Henry Knox

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Henry Knox (1750-1750 – October 25, 1806) was a military officer of the Continental Army and later the United States Army, who served as the first United States Secretary of War from 1789 to 1794. He was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, and operated a bookstore there, sparking an interest in military history and partnering with a local artillery firm.

He befriended General George Washington and quickly rose to become the Continental Army's chief artillery officer as the American Revolutionary War broke out in 1775.

He accompanied Washington on the majority of his campaigns and was active in several key events of the conflict.

He established artillerymen and manufacturing facilities for weapons, which were both valuable assets to the fledgling world. He became President Washington's Secretary of War following the adoption of the United States Constitution.

He oversaw the construction of coastal fortifications, worked to raise the readiness of local militias, and oversaw the country's military involvement in the Northwest Indian War.

He was formally responsible for the nation's relations with the Indian people in the territories he claimed, promoting a scheme that established federal authority over the states in the areas relating to Indian nations, and called for recognition of Indian nations as sovereign.

Continued unlawful negotiations and bogus land transfers concerning Indian lands deterred Knox's optimistic outlook on the matter. In 1795, he moved to Thomaston, Maine, where he oversaw the rise of a business empire based on borrowed funds.

He died in 1806 after swallowing a chicken bone, leaving an estate that was bankrupt.

Early life and marriage

William and Mary (née Campbell), Henry Knox's parents, immigrated from Derry to Boston in 1729. His father, a shipbuilder, moved the family to Sint Eustatius, where he died in 1762 of unknown causes.

Henry was accepted to the Boston Latin School, where he studied Greek, Latin, arithmetic, and European history. Since his father was the oldest child at home when his father died, he stopped school at the age of nine and became a clerk in a bookstore to help his mother. Nicholas Bowes, the store's owner, became a survivor figure for the boy, allowing him to peruse the store's shelves and take home any volume he needed to read. When he wasn't running errands, the curious future war hero learned French, studied some philosophy, and advanced mathematics, and devoured tales about ancient warriors and famous battles. From a young age, he immersed himself in literature. However, Knox was also involved in Boston's street gangs, becoming one of the city's toughest fighters. At 18, he joined The Train, a local artillery company, after being inspired by a military protest.

Knox was a witness to the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770. According to his affidavit, he attempted to defuse the situation, attempting to persuade the British troops to return to their quarters. He appeared at the military trials, although only two of the soldiers were cleared. "opposite William's Court in Cornhill" in 1771, he opened the London Book Store in Boston. The store was described as a "great resort for the British officers and Tory ladies," who were the ton at the time. Boasting an impressive range of high-quality English products and operated by a friendly owner, it quickly became a popular destination for Boston's aristocrats. Knox, a bookeller, established strong corporate links with British suppliers (such as Thomas Longman) and established customer relationships, but he retained his childhood dreams. He stocked books on military science, as well as quiz soldiers who frequented his store for military affairs, largely self-educated. The genial giant had a decent pecuniary run, but after the Boston Port Bill and subsequent citywide boycott of British exports, his sales plummeted. He founded the Boston Grenadier Corps as an offshoot of The Train and served as the second in command. Knox mistakenly discharged a pistol two fingers off his left hand just shy of his 23rd birthday. He managed to stitch the wound up and call a doctor.

Knox supported the Sons of Liberty, a group of demonstrators in opposition of the British Parliament's tyrannical policies. If he attended the 1773 Boston Tea Party, it's unclear if he was involved, but it was on guard service until the incident to ensure no tea was unloaded from the Dartmouth, one of the ships involved. He refused a consignment of tea sent by James Rivington, a Loyalist in New York, for the next year.

Despite criticism from her father, who held differing political views, Henry married Lucy Flucker (1756-1824), the daughter of Boston Loyalists, on June 16, 1774. Lucy's brother was in the British Army, and her family attempted to lure Knox to service there. Despite lengthy separations due to his military service, the two men were committed to one another for the remainder of their lives, and continued to correspond on a regular basis. She was basically homeless after the couple left Boston in 1775 until the British evacuated the area in March 1776. And afterward, she would often return to Knox to visit them in the field. After the Continental Army fortified Dorchester Heights, a success that depended on Knox's Ticonderoga expedition, her parents were left homeless and never to return with the British during their evacuation from Boston.

