A North Alabama Rough Rider: John C. Greenway
MADISON – Famous Rough Rider who served with Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish-American War, John Campbell Greenway, has roots in North Alabama and was just honored this Veteran’s Day week by being posthumously inducted into the Madison County Hall of Heroes by the Madison County Military Heritage Commission.
Greenway was born in Huntsville, Alabama in 1872 to Dr. Gilbert C. and Alice White Greenway.
“As a boy, Greenway spent time on his grandfather Addison White’s farms and hunting camps in Jackson and Limestone counties hunting and being in the outdoors. He left Huntsville at an early age to attend Phillips Academy in Andover, MD,” said Greenway’s cousin, Gilbert Greenway White III in a Huntsville History Collection article.
He attended the University of Virginia and Yale University and went on to have an honorable and famed military career. He first served in the Spanish-American War, joining the Rough Riders in 1898. He was promoted to acting captain in the field by Theodore Roosevelt and earned a Silver Star.
“They were young men, Goodrich having only just graduated; while Greenway, whose father had served with honor in the Confederate Army, had been out of Yale three or four years. They were natural soldiers, and it would be well-nigh impossible to overestimate the amount of good they did the regiment. They were strapping fellows, entirely fearless, modest, and quiet. Their only thought was how to perfect themselves in their own duties, and how to take care of the men under them, so as to bring them to the highest point of soldierly perfection,” wrote Roosevelt in his book “The Rough Riders”.
Roosevelt went on to praise Greenway and Goodrich for another whole paragraph, concluding with, “Later on I worked them as hard as I knew how, and the regiment will always be their debtor.”
Greenway later served as a lieutenant colonel in World War I and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Following the war, he was promoted to brigadier general.
Between the wars, Greenway entered the mining business and became a copper mining executive, which led him to Arizona. His wife, Isabella Greenway, became the first congresswoman from Arizona and served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1933-1937.
A statue of John C. Greenway represented Arizona on Capitol Hill in Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C. from 19302015. The statue was made by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor behind Mount Rushmore.
Greenway’s parents are buried in Maple Hill Cemetery and extended family still live in North Alabama today.
