The LuLac Edition #5, 553, January 24th, 2026

 

HENRY KNOX

MUNITION MAN

 

Henry Knox was an American military officer, politician, bookseller, and a Founding Father of the United States. Knox, born in Boston, became a senior general of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, serving as chief of artillery in all of George Washington's campaigns.

Knox was born and raised in Boston where he owned and operated a bookstore, cultivating an interest in military history and joining a local artillery company. He was also on the scene of the 1770 Boston Massacre. He was barely 25 when the Revolutionary War broke out in 1775, but he engineered the transport of what became the "noble train of artillery", British ordnance captured from Fort Ticonderoga in New York, which proved decisive in the British evacuation of Boston in early 1776.

The noble train of artillery, also known as the Knox Expedition, was an expedition led by Continental Army Colonel Henry Knox to transport heavy weaponry that had been captured at Fort Ticonderoga to the Continental Army camps outside Boston during the winter of 1775–76. Knox went to Ticonderoga in November 1775 and moved 60 tons of cannon and other armaments over the course of three winter months by boat, horse, ox-drawn sledges, and manpower along poor-quality roads, across two semi-frozen rivers, and through the forests and swamps of the lightly inhabited Berkshires to the Boston area, covering approximately 300 miles (500 km). Historian Victor Brooks has called Knox's exploit "one of the most stupendous feats of logistics" of the American Revolutionary War. The route he took is now known as the Henry Knox Trail.

Knox quickly rose to become the chief artillery officer of the Continental Army. In this role, he accompanied Washington on all of his campaigns and was engaged in the major actions of the war. He established training centers for artillerymen and manufacturing facilities for weaponry that were valuable assets in winning the war for independence.

Henry Knox went on to become the chief artillery officer of the Continental Army and later served as the first United States Secretary of War.

If not for Knox, Washington’s army would be fighting with rudimentary weapons and nit be able to overcome the British Army. Knox and Washington became good friends and trusted allies. In effect Washington could depend on Knox.

At the time of the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary), the State of New York and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts both placed historical markers along the route that Knox was believed to have taken. In 1972, some markers were moved in New York after new information surfaced about the train's movements between Albany and the state boundary. Given the lack of documentation for the Massachusetts portion of the journey, most of the markers there were placed along the route that the train was assumed to have taken, based on what was known about Massachusetts roads of the time.

Henry Knox went on to become the chief artillery officer of the Continental Army and later served as the first United States Secretary of War.

Knox died at his home on October 25, 1806, at the age of 56, three days after swallowing a chicken bone which lodged in his throat and caused a fatal infection. He was buried in the with full military honors.

Fort Knox, an Army post in Kentucky famous as the site of the United States Bullion Depository, was named after Henry Knox.

Additionally,  towns and cities in Maine, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, and Tennessee are named "Knox" or "Knoxville" in his honor. There are counties named for Knox in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. The house he used as a headquarters in New Windsor, New York, during the Revolution has been preserved as Knox's Headquarters State Historic Site; it is a listed National Historic Landmark.Knox Township, Illinois, is named after Knox, as is Knox Place in the Bronx, New York.

Knox has been honored by the U.S. Postal Service with an 8¢ Great Americans series postage stamp, issued on July 25, 1985, in Thomaston, Maine.  (wiikipedia, Boston Globe, LuLac)