When the Continental Army was created, Nathanael Greene was chosen to be a Brigadier General, where he demonstrated his talents in gathering and conserving military supplies and encouraging troops from different states to work together. He became a trusted officer to General Washington and led troops in important battles at Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. In 1778, he became Quartermaster General, in charge of various responsibilities such as movement of supplies and the organization of the army’s camps.

General Greene arrived in Morristown in November 1779, and spent weeks searching for a place for the army’s winter camp. After difficult travel and work, he gave Washington two alternatives: Aquakinunk (Passaic, NJ) and Jockey Hollow, near Morristown. After Washington’s decision to camp at the latter, General Greene supervised the organization and setup of the winter camp. Greene had to locate homes and other buildings in the area to rent for officer’s quarters. He was very frustrated due to the high inflation of the paper money the army had to use to pay for food and other expenses, particularly wagons and drivers to transport supplies. His wife Catharine Greene would arrive in Morristown in November, 1779 and stayed at the Arnold Tavern in the center of the town. On January 29, 1780, Catharine Greene gave birth to a boy, Nathanael Ray Greene, their fourth child.

After the serious defeats of the American forces in South Carolina in 1780, Washington asked General Greene to rebuild the shattered American army in the South. His persistence (“We fight, get beat, and rise up to fight again”) caused him to not win many battles, but it wore out the British, and would lead to their major defeat at Yorktown.

James Thacher was born in Barnstable, Massachusetts in 1754 to a Cape Cod farm family. He was apprenticed to a local physician at 16 years of age, which was typical for the start of a medical career at the time. After his training in 1775, Thacher joined the army, working as a surgeon's mate at Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the provincial hospital for the newly created Continental Army surrounding the British in Boston. Thacher served with distinction in the Continental Army and was eventually promoted to the position of surgeon.

He may be best known for having written an interesting wartime journal: Military Journal During the Revolutionary War, first published in 1823. In his book, he provides recollections of incidents based on his personal experiences. These experiences include his service in Colonel Jackson’s Massachusetts Regiment during the “Hard Winter” at Morristown in 1779-1780. His presence in Jockey Hollow is also confirmed by the contemporary drawing of Stark’s Brigade—an officers’ hut is clearly identified as the home of “Doctor Thacher.” Thacher’s role allowed him to stay in close touch with many soldiers and to be keenly aware of their lack of food and daily conditions. His journal entries reveal a great respect for the level of sacrifice and suffering endured by those in the lower ranks.

After the Revolution, he moved to Plymouth, Massachusetts. He maintained a large medical practice, and became one of the most prolific medical writers of his era. After his professional retirement, he took an interest in researching the first settlers of his town, and helped found the Pilgrim Society. He died at his home in Plymouth in 1844 at age 90.

Smallwood was born in 1732. His great grandfather had come to America in 1664, and his father served in the Maryland Assembly. William is believed to have been sent to school in England. He was a soldier in the French and Indian War. As a legislator, he became a member of the Maryland Assembly in 1761. He joined the protest against British taxes and became a member of the group seeking to ban importing British goods. Smallwood was also a member of the Maryland convention in 1775 that protested British troops in America.

In January, 1776, Smallwood was placed in charge of a regiment of Maryland troops, and was eventually promoted to Brigadier General by the Continental Congress. Smallwood and his Maryland troops fought at Fort Washington, Trenton, Princeton and Germantown. One description of Smallwood we have comes from the journal of Sally Wister, a Quaker girl who fled with her family into the country after the British occupied Philadelphia. “The General is tall, portly, well-made,” Wister wrote in 1777. “A truly martial air, the behavior and manner of a gentleman, a good understanding and a great humanity of disposition constitute the character of Smallwood.”

At the Morristown encampment of 1779-1780, William Smallwood was Brigadier General in charge of the First Maryland brigade, and he stayed in the mansion owned by Peter Kemble, a loyalist who had agreed to let his home be used in return for protection from reproach for his views (see Peter Kemble in “Civilians”). After the war, Smallwood entered politics, was a member of the Continental Congress, and later served as Governor of Maryland.

Jeremiah Greenman was believed to be the only child of Jeremiah Greenman, Sr. and Amy Greenman. He received a basic education, but he did not learn to write until after he joined the army at age 17. He participated in a number of battles, including the Battle of Monmouth Court House, near present-day Freehold, New Jersey. During the war, Greenman kept a diary of his time as a soldier, which was preserved by his family. Today, it can be found as Diary of a Common Soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783: An Annotated Edition of the Military Journal of Jeremiah Greenman.

In the winter of 1779-80, Greenman’s regiment (the Second Rhode Island Regiment, commanded by Colonel Israel Angell) was part of General Washington’s winter camp at Jockey Hollow. This regiment was part of Stark’s Brigade, whose huts were built on the east side of the hill called “Mount Kemble.” which was part of the property of wealthy merchant Peter Kemble. Greenman participated in the unsuccessful attack on Staten Island in January, 1780, and the Battle of Springfield later that June.

Long after the war in 1818, Jeremiah Greenman applied for the pension offered for veterans of the American Revolution but was rebuffed, because the government made the veterans provide proof that they really were poor and needed the assistance. Greenman eventually sent a number of letters to officials with details about his limited finances and his sacrifices as a soldier during the Revolution, adding stories about the various battles and experiences he endured. The government finally restored Greenman’s pension in 1822. He died in 1828, and the newspaper announcement about his death remembered his service in the war of American independence.

St. Clair was born in Scotland and participated in important battles in the French and Indian War, only to resign from the British army and later oppose Great Britain as a colonel in the Continental Army. He helped organize New Jersey’s militia and fought in the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, protecting the troops in their retreat to Morristown by destroying the bridges behind them.

During the winter of 1779-1780, St. Clair was Major General of the two Pennsylvania brigades camped in Jockey Hollow, and he stayed at the home of the Wick family. Letters and records today show he was in camp only seventy days out of the six month encampment, due to trips home, outpost duty, and meeting with the British to discuss a prisoner exchange.

The war caused great personal loss to St. Clair. He moved his family from the frontier to Pottsgrove near Philadelphia, where he had to sell a large portion of his western lands at a great monetary loss. During the war, his wife became ill and St. Clair returned home frequently to be with her. The western land that he still owned was either destroyed from Indian raids or neglect due to the effects of the war. By 1782, St. Clair wrote to Washington, “I am not master of one single shilling, nor will anything that I am possessed command it; I am in debt, and my credit exhausted and were it not for the rations I receive, my family would actually starve”. Arthur St. Clair would serve General Washington faithfully for the rest of the war. St Clair then served in the Continental Congress from 1785 to 1787, and in 1791 he was appointed Major General and commander of the United States Army. In November 1791, he was badly defeated by the Miami Indians, and later resigned from the army. In 1818, he died in poverty.