HENRY KNOX

Boston, Massachusetts
July 25, 1750–October 25, 1806
Call in the “Big Guns”

Though most know Henry Knox as our nation’s first secretary of war (and the namesake of the United States Army’s famous Fort Knox), he was not always a professional soldier. In fact, before the Revolutionary War began, Knox’s only claim to fame was being a successful bookseller in Boston. However, he turned a new page in his life when the fighting began by joining the militia as an artillery specialist. Knox eventually moved up through the ranks to become the Continental Army’s chief artillery officer, where his crowning achievement was transporting the cannon that made the pivotal difference in the siege of Boston. Later in his life, he became one of the most controversial patriots of the Revolutionary War era.

Opportunity “Knox”

Although he’d been a quiet bookseller in Boston for four years, when the Revolutionary War began Knox quickly became involved in the fighting. He did not have an army commission at the time, yet he directed the American artillery at the Battle of Bunker Hill and helped General Artemas Ward develop fortifications around Boston. Later, Knox was appointed a colonel in the army’s artillery regiment.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

Knox abandoned his bookstore—which he had opened on July 29, 1771—when the war began. British army officers stole or destroyed its entire stock.

After British troops and Massachusetts patriots exchanged fire at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, the New England Army, as it was called, established a ring around Boston to contain the British army in the city. George Washington came to Boston to direct the siege, which lasted for eleven months. He recognized that more cannons could help turn the tide in the patriots’ favor. In May 1775, rebels led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured numerous cannons and other weapons at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point in New York, but they were 300 miles away. Washington couldn’t just call a trucking firm to transport the guns to Boston. Knox said he would do the job. He did, despite the numerous obstacles in his way.

Knox relied on winter weather to transport the equipment between Ticonderoga and Boston, using ox-drawn sleds to do the job.

Knox had to hire workers and buy or rent animals along the route. Occasionally, guns broke through the ice and had to be retrieved. The journey took six weeks, instead of the two he had anticipated, but his tenacity paid off.

On January 25, 1776, Henry Knox reported to Washington in Boston with forty-five cannons and sixteen mortars. He and Washington placed them adroitly on Dorchester Heights, above the British troops. British General William Howe realized that the artillery put Washington at a distinct advantage. The “rumpus” Washington expected did not materialize because Howe and his troops left Boston and sailed to Nova Scotia. Knox and Washington, destined to become close friends and military leaders, departed to fight other battles. Washington took his troops to New York. Knox helped set up defensive positions in Rhode Island and Connecticut before joining him there.

Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

“WE ARE PREPARING TO TAKE POSSESSION OF A POST WHICH WILL, IT IS GENERALLY THOUGHT, BRING ON A RUMPUS BETWEEN US AND THE ENEMY.”

—GEORGE WASHINGTON, REGARDING DORCHESTER HEIGHTS

Crossing the Delaware

The Continental Army had a bad year in 1776. The British chased them from New York to New Jersey. Washington’s raggedy army escaped the enemy by crossing the Delaware River on December 8, 1776. They had the foresight to seize all the boats along the river so the British could not follow them. The Americans did not stay on their side of the river for long, though. On Christmas night, they recrossed the river and captured 1,000 Hessian mercenaries fighting on the side of the British, along with their supplies. Knox directed the operation, which was a turning point in the war. It raised the troops’ confidence and morale and bode badly for the British.

There were a few skirmishes after Christmas, during which Knox and his troops performed admirably. He earned a commendation from Washington for his exploits—but not a rest. In fact, he almost lost his position.

Silas Deane, the American minister to France, connived to have a French officer named Philippe Charles Tronson du Coudray (sometimes spelled Ducondray) replace Knox as Washington’s chief artillery officer. He recruited du Coudray in France and sent him to General Washington with a recommendation that the Frenchman be appointed chief of artillery and the engineering corps. Du Coudray interviewed with Washington and then presented his credentials to Congress. Washington appealed to Congress and saved Knox’s job. Congress compromised; on August 11, 1777, it appointed du Coudray to a position as an inspector general.

Washington’s army crossed the Delaware River again and set up a winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey. Knox returned to Massachusetts to raise a battalion of troops and establish an arsenal at Springfield that proved valuable to the Americans for the rest of the war. Then his role changed. He became a fundraiser.

Show Me the Money

There was one thing Washington needed five years into war more than guns: money. He asked Knox to raise funds for him. Knox completed his mission successfully—and displayed his versatility once again.

In 1782 he was posted at West Point, where he remained until the British finally agreed to leave New York and the war ended. Knox then returned to Boston to continue his service to the United States.

An Unfortunate Demise

Congress appointed Knox to a position as secretary of war in 1785. He continued in that position until 1794, when he resigned due to the time-honored excuse of family obligations. His claim was not too far-fetched: Knox and his wife Lucy had thirteen children, of which only one survived to adulthood. And he was building a new house in Thomaston, Maine, to which he wanted to retire. The house was actually a mansion, and it created tension between Knox and the residents of Thomaston.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

Washington offered Knox a position as a commissioner to St. Croix after he resigned as secretary of war, but Knox declined the assignment.

Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

“AFTER HAVING SERVED MY COUNTRY NEARLY TWENTY YEARS, THE GREATEST PORTION OF WHICH UNDER YOUR IMMEDIATE AUSPICES, IT IS WITH EXTREME RELUCTANCE, THAT I FIND MYSELF CONSTRAINED TO WITHDRAW FROM SO HONORABLE A STATION. BUT THE NATURAL AND POWERFUL CLAIMS OF A NUMEROUS FAMILY WILL NO LONGER PERMIT ME TO NEGLECT THEIR ESSENTIAL INTEREST. IN WHATEVER SITUATION I SHALL BE, I SHALL RECOLLECT YOUR CONFIDENCE AND KINDNESS WITH ALL THE POWER AND PURITY OF AFFECTION, OF WHICH A GRATEFUL HEART IS SUSCEPTIBLE.”

—HENRY KNOX TO PRESIDENT WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 28, 1794

Knox and his family moved to Thomaston, Maine, in 1796, where he returned to his business roots. He dabbled in ventures such as brickmaking, cattle raising, shipbuilding, lumbering, and local politics. He served for a short while in the state’s General Court and Governor’s Council. Tragically, his life was cut short.

While visiting a friend on October 22, 1806, he swallowed a chicken bone, which led to an infection and his subsequent death.

Knox left behind an estate that was in dire financial arrears, a pile of debts, and a bad reputation among the local citizenry, who considered him a tyrant. Local people accused him of exploiting workers to enrich himself and of flaunting his wealth. They even threatened at one point to burn him out of what they felt was an ostentatious mansion.

But that did not detract from the fact that Henry Knox was one of the Revolutionary War era’s unsung heroes.