Henry Knox (46 page)

Knox is understandably overshadowed by George Washington, and he himself willingly relegated his career to a supporting role to the commander in chief during his lifetime. In his letters, Knox was quick to acknowledge his great debt to Washington. He believed that for the good of the country, Washington's reputation should be canonized in order to cement the union behind a single glorious leader and to raise American prestige in the eyes of the world.

Yet the success of the Continental Army was obviously due to the heroics of many brilliant patriots. Washington delegated a great deal of responsibility to subordinates, and he trusted no one with more critical assignments than Knox. In many instances, Washington depended on Knox to save the army, and in doing so, he placed the fate of the country in his hands. Imagine Washington's thoughts as he decided to chance everything on the ability of twenty-five-year-old Knox to find a way to drag nearly sixty tons of cannon from Ticonderoga over the Berkshire Mountains in order to keep alive the American cause. Consider that in Washington's most desperate moment, Christmas 1776, he turned to Knox and asked him to get the troops and tons of cannon across the freezing Delaware River in an attempt to surprise the Hessians at Trenton. If Knox had failed, what would have been the fate of the army or of American independence?

Washington's reputation as a military leader rests on the success of officers and soldiers such as Knox, who defied impossible odds and accomplished amazing feats. It may be tempting to believe that the men under Washington served in perfunctory roles as dutiful soldiers, merely following orders with little need of ingenuity, inspiration, and vision. This was certainly not true of Henry Knox.

He applied remarkable creativity and imagination to every endeavor. It is difficult today to envision the United States as the undeveloped country that it was in 1775, lacking heavy industry, foundries, gunpowder manufacturers, munitions, ordnance depots, arsenals, and government ships. At the time, the country even lacked the ability to cast cannons or excavate for iron, bronze, or copper. Under colonial rule, America was prohibited from developing the key tools to build an army or a navy.

Unlike any other artillery commander in American history, Henry Knox had no foundation to build on. He not only had to educate himself in the use of all the weapons at his disposal, but he also had to develop manufacturing and production processes to build them. No detail was too minute for him to grasp, and no strategy was too large for his imagination.

Knox, of course, did not have the benefit of a military school to guide his education. He taught himself strategy, tactics, and the calculus involved in firing cannons. He drove himself to learn every aspect of his craft, even setting up military laboratories and learning all the science behind making munitions.

As an artillery commander, Knox was innovative and skilled. He favored the use of highly mobile brass cannons rather than more powerful iron guns, and advocated using cannons to lead charges rather than in support of infantry. Napoleon would later use this same strategy to great effect in Europe.

As a military commander, Knox was well liked and respected by his men and by his colleagues in Washington's military family. He developed a wide circle of deep friendships, many of which lasted for years after the war. His corps was often cited as exemplary and as well trained as any in the Continental Army. To Knox's lasting credit, the American artillery corps performed on par with the formidable French at Yorktown and outdueled the British. According to the Marquis de Lafayette, Knox's gunners even exceeded their French counterparts.

Knox never led troops into battle. Throughout the war, he remained at Washington's side in a supporting role. As a strategist, he was well read and by all accounts possessed strong judgment. In planning for battle at councils of war, he leaned on the side of caution. Even when faced with tremendous political pressure, Knox insisted that the American army refrain from staking all in one decisive battle; instead it should remain on the defensive and invite the British to attack. Some critics, including Alexander Hamilton, thought that Knox was overly cautious and believed that Washington should take greater risks.

It is impossible to ascertain today the proper level of caution, but it can be noted that Washington did decide to wait patiently for the opportune moment and never gambled on a tempting offensive strike until blessed with favorable odds.

When that opportunity arose in 1781, Knox acted decisively and moved the American artillery from upstate New York to Yorktown, Virginia. At the Battle of Yorktown, he personally directed his artillery guns and was a hands-on commander who haunted the trenches and even aimed the cannons under fire. Knox was an exceptionally versatile commander, an expert in every branch of the service and a skilled engineer, artilleryman, strategist, and ordnance master.

As the war drew to a close and Washington stepped down from command, he turned the army over to Knox, who was given the assignment of reducing
it to 700 men. He demonstrated a prophetic vision as a statesman. While serving as secretary at war under the confederation government, Knox realized that he needed to redefine perceptions about the army to suit the needs of a democratic republic. Many prominent American leaders wanted to disband the army completely and viewed any force as antithetical to representative government. Knox created a vision of a new kind of army in which soldiers were instilled with the nation's most cherished values. He believed that soldiers could be trained to fight to preserve political ideals rather than geographic boundary lines, to love liberty more than personal ambition, and to value honor above greed and the spoils of war.

That vision of the American soldier continues today. For the past two centuries, U.S. soldiers have exemplified patriotism and have professed an ardent love of liberty. Needless to say, American soldiers have marched into battle for the sake of defending the American principles of liberty, and many have given their lives for the sake of preserving freedom. Today, the very picture of patriotism is often that of a soldier. It is difficult to envision a time in America when politicians feared that soldiers would not feel a proper attachment to their country.

Knox was among the first who advocated drafting a new constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation. Even before the end of the Revolution, he wrote a letter to Gouverneur Morris recommending that a convention be held for that very purpose. Four years later, Morris would draft most of the language for the U.S. Constitution.

As war secretary in the Confederation government, Knox favored a regular army despite strong opposition from many in Congress. He argued the need for a force to deal with disputes between settlers and American Indians and suggested sending officers and soldiers to live in the frontier to help train militias.

