Colton Greene

Colton Greene (July 7, 1833 – September 23, 1900) was an officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded cavalry in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War. After the Civil War Greene pursued several successful civic projects and public functions in Memphis, Tennessee.

Early life Greene was born July 7, 1833, in South Carolina, according to his postwar application for a passport. Little is known of his parents or education, and he reportedly never married nor would discuss his past with anyone. One story, current in Memphis at the time, was that he killed a man in a duel in South Carolina, and then came west. By 1857 he was living in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was involved in politics with the state's Democratic Party. Greene was a wealthy and successful wholesale grocer in St. Louis by 1860. Also that year Greene became a partner in the St. Louis firm of Hoyt & Co.

American Civil War Choosing to support the Confederacy, Greene was active in the pro-secession movement in the border state of Missouri just before the war began. and helped him to coordinate the activities of the secessionists. Sometime during 1861, Greene was also appointed a brigadier general in the Missouri State Guard.

alt=Map of the battlefield, including troop positions. The Union lines form a ring around the city of Helena, with their backs to the Mississippi River. Confederate troops attack from multiple angles.

In 1863, Greene led Marmaduke's cavalry brigade at the Battle of Helena in Phillips County, Arkansas, on July 4.

Greene led his brigade (part of Marmaduke's Division in Edmund Kirby Smith's Army of Arkansas) during the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry in Grant County, Arkansas, on April 30, 1864. In the Confederate loss, Greene reported a casualty total of 50; seven dead and 43 wounded. During the time Green was leading a brigade in 1864 he was an acting brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. Later that summer Greene was arrested and charged with disobeying orders, accused of failing to surrender his mules to the Confederate government. In the ensuing court-martial that fall, he was exonerated of the charges and returned to his command. After the trial, Greene fought during Sterling Price's unsuccessful 1864 Missouri Expedition, better known as Price's Raid. Marmaduke had been promoted and his brigade went to Brig. Gen. John B. Clark, leaving Greene to lead the 3rd Missouri Cavalry once more. When Clark was given divisional command after the raid, Greene again led a brigade.

Later life When the war ended in 1865, Green returned to his life in St. Louis. There he found that his former partner, Stephen Hoyt, and others had seized his business interests and property, leaving Greene in poverty. He then moved to Memphis, Tennessee, to rebuild, taking up work as a banker and an insurance agent for the Memphis office of the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company of New York. Greene established his own insurance firm in 1871 and soon prospered. He then founded the State Savings Bank of Memphis, as well as organizing support in 1886 for the city's first municipal waterworks with the publication of the Report on a Public Water Supply for the City of Memphis, February 23, 1886, which he edited. Greene arranged the first Memphis Mardi Gras (described as "highly successful") and also helped found the Memphis Public Library.

Death Greene died on September 23, 1900, and was buried in Greene is buried in Memphis’s Elmwood Cemetery.