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.
Read more about this topic: Christopher Greene
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or memorial:
“half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights,—
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights,—
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
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