"Take it, you will need it, and I can do without the money." Engraving entitled "Female Patriotism", based on a painting by Alonzo Chappel. A woman named Elizabeth Maxwell Steele ran an inn in Salisbury, North Carolina, and it is said that when General Nathanael Greene stopped at her inn (February 1, 1781) she over heard him say to another boarder that he was tired and had no money. Mrs. Steele offered two bags of specie (coin as opposed to paper currency) in hopes of cheering him up. Nathanael Greene (1742-1786) was a major general of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War. When the war began, Greene was a militia private, the lowest rank possible; he emerged from the war with a reputation as George Washington's most gifted and dependable officer.