Siege of Boston The war broke out with the
Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Knox and Lucy snuck out of Boston, and he joined the militia army
besieging the city. His abandoned bookshop was looted and all of its stock destroyed or stolen. He served under General
Artemas Ward, putting his acquired engineering skills to use developing fortifications around the city. He directed American cannon fire at the
Battle of Bunker Hill. General
George Washington arrived in July 1775 to take command of the army, and he was impressed by the work that Knox had done. The two also immediately developed a liking for one another, and Knox began to interact regularly with Washington and the other generals of the developing
Continental Army. Knox did not have a commission in the army, but
John Adams in particular worked in the
Second Continental Congress to acquire a commission for him as colonel of the army's artillery regiment. Knox bolstered his own case by writing to Adams that
Richard Gridley, the older leader of the artillery under Ward, was disliked by his men and in poor health. " As the siege wore on, the idea arose that cannon recently captured at the fall of forts
Ticonderoga and
Crown Point in upstate New York could have a decisive impact on its outcome. Knox is generally credited with suggesting the prospect to Washington, who thereupon put him in charge of an expedition to retrieve them even though Knox's commission had not yet arrived. Reaching Ticonderoga on December 5, Knox commenced what came to be known as the
noble train of artillery, hauling 60 tons of cannon and other armaments by horse-drawn and ox-drawn sleds across some of ice-covered rivers and snow-draped
Berkshire Mountains to the Boston siege camps. The region was lightly populated and Knox had to overcome difficulties hiring personnel and draft animals. On several occasions, cannon crashed through the ice on river crossings, but the detail's men were always able to recover them. In the end, what Knox had expected to take just two weeks actually took more than six, and he was finally able to report the arrival of the weapons train to Washington on January 27, 1776. Historian Victor Brooks writes that this was "one of the most stupendous feats of logistics" of the entire war, and Knox's effort is commemorated by a series of plaques marking the
Henry Knox Trail in New York and Massachusetts. The cannon were immediately deployed to fortify the
Dorchester Heights recently taken by Washington. The battery's position over Boston harbor led the British to evacuate Boston for
Halifax, Nova Scotia. With the siege ended, Knox undertook the improvement of defenses in
Connecticut,
Rhode Island, and
New York in anticipation of a possible British assault. In New York he became friends with
Alexander Hamilton, commander of the local artillery. He also established a close friendship with Massachusetts general
Benjamin Lincoln.
New York and New Jersey campaign Knox was with Washington's army during the
New York and New Jersey campaign, including most of the major engagements resulting in the loss of New York City. He narrowly escaped capture following the British
invasion of Manhattan, only making it back to the main Continental Army lines through the offices of
Aaron Burr. He was in charge of logistics in the critical
crossing of the Delaware River that preceded the December 26, 1776
Battle of Trenton. Though hampered by ice and cold, with
John Glover's Marbleheaders (
14th Continental Regiment) manning the boats, he got the attack force of men, horses and artillery across the river without loss. Following the battle he returned the same force, along with hundreds of prisoners, captured supplies and all the boats back across the river by the afternoon of December 26. Knox was promoted to
brigadier general for this accomplishment, and given command of an artillery corps expanded to five regiments. The army again crossed the river a few days later after the decision to make a stand at Trenton. Knox was with the army at the January 3, 1777 at the
Battle of the Assunpink Creek, and again the next day at the
Battle of Princeton. 's 1819
The Passage of the Delaware (
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) In 1777, while the army was in winter quarters at
Morristown, New Jersey, Knox returned to Massachusetts to improve 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. That armory, and a second at
Yorktown, Pennsylvania established by one of his subordinates, remained valuable sources of war material for the rest of the war.
Philadelphia campaign Knox returned to the main army for the 1777 campaign. In June he learned that Congress had appointed
Philippe Charles Tronson du Coudray, a French soldier of fortune, to command the artillery. Du Coudray's appointment upset not only Knox, who immediately threatened his resignation to Congress, but also
John Sullivan and
Nathanael Greene, who also protested the politically motivated appointment. George Washington also wrote Congress on behalf of Knox on May 31, 1777. Du Coudray was subsequently reassigned to the post of inspector general, and died in a fall from his horse while crossing the
Schuylkill River in September 1777. Knox was present at
Brandywine, the first major battle of the
Philadelphia campaign, and at
Germantown. At Germantown he made the critical suggestion, approved by Washington, to capture rather than bypass the
Chew House, a stone mansion that the British had occupied as a strong defensive position. This turned out to significantly delay the American advance and gave the British an opportunity to reform their lines. Knox afterward wrote to Lucy, "To [morning fog and] the enemy's taking possession of some stone buildings in Germantown, is to be ascribed the loss of the victory." Knox was also present at the
Battle of Monmouth in July 1778, where Washington commended him for the artillery's performance. The army saw no further action that year, but
privateers that Knox and fellow Massachusetts native
Henry Jackson invested in were not as successful as they hoped; many of them were captured by the British.
