George Sears Greene- Union Army
(1801-1899)

George Sears Greene (May 6, 1801 - January 28, 1899) was a civil engineer and a Union general during the American Civil War. Greene was part of the Greene family of Rhode Island, which had a distinguished military record for the United States.

Greene was born in Apponaug, Rhode Island, the grandson of Revolutionary War general Nathaniel Greene, and the son of a ship owner who was financially ruined by the War of 1812. Greene hoped to attend Brown University, but his impoverished father could not afford it, so he moved to New York City and found work in a dry goods store.

At age 18, he obtained an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy and graduated second in the class of 1823. That summer he married Elizabeth Vinton, sister of a classmate. He served in the artillery, as an instructor at West Point, and in garrison duty.

While assigned to an Army post in Maine in 1833, tragedy struck: Greene's wife and all three of their children died within a seven-month period. He immersed himself in study of both the law and medicine, coming close to professional certification in both by the time he resigned his commission in 1836 to become a civil engineer.

He built railroads in six states and designed municipal sewage and water systems for Washington, D.C., Detroit, and several other cities. In New York City, he designed the Central Park Croton reservoir and the enlarged High Bridge over the Harlem River. He married Martha Barrett Dana in New York and they had six children together.

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