had no more than eighteen thousand troops at the time.
    If he seemed a little too eager to please, and if he seemed to contradict himself from time to time, it was perhaps understandable, for he was very much a work in progress. Henry Knox, the young bookseller who was now an artillery officer, said of Greene, “[He] came to us the rawest, the most untutored being I ever met