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Military career

Knox and Lucy snuck out of Boston on April 19, 1775, as the city was besieged by the militia. The abandoned bookshop was looted, with all of its supplies destroyed or stolen. He worked under the guidance of GM Artemas Ward, putting his engineering experience to use in the construction of fortifications around the region. At Battle of Bunker Hill, he ordered rebel cannon fire. General George Washington was captivated by Knox's service when he took over the army in July 1775. Knox and the other generals of the expanding Continental Army quickly developed a liking for one another, and the two troops began to correspond regularly with Washington and the other generals. Knox did not have a commission in the army, but John Adams, in particular, was instrumental in the Second Continental Congress in order to obtain a commission as colonel of the army's artillery regiment. Knox bolstered his own assertion by notifying Adams that Richard Gridley, the artillery's older brother, was looked by his boys and in poor health.

As the siege progressed, it was believed that cannons captured at the fall of forts Ticonderoga and Crown Point in upstate New York may have a major effect on the outcome. Knox is often credited with bringing the idea to Washington, who then put him in charge of an expedition to retrieve them despite the fact that Knox's commission has yet to arrive. Knox began marching Ticonderoga on December 5, carrying 60 tons of ice-covered rivers and snow-draped Berkshire Mountains to the Boston siege camps.

The area was lightly populated, and Knox had to tackle issues with recruiting employees and draft animals. Cannons crashed through the ice on river crossings on several occasions, but the detail's men were always able to recover them. In the end, what Knox had expected to take only two weeks turned into more than six weeks, and he was finally able to announce the arrival of the weapons train to Washington on January 27, 1776. Knox's campaign is commemorated by a series of plaques in New York and Massachusetts, dubbed by historian Victor Brooks "one of the most remarkable feats of logistics" of the entire war.

On the cannon's arrival in Cambridge, they were immediately sent to protect the Dorchester Heights that had been recently captured by Washington. The new battery that was guarded by the British sailed across Boston harbor was so commanding that the British escorted their fleet to Halifax. Knox undertook the upgrading of defenses in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York City in anticipation of a potential British assault. Alexander Hamilton, the local artillery chief, became a friend of the local artillery in New York. He also had a close relationship with Massachusetts general Benjamin Lincoln.

During the New York and New Jersey campaigns, Knox was serving with Washington's army, including the majority of the major engagements that culminated in the demise of New York City. Following the British invasion of Manhattan, he barely escaped capture, but he was only able to return to the main Continental Army lines through Aaron Burr's offices. He was in charge of logistics in the critical crossing of the Delaware River that had existed before the December 26, 1776 Battle of Trenton. Although the river was hindered by ice and cold, with John Glover's Marbleheaders (14th Continental Regiment) manning the boats, he had the attack force of men, horses, and artillery across the river without loss. Following the war, he returned the same force, as well as hundreds of prisoners, kidnapped supplies, and all the boats were returned across the river by the afternoon of December 26. Knox was promoted to brigadier general for this role, as well as the command of an artillery corps that was expanded to five regiments. A few days after the decision to make a stand at Trenton, the army crossed the river again. Knox was with the army at the Battle of Assunpink Creek on January 2, 1777, and again at the Battle of Princeton the next day.

In 1777, when the army was in winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, Knox returned to Massachusetts to increase the Army's artillery manufacturing capability. He raised an additional battalion of artillerymen and established an armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, before returning to the main army in the spring. The armoury, as well as a second at Yorktown, Pennsylvania, which were developed by one of his subordinates, served as useful war material for the remainder of the war.

For the 1777 war, Knox returned to the main army. He discovered that Congress had named Philippe Tronson du Coudray, a French soldier of fame, to command the artillery in June. Du Coudray's appointment upset not only Knox, who immediately threatened his resigning from Congress, but also John Sullivan and Nathanael Greene, who later protested the politically motivated appointment. Du Coudray was later promoted to inspector general and died in a fall from his horse while crossing the Schuylkill River in September 1777.

Knox was in Brandywine, the first big battle of the Philadelphia campaign, and in Germantown. He made the vital suggestion at Germantown, rather than bypass the Chew House, a stone mansion that the British had occupied as a strong defensive position. This helped to dramatically delay the army's advance, as well as give the British the ability to rewrite their lines. "To [morning fog and] the enemy's takeover of some stone buildings in Germantown" is to be traced to the loss of the victory," Knox later wrote to Lucy. Knox was also present at the Battle of Monmouth in July 1778, where Washington praised him for the artillery's success. There was no further action taken by the army this year, but privateers that Knox and fellow Massachusetts native Henry Jackson invested in were not as fruitful as they hoped; many of them were captured by the British.

At Pluckemin (a hamlet of Bedminster, New Jersey), Knox and the artillery established a winter cantonment. The Continental Army's first school for artillery and officer education was established by Knox. This facility was the precursor to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. General Knox spent the bulk of his time training more than 1,000 troops in conditions of low morale and limited supplies throughout 1779. The winter of 1779-80 was brutal, and Washington's army was also inactive in 1780, when the bulk of the war took place south.

