Henry Knox

When the war broke out with the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, Knox and Lucy snuck out of Boston, and Knox joined the militia army besieging the city.[23] His abandoned bookshop was looted and all of its stock destroyed or stolen.[24] He served under General Artemas Ward, putting his acquired engineering skills to use developing fortifications around the city.[25] He directed rebel cannon fire at the Battle of Bunker Hill.[26] When General George Washington arrived in July 1775 to take command of the army, he was impressed by the work 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.[27] Knox did not have a commission in the army, but John Adams in particular worked in the Second Continental Congress to acquire for him a commission 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.[28]

An ox team hauls cannon toward Boston

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,[29] who thereupon put him in charge of an expedition to retrieve them even though Knox's commission had not yet arrived.[30] Reaching Ticonderoga on December 5, Knox commenced what came to be known as the noble train of artillery, hauling by ox-drawn sled 60 tons of cannon and other armaments across some 300 miles (480 km) of ice-covered rivers and snow-draped Berkshire Mountains to the Boston siege camps.[31][32]

The region was lightly populated and Knox had to overcome difficulties hiring personnel and draft animals.[33] On several occasions cannon crashed through the ice on river crossings, but the detail's men were always able to recover them.[34] 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.[35] Called by historian Victor Brooks "one of the most stupendous feats of logistics" of the entire war,[36] Knox's effort is commemorated by a series of plaques marking the Henry Knox Trail in New York and Massachusetts.[37]

Upon the cannon's arrival in Cambridge they were immediately deployed to fortify the Dorchester Heights recently taken by Washington. So commanding was the new battery over Boston harbor the British withdrew their fleet to Halifax.[38] With the siege ended, Knox undertook the improvement of defenses in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New York City in anticipation of a possible British assault.[39] In New York he met Alexander Hamilton, commander of the local artillery. The two men formed a close friendship that lasted until Hamilton's death in 1804.[40] During his military service Knox also established a close friendship with fellow Massachusetts native Benjamin Lincoln.[41][42]

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.[43] 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.[44] 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 2, 1777 at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek, and again the next day at the Battle of Princeton.[45]

Men are visible behind Washington working to unload cannon in Thomas Sully'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.[46] 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.[47]

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. 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.[48]

Knox was present at Brandywine, the first major battle of the Philadelphia campaign, and at Germantown.[49] 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.[50] This turned out to significantly delay the army's 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."[51] Knox was also present at the Battle of Monmouth in July 1778, where Washington commended him for the artillery's performance.[52] 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.[53]

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 is considered the precursor to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.[54] 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.[55]

In late September 1780 Knox was a member of the court martial that convicted Major John André, the British officer whose arrest exposed the treachery of Benedict Arnold.[56] (Knox had, in an interesting twist, briefly shared accommodations with André while en route to Ticonderoga in 1775, when the latter was traveling south on parole after being captured near Montreal.)[57] 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.[58] He was personally active in the field, directing the placement and aiming of the artillery. The Marquis de Chastellux, with whom Knox established a good friendship, wrote of Knox, "We cannot sufficiently admire the intelligence and activity with which he collected from different places and transported to the batteries more than thirty pieces ...",[59] and "one-half has been said in commending his military genius.[60] Washington specifically called out both Knox and the French artillery chief for their roles in the siege,[60] and recommended to Congress that Knox be promoted.[61]

Steel engraving of Henry Knox by Alonzo Chappel

Knox was promoted to major general on March 22, 1782; he became the army's youngest major general.[62] 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.[63] 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.[64] 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.[65] 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."[66] 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.[67] 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.[68]

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 of Revolutionary War officers that survives to this day. He authored the society's founding document, the Institution,[69] in April 1783 and served as its first Secretary General.[70][71][72] Knox also served as The Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati's first Vice President.[73] The hereditary nature of the society's membership initially raised some eyebrows, but it was generally well received.[74] 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.[75]

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.[58]

The post of Secretary at War became available when Benjamin Lincoln resigned in November 1783, and Lincoln had recommended Knox to follow him.[74] Although the Confederation Congress had been aware of Lincoln's intent to resign when the formal peace arrived, it had not named a successor. Knox had been considered for the job when it was given to Lincoln in 1781, and expressed his interest in succeeding Lincoln. However, in the absence of a guiding hand in the War Department, Congress attempted to implement an idea for a standing militia force as a peacetime army. Knox resigned his army commission in early 1784, "well satisfied to be excluded from any responsibility in arrangements which it is impossible to execute", and Congress' idea failed.[76]