Artillery training school and Yorktown Knox and the artillery established a winter
cantonment at Pluckemin (a hamlet of
Bedminster, New Jersey). There Knox established the Continental Army's first school for artillery and officer training. This facility was the precursor to the
United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. While there, through the summer of 1779, General Knox spent most of his time training more than 1,000 soldiers in conditions of low morale and scarce supplies. Conditions were exceptionally harsh in the winter of 1779–80, and Washington's army was again largely inactive in 1780 while the main action in the war
moved south. In late September 1780, Knox was a member of the court martial that convicted British Major
John André, whose arrest exposed the treachery of Benedict Arnold. (Knox had briefly shared accommodations with André while en route to Ticonderoga in 1775, when André was traveling south on parole after being captured near Montreal.) During these years of relative inaction Knox made several trips to the northern states as Washington's representative to increase the flow of men and supplies to the army. In 1781, Knox accompanied Washington's army south and participated in the decisive
siege of Yorktown. and "one-half has been said in commending his military genius. Washington specifically called out both Knox and the French artillery chief for their roles in the siege,
Demobilization Knox was promoted to
major general on March 22, 1782; he became the army's youngest major general. He and Congressman
Gouverneur Morris were assigned to negotiate prisoner exchanges with the British. These negotiations failed because the sides could not agree on processes and terms for matching various classes of captives. He joined the main army at
Newburgh, New York, and inspected the facilities at
West Point, considered a crucial defensive position. After enumerating its defects and needs, Washington appointed him its commander in August 1782. The next month he was devastated by the death of his nine-month-old son, and fell into a depression. He soldiered on, however, becoming involved in negotiations with the
Confederation Congress and
Secretary of War Benjamin Lincoln over the issue of pensions and overdue compensation for the military. Knox wrote a memorial, signed by a number of high-profile officers, suggesting that Congress pay all back pay immediately and offer a lump-sum pension rather than providing half-pay for life. The unwillingness of Congress to deal with the issue prompted Knox to write a warning letter, in which he wrote "I consider the reputation of the American army as one of the most immaculate things on earth, and that we should even suffer wrongs and injuries to the utmost verge of toleration rather than sully it in the least degree. But there is a point beyond which there is no sufferance. I pray we will sincerely not pass it." When
rumors of mutiny in the higher rank circulated in March 1783, Washington held a meeting in which he made an impassioned plea for restraint. In the meeting, Knox introduced motions reaffirming the officers' attachment to Washington and Congress, helping to defuse the crisis. Because of the unresolved issues, however, Knox and others became vigorous proponents of a stronger national government, something which leading political leaders (including
Thomas Jefferson,
John Hancock, and
Samuel Adams) opposed at the time. With the arrival 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. During this time Knox organized The Society of the Cincinnati, a fraternal, hereditary society whose original purpose was to support the widows and orphans of Revolutionary War officers. The Society survives to this day. He authored the society's founding document, the Institution, in April 1783 and served as its first Secretary General. Knox also served as The
Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati's first Vice President. The hereditary nature of the society's membership initially raised some eyebrows, but it was generally well received. He also drafted plans for the establishment of a peacetime army, many of whose provisions were eventually implemented. These plans included two military academies (one naval and one army, the latter occupying the critical base at West Point), and bodies of troops to maintain the nation's borders. When the
British withdrew the last of their troops from New York on November 21, 1783, Knox was at the head of the American forces that took over. He stood next to Washington during the latter's farewell address on December 4 at
Fraunces Tavern. After
Washington resigned his commission as commander-in-chief on December 23, Knox became the
senior officer of the army. The post of
Secretary at War became available when
Benjamin Lincoln resigned in November 1783, and Lincoln had recommended Knox to follow him. Knox returned to
Massachusetts, where the family established a home in Dorchester. Knox worked to reassemble a large parcel of land in
Maine (parts of what are sometimes called the
Waldo Patent and the
Bingham Purchase) that had been confiscated from his Loyalist in-laws. He was able to assemble a vast multi-million acre real estate empire in
Maine, including almost all of the old Flucker holdings, in part by getting appointed the state's official for disposing of seized lands, and then transferring the sale of his in-laws' lands to a
straw buyer acting on his behalf. This commission also became involved in investigating issues surrounding the eastern border with
Nova Scotia (now
New Brunswick), a matter that would not be resolved until the 1842
Webster-Ashburton Treaty. ==Secretary of War==