George Washington / Henry Knox

Henry Knox

George Washington

After the successful return of Henry Knox with the cannon and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga, Knox sat down with General Washington and related his experiences.

Washington: Please come in and take your ease.

Knox: I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak with you but knowing how pressing your responsibilities are, I shall be brief and…

Washington: No, you will not be brief but rather long and leisurely. I cannot express how courageous and perhaps foolhardy your actions have been. Upon granting you permission to take on this mission, I must confess, I had little hope that we would have such a grand and felicitous result. Please begin.

Knox: As you know, Sir I was a bookseller by trade but always yearned to do something more to protect this nation of ours. I kept abreast of the siege of April 1775 and the early battles of Lexington and Concord. Being a Bostonian, I was eager to do my part for the effort.

Washington: A young man of twenty-five with enough intelligence to earn a commission in the Continental Army, you did much more than your part. What made you think about the cannon?

Knox: As you know from your experience in the war with the French, the fort at Ticonderoga has a history. When the French, saw how badly the British wanted the fort, the French monarch approved significant expenditures to build up the defenses. Seeing that the French were rebuilding the defenses of the fort made the British want all the more to have it. They finally defeated the French and took possession of it. In 1775, Fort Ticonderoga was in disrepair, but still manned by a token British force. Fort Ticonderoga was still extremely useful to the British as a supply and communication link between Canada and New York. The British garrison of 48 soldiers was surprised by a small force of Green Mountain Boys along with militia volunteers from Massachusetts and Connecticut led by Ethan Allen.

Washington: I know the history of that military turnover. What I do not know was your knowledge of the cannon.

Knox: Forgive me, Sir. I can get long-winded at times. Although a bookshop owner, I have been interested in armament and artillery for years. I learned that the cannon were still in place but were guarded by a relatively small detachment. Since the French seemed to have given up on the fort, I wrote to you for permission to attempt taking the cannon.

Washington: Remind me again of your academic studies.

Knox: Very little formal schooling. I had to leave off my studies at an early age to support my mother. My father had left us to manage on our own. In 1772 I joined the Boston Grenadier Corps, a very respectable regiment, as second in command.

Washington: And where was your knowledge of artillery acquired?

Knox: I not only sold books; I read them, Sir. For years, I studied how the weight of the ball, the thrust and position of the cannon, must be calculated when setting the arc. As a young man, I would practice these notions by heaving a twelve pound iron ball.

Washington: In the style of the ancient Greeks, I suppose.

Knox: Being always a huge lad, I couldn’t succeed very well in the running sports.

Washington: I'm assuming your insight and talents were already in demand by the Grenadier Corps.

Knox: My volunteering for the Continental Army brought me into the company of many great patriots. You appointed me colonel in command of the Continental Regiment of Artillery. There was, however, no artillery in the army assembled at Cambridge, Mass.; it was in enemy hands 300 miles away at Ticonderoga.

Washington: From what I know of the terrain in that section of New York, there is no good season for moving heavy guns. Snow makes the roads impassable in winter and when the snow melts the mud makes the weighty mortars sink and almost impossible to move.   

Knox: The exigencies of war left us little choice of season. We arrived in Ticonderoga in November and spent three months moving about fifty-nine tons of cannon and mortar using whatever means available to us—horse or oxen drawn sledges over terrible roads, boats when necessary over rivers not yet completely frozen, carts through pathless forests. More than once, we believed that we would not complete our mission.

Washington: Please continue.

Knox: Upon reaching Springfield, the morale of the men rose. We managed to move the cannon 300 miles in fifty-six days with the help of oxen and ice sledges and arrived outside Boston on January 25. It wasn’t until a bit more than a month later when powder for the cannon finally arrived, that you gave the order to begin firing on Boston. Up on Dorchester Heights, we were beyond the reach of the British guns. We all cheered in seeing the British load their ships and withdraw to Halifax.

Washington: Due to your patience and forbearance and the hard toil of your men, I was able, in mid-March to stand on Dorchester Heights alongside fifty-nine captured cannon high above the city of Boston, and watch as British troops peacefully evacuate the city after an eleven-month siege.

Knox took part in the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. He joined Washington in the retreat into New Jersey and in the stunning surprise attack and victory against the Hessian garrison at Trenton in December. It was Knox who directed the famous crossing of the Delaware by Washington's army on Christmas night, 1776, and it was his artillery that cut down the Hessians as they emerged sleepily from their quarters. Meanwhile, Congress had promoted him to brigadier general.