The Greensboro Founding: A Town Named for a General Who Never Won

In the summer of eighteen oh-seven, the North Carolina General Assembly passed an act establishing the county seat of Guilford County. A commission of men was appointed to find a suitable location. They settled on a forty-two-acre tract of woodland that a man named Ralph Gorrell was willing to sell for ninety-eight dollars.

On December fifteenth, eighteen oh-eight, the legislature named the new town Greensborough, in honor of General Nathanael Greene. It was a respectful gesture toward the general whose army had fought the battle of Guilford Courthouse nearby.

Greene had commanded the American forces in the southern theater of the Revolutionary War. He was not a general who won battles. He was a general who understood that you did not have to win battles to win a war. His approach, retreat to preserve your army, draw the British deeper into hostile territory, force them to fight on your terms, cost Cornwallis his Southern strategy and, ultimately, the entire conflict. Greene was brilliant and underappreciated, and the city named for him has something of the same quality: a place whose significance is not always obvious to passing through visitors.

The 'ough' dropped from Greensborough sometime in the nineteenth century. The name remained, honoring a general who wore the British down through strategic patience and whose most famous engagement, at Guilford Courthouse, was technically a defeat.