Christopher Greene - Death and Memorial

Death and Memorial

Colonel Greene and several of his Negro soldiers died on May 13 or 14, 1781, when a group of Loyalists surrounded his headquarters on the Croton River in Westchester County, New York. From one account of the attack, "his body was found in the woods, about a mile distant from his tent, cut, and mangled in the most shocking way." A common conjecture is that this indignity was retribution for his leading black soldiers against the British Crown.

Congress voted Greene a sword, which in 1786 was presented to his son by Secretary of War Henry Knox. A monument to his memory was erected near Red Bank, New Jersey, in October 1829 by New Jersey and Pennsylvania volunteers.

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