Catharine Littlefield Greene

Catharine Littlefield Greene
James Frothingham, Catharine Littlefield Greene Miller, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia
Born	Catharine Littlefield (1755-02-17)February 17, 1755 New Shoreham, Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
Died	September 2, 1814(1814-09-02) (aged 59) Cumberland Island, Georgia
Other names	Catharine Miller
Spouses	Nathanael Greene ​ ​ (m. 1774; died 1786)​ Phineas Miller ​ ​ (m. 1796; died 1803)​
Children	5

Catharine ("Caty") Littlefield Greene (February 17, 1755 – September 2, 1814) was an American patriot who traveled to her husband, Continental Army General Nathanael Greene's, encampments during the American Revolutionary War. She entertained and comforted the soldiers, officers, and officer's wives. During that time she had four children and a fifth after the end of the war. Greene followed her husband, regardless of cold weather or illness in the camps, notably spending the winter at Valley Forge.

During the war, Nathanael signed promissory notes for clothing and food for his soldiers in South Carolina. He was not repaid during his lifetime and through a chain of events the debt-ridden Greenes moved to Georgia to operate a rice plantation, relying on enslaved workers. They moved from the north to the plantation with Phineas Miller, the children's tutor. After Nathanael's death in 1786, Miller, successfully ran the plantation for a time. With the help of her friend Alexander Hamilton, arrangements were made with the federal government to repay the money that Nathanael spent to take care of his troops. Greene married Miller at the home of her friends, George and Martha Washington, in Philadelphia, in 1796.

She was a noted supporter of the inventor Eli Whitney. Her "extraordinary activity of mind, and tact in seizing on points, so as to apprehend almost intuitively, distinguished her through life. It enabled her, without apparent mental effort, to apply the instruction conveyed in the books she read, to the practical affairs of life".^[1]