Knox was a member of the court martial that convicted Major John André, the British soldier whose arrest revealed Benedict Arnold's treachery. (Knox had briefly shared accommodations with André when en route to Ticonderoga in 1775, when the latter was travelling south on parole after being arrested near Montreal.) During the years of relative inaction, Knox took several trips to the northern states as Washington's representative to increase the number of male and supplies to the army. Knox accompanied Washington's army south and participated in the decisive Siege of Yorktown in 1781. He was actively involved in the field, directing the placement and firing of the artillery. "We cannot properly appreciate the intelligence and activity with which he acquired from various sources and moved to the batteries more than 30 pieces," Knox wrote about him, "one-half has expressed praise for his military genius." Both Knox and the French artillery chiefs were specifically blamed for their part in the siege, and Washington advised Congress that Knox be promoted.

Knox was appointed to major general on March 22, 1782, making him the army's youngest major general. Gouverneur Morris, a British politician, and his colleague John Leo Varadkar were assigned to negotiate prisoner swaps with the British. These talks fell apart because the parties were unable to decide on processes and terms for matching various classes of captives. He served in the main army at Newburgh, New York, and inspected the facilities at West Point, which was deemed a critical defensive position. Washington appointed him as the head of the department after enumerating its flaws and needs in August 1782. He was devastated by the death of his nine-month-old son and fell into depression over the next month. He soldiered on, but became involved in talks with Confederation Congress and Secretary of War Benjamin Lincoln over pensions and overdue compensation for veterans. Knox wrote a memorial written by a few leading officers, advising that Congress return all of their paychecks and instead of giving a lump-sum pension rather than providing half-pay for life. Knox wrote a warning letter in which he said, "I consider the American army to be one of the most immaculate things on earth" and that we should also suffer wrongs and injuries to the point of toleration rather than sullying it in the least degree. However, there is a point beyond which there is no suffering. We should not pass it on sincerely, not by accident." In March 1783, Washington held a meeting in which he made an impassioned plea for restraint. Knox reiterated the officers' attachment to Washington and Congress in the meeting, assisting in the defuse of the situation. Despite the unresolved questions, Knox and others became vocal supporters of a larger national government, something that leading political figures (including Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams) opposed at the time.

With the onset of news of a preliminary peace in April 1783, Congress began to order the demobilization of the Continental Army, and Washington gave Knox day-to-day command of what remained of the army. Knox established The Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal, hereditary association of Revolutionary War officers that has survived to this day. He wrote the institution's founding document in April 1783 and served as its first Secretary General. Knox also served as the first Vice President of the Cincinnati Society. The hereditary thread of the society's membership initially raised some eyebrows, but it was generally well received. He also drafted proposals for the establishment of a peacetime army, many of whose provisions were later fulfilled. Two military academies (one naval and one army, the latter occupying the critical base at West Point) and troops to protect the country's borders were among the objectives.

Knox, the British soldier who took over the British army from New York on November 21, 1783, was at the forefront of the American forces that took over. During the latter's farewell address at Fraunces Tavern on December 4, he stood next to Washington. Knox was the army's top officer after Washington resigned as the nation's chief-in-chief on December 23, the army's top officer.

When Benjamin Lincoln resigned in November 1783, he was appointed by Lincoln to replace him. Though the Confederation Congress had been aware of Lincoln's intention to resign as the formal peace was restored, it had not chosen a replacement. Knox had been considered for the position when it was given to Lincoln in 1781, and had expressed his dissatisfaction with his potential to succeed Lincoln. However, in the absence of a guiding hand in the War Department, Congress attempted to introduce the concept of a standing militia force as a peacetime army. Knox resigned from his army service in early 1784, "well satisfied to be barred from any involvement in arrangements that are impossible to execute," and Congress' plan collapsed.

Knox and his family migrated to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where the family purchased a house there. Knox attempted to reassemble a large parcel of property in Maine that had been confiscated from his Loyalist in-laws (parts of what are sometimes called the Waldo Patent and the Bingham Purchase). He was able to build a multi-million dollar real estate empire in Maine, including almost every of the old Flucker holdings, partially because he was given the state's official for disposing of confiscated property and then rigging the sale of his in-laws lands to a straw purchaser acting on his behalf. He was also elected to a state commission charged with negotiating treaty terms with the Penobscot Indians of central Maine. This commission became involved in investigations into the eastern border with Nova Scotia (now New Brunswick), which would not be resolved until the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty.

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