When the Revolutionary War began, Nathanael Greene was a private in the militia, the lowest rank possible, yet he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer - celebrated as one of three most important generals. Upon taking command of America's Southern Army in 1780, Nathanael Greene was handed troops that consisted of 1,500 starving, nearly naked men. Gerald Carbone explains how within a year, the small worn-out army ran the British troops out of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina and into the final trap at Yorktown. Despite his huge military successes and tactical genius Greene's story has a dark side. Using twenty-five years of original research, Gerald Carbone chronicles Greene's unlikely rise to success and his fall into debt and anonymity.

Author Biography

GERALD M. CARBONE is a reporter for the Providence Journal and has been recognized as an expert on the life of Nathanael Greene by various historical societies. He has won two of American journalism's most prestigious prizes- the American Society of Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award and a John S. Knight Fellowship at Stanford University. He lives in Warwick, RI, USA.