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 rigging the sale of his in-laws' lands to a straw buyer acting on his behalf.[77] He was also appointed to a state commission responsible for negotiating treaty provisions with the Penobscot Indians of central Maine.[78] 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.[79]

Knox was responsible for managing the nation's relations with the Native Americans resident in lands it claimed, following a 1789 act of U.S. Congress.[97] Knox, in several documents drafted for Washington and Congress, articulated the nation's early Native American policy. He stated that Indian nations were sovereign and possessed the land they occupied, and that the federal government (and not the states) should therefore be responsible for dealings with them. These policies were implemented in part by the passage of the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790, which forbade the sale of Native American lands except in connection with a treaty with the federal government. Knox wrote, "The Indians, being the prior occupants, possess the right to the soil. It cannot be taken from them except by their consent, or by rights of conquest in case of a just war. To dispossess them on any other principle would be a great violation of the fundamental laws of nature."[98] Historian Robert Miller claims that statements like these seem to support indigenous rights to land, but were ignored in the practice of the Doctrine of Discovery, which came to govern the taking of Native lands.[99]

American Indian wars, including the Cherokee–American wars and the Northwest Indian War, would occupy much of his tenure. During the years of the Confederation, there had been insufficient Congressional support for any significant action against the Nations on the western frontier. The British supported the northwestern tribes from frontier bases that they continued to occupy after the Revolutionary War ended (in violation of the Treaty of Paris), and the Cherokee and Creek continued to contest illegal encroachment of colonial settlers on their lands.[100] In October 1790 Knox organized a campaign led by General Josiah Harmar into the Northwest Territory in retaliation for Native American raids against colonial settlers in that territory and that of present-day Kentucky. That campaign failed. A second campaign was organized by Knox, financed by William Duer, and to be led by territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair. Knox and Duer failed to provide enough supplies for the Army,[101] which led to the American Army's greatest defeat in history. These campaigns failed to pacify the Native Americans, and Knox was widely blamed for the failure to protect the frontier.

Seeking to close the issue before he left office, he organized an expedition led by Anthony Wayne that brought the conflict to a meaningful end with the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers.[102][103] Wayne's "troops had burned 'immense fields of corn' for a stretch of about fifty miles along the river", in a move that affected civilian non-combatants. The result of American military action in the Northwest led to the Treaty of Greenville, which forced the defeated Native Americans to cede lands in the Ohio area. The bloody campaigns that Secretary Knox oversaw in some cases involved armies many times larger than later battles in the 1870s.[104][105]

The Native American nations refused to be removed from their lands without a fight, and they opposed the Americans' attempts to forcefully remove them in warfare, by trickery or by treaties, since they had owned and lived on the lands for thousands of years. One group of Americans wanted direct "Indian Removal" and the mass extermination of any tribe on land it wanted; Washington and Secretary Knox also wanted the lands. They generally (though not always) felt the use of force would be too costly to Americans, and sought other means to take Native American lands.[106] Instead, Knox at first recommended a continuation of previous policies of the Thirteen Colonies, furnishing the Native nations with livestock, farming implements, and missionaries, in order to pacify them.[107] After failing to appease the Cherokee and Creek with a large cache of gifts in 1789, Knox eventually signed the Treaty of New York (1790) on behalf of the nation, ending conflict with some, but not all, Cherokee tribal units.[108] Of the genocide of the native populations in the nation's most heavily populated areas, Knox wrote, "A future historian may mark the causes of this destruction of the human race in sable colors."[109] Noam Chomsky claims that the nation's leaders "knew what they were doing", and often used language saying they were the natives' "benefactors", "philanthropists and humanitarians", when in reality they were engaged in the "genocidal practices" of extermination and "Indian Removal".[110] In fact, Knox said how the American government and settlers were treating the Indian tribes were so harmful that "our modes...have been more destructive to the Indian natives than the conduct of the conquerors of Mexico and Peru". He went on to cite the fact that where there was white settlement, there was "the utter extirpation" of natives, or almost none left alive.[111] Regardless of whether the Americans wanted to obtain Native American lands by purchase, conquest or other means, "there would be no lasting peace while land remained the object of American Indian policy", which continued after Knox left office.[112] Washington's policies, as carried out by Secretary Knox, set the stage for the rise of Tecumseh. Many thousands of Native Americans refused to accept treaties, claiming that they had not approved them and that their only purpose was to remove them from their lands. They specifically cited the Treaty of Greenville, and reoccupied ancestral lands, beginning renewed resistance in the Northwest that was finally crushed in the War of 1812.

On January 2, 1795, Knox left the government and returned to his home in Thomaston, District of Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts, to devote himself to caring for his growing family. He was succeeded in the post of Secretary of War by Timothy Pickering.