01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, May 28, 2006

PROVIDENCE -- More than a third of a century, $4 million and the careers of many smart people have been invested in publishing The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, a Revolutionary War hero from Rhode Island.

Now, 34 years after the Rhode Island Historical Society launched it, the project is paying dividends. Pulitzer Prize winning historian David McCullough made extensive use of the papers in his recent bestseller 1776; the William & Mary Quarterly has praised the Greene papers as "simply stupendous"; and Charles Baxley, publisher of a magazine dedicated to the Revolution has hailed the papers themselves as revolutionary.

"They have changed the whole world of editing the papers of an individual," said Baxley, editor and publisher of the Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution.

Greene was a prolific writer who penned letters from battlefields and Army camps; he even once wrote to his wife while astride his horse after the Battle of Rhode Island: I write upon my horse and have not slept any for two nights, therefore you'll excuse my not writing very legible as I write upon the field.

The Historical Society will celebrate the recent publication of the 13th and final volume of the Greene papers at 6 p.m. Saturday, June 3, in The Westin Providence hotel, where McCullough will serve as the keynote speaker. Tickets for the black-tie affair cost $150. A free seminar on Nathanael Greene and the Greene papers will be held at 5:30 p.m. Friday, June 2, in Brown University's Saloman Hall. Panelists for that discussion are Greene papers editor Dennis M. Conrad; Greene biographer Terrence Golway; Providence Journal reporter Gerald M. Carbone; and historian Caroline Cox.

Distinguishing features of the Greene papers are the thoroughness of the indexing and the quality of the "annotations," scholarly footnotes that expand upon names or events mentioned in the papers so that readers have a better understanding of them.

In his former role as director of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Albert T. Klyberg oversaw the Greene papers project from inception almost to its completion. Klyberg said that the first editor of the papers, the late Richard K. Showman, set the tone for the annotations. Showman had previously served as an editor for The Harvard Guide to American History.

"He was a wonderful editor, but an absolutely beautiful writer," Klyberg said of Showman. "If you read his notes and his introductions to the first volumes, that's a very pleasant writing style."

The 13 volumes of the Greene papers contain nearly 10,000 documents written to or from Greene; they total 8,347 pages. As Showman noted: "That so many documents should have survived the rigors of war, not to mention the vicissitudes of two intervening centuries, is little short of miraculous."

Showman edited the papers for 22 years, turning the reins over midway through Volume VII, at age 80, to his then-young protégé, Dennis M. Conrad, who joined the Historical Society's staff with a freshly minted doctorate from Duke. "He took sort of a risk on us because we were not a college or university," Klyberg said.

The risk paid off: Conrad edited the Greene papers from Volume VII through XII, before turning it over to Roger N. Parks to take a job as historian with the Naval Historical Center in Washington.

Parks, a longtime associate editor of the Greene papers and editor of the Bibliographies of New England History for 25 years, tackled the last volume of The Papers of Nathanael Greene with associate editor Elizabeth C. Stevens.

The Historical Society will honor Showman, Conrad and Parks next weekend by presenting them with its History Makers Award at Saturday night's dinner. The awards are presented every other year, and this year's award winners also include retired National Guard Gen. Reginald A. Centraccio, and banker/philanthropist George A. Graboys.