he was called to arms. Joining the Kentish Guards militia, a smart outfit with red jackets trimmed in green, he had failed to win a lieutenancy because of a chronic limp that supposedly disfigured the company’s march order. “I feel more mortification than resentment,” he wrote. Eight months later, in May 1775, the Rhode Island Assembly promoted Private Greene to General Greene, no doubt influenced by his family and personal connections but perhaps also sensing martial potential. His commission commanded him to “resist, expel, kill, and destroy.”