Knox had mixed success as secretary of the United States Department of War during the Washington administration. He built up the army, laid out frontier fortifications in the West, and set up coastal and harbor defenses along the East Coast. But he had only uneven results in dealing with the Indian tribes. He established an enlightened policy for dealing with them, which later government leaders failed to follow or live up to. Knox held the rights of Indians to be equal with those of white settlers and demanded that crimes committed against the tribes be punished.

His warm, gregarious personality helped him negotiate several treaties with tribes in the southwestern region of the country and in the Ohio Territory. But
Knox oversaw two disastrous expeditions against the hostile Miami tribes near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was plagued by incompetent subordinates.

Perhaps his greatest achievement as war secretary was the launching of the U.S. Navy. Knox gambled on building super-size frigates, a move that many top shipwrights warned against. His intuition paid off as America soon became engaged in an undeclared naval war with France. American frigates that he requisitioned immediately established their presence on the high seas. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who each had opposed a navy, came to be thankful that Knox had won the political battle over the issue.

Knox found politics distasteful, and understandably did not enjoy the criticism leveled by the press. None of the major leaders in Washington's administration felt satisfied in their positions. The president regretted serving a second term, and Knox, Jefferson, and Hamilton turned in letters of resignation long before Washington left office. As a member of the Federalist Party, Knox was criticized in the Republican press controlled by Thomas Jefferson, who appears to have felt no personal animosity to Knox, only political antipathy. Knox's reputation through the years has undoubtedly suffered from the appraisals of Jefferson, who had little respect for military accomplishments. Washington's reputation also suffers from similar criticisms leveled by Jefferson. The validity of Jefferson's assessments of Knox must be weighed against his lifetime of remarkable achievements. As is the case with most praise or criticism, they each provide a prism too narrow in scope to render a full portrait of a life.

Henry Knox excelled at every task given him in service to his country. He placed the nation on solid footing in every venture he launched, from the artillery corps in the Continental Army to the navy in the 1790s. It is easy to take for granted his efforts simply because success is often quiet while failure is conspicuous, and it can be tempting to view the projects he guided as mystically destined for glory. Yet an examination of the historical record shows that his achievements were anything but foregone conclusions. He took great risks and remained a relatively obscure figure to historians because his endeavors were not plagued with problems. The fire at the U.S. War Office in November 1800 that destroyed all the department's records also served to obscure his record.

In the pantheon of Founding Fathers, exclusive membership often is reserved for the politicians who signed the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. But on July 4, 1776, thousands of soldiers—Henry Knox
among them—faced the most formidable army in the world. The contributions of soldiers standing in the field are no less significant than those of the delegates who penned their names to the Declaration. At the time the Constitution was adopted, Knox was serving as one of the few national officers in the country, and he had played a key role in spearheading the new framework of government. Knox's career crosses the traditional boundaries between soldier and statesman, and his contribution is difficult to categorize.

Perhaps it is best to imagine his booming voice piercing through the howling wind and falling snow, directing the shivering patriot soldiers as they embarked to cross the Delaware on Christmas night in 1776, and remember a man who risked everything he had for the sake of freedom and his country.

CHAPTER 1—LOVE AND WAR

1
. Henry Knox letter to David McClure,
Henry Knox Papers
[hereafter
HKP
], January 25, 1789.

2
. Boston Latin School website,
www.bls.org
.

3
. Samuel Adams,
The Writings of Samuel Adams
, ed. Alonzo Cushing [hereafter
Writings
], vol. 2, January 7, 1771.

4
. George Bancroft,
History of America
[hereafter
History
] (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1882), vol. 3, p. 372.

5
. Hiller B. Zobell,
The Boston Massacre
(New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), p. 195.

6
. Ibid.

7
. Bancroft,
History
, vol. 3, pp. 374–375.

8
. Ibid.

9
.
Boston Gazette
, March 12, 1770.

10
. Adams,
Writings
, vol. 2, January 7, 1771.

11
. Francis S. Drake,
Life and Correspondence of Henry Knox
[hereafter
Life and Correspondence
] (Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1873), p. 12.

12
. Ibid.

13
. Noah Brooks,
Henry Knox
(Cranbury, N.J.: Scholar's Bookshelf, 2000), p. 14.

14
. Drake,
Life and Correspondence
, p. 16.

15
. Ibid., p. 25.

16
. Ibid., p. 16.

17
. Ibid.

18
. Brooks,
Henry Knox
, p. 24.

19
. Wright & Gill to Henry Knox,
HKP
, July 14, 1774.

20
. Brooks,
Henry Knox
, p. 14.

21
. Thomas Jefferson,
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
(Monticello ed.), vol. 1, pp. 12–13.

22
. Brooks,
Henry Knox
, p. 25.

23
. Ibid., p. 15.

24
. Theodore Thayer,
Nathanael Greene, Strategist of the American Revolution
(New York: Twain Publishers, 1960), p. 67; Terry Golway,
Washington's General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution
(New York: Owl Book, Henry Holt and Company, 2006), p. 67.

25
. Drake,
Life and Correspondence
, pp. 14–15.

26
. Ibid., p. 127.

27
. Alexander Hamilton,
The Works of Alexander Hamilton
, Federal ed. (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1904), vol. 1, p. 20.

CHAPTER 2—TICONDEROGA

1
. Bancroft,
History of America
, vol. 4, p. 168.

2
. Jane E. Triber,
A True Republican: The Life of Paul Revere
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998), p. 118.

3
. Drake,
Life and Correspondence
, p. 18.

4
. Ibid., p. 19.

5
. George Washington, General Orders, July 29, 1775,
George Washington Papers
[hereafter
GWP
].