by Mark Puls
Knox rose early the next morning, December 5, to set out on the trip across the lake. He needed to sail his cargo across the water before it became capped with ice. Yet he also depended on cold, snowy, winter weather to set in for the overland journey. "Without sledding, the roads are so much gullied that it will be impossible to move a step," he wrote in a dispatch to Washington.23
At Fort Ticonderoga, Knox found guns ranging from 12-inch howitzers to 11-foot cannon that weighed 5,000 pounds apiece. The total weight of the load that he expected to drag to Boston was almost 120,000 pounds. Knox ordered the men at the fort to drag the massive load to the shores of the lake, where they were shipped aboard gondolas, bargelike scows, and dugout canoes, and then portaged a short distance to the northern tip of Lake George.
By three o'clock Saturday, Knox left William in charge of the slow, heavy-laden vessels while he climbed into a canoe and pushed off from shore, intent on hastening to Fort George to check on the sleds and oxen for the land leg of the mission. Knox reached the opposite end of the lake and Fort George on Monday, December 11, and contracted a local militia captain to round up 40 sleds that could carry 5,400 pounds apiece and oxen teams to pull them.
Back in Cambridge, as he anxiously waited on news from Knox, on December 12 Washington received a letter, dated December 2, from John Hancock with Henry's commission as a full colonel enclosed.24 Washington immediately issued a general order that day that read: "The Honorable Continental Congress having been pleased to appoint Henry Knox Esqr. Colonel of the Regiment of Artillery, upon the new establishment; he is to be obeyed as such.“25
Henry, at the far outpost of Fort George, would not hear of the promotion for weeks. His more immediate worry was the dropping temperature as he scanned the horizon for any sign of the boats from Fort Ticonderoga. He tried to push thoughts of disaster from his mind as he viewed the ice beginning to form on the surface of the lake; it could become impassible at any time. If a deep freeze descended, the mission would be completely stalled until a spring thaw. At 2 P.M. on Wednesday, December 13, he sent the crew of an express boat back up the lake to inquire about the delay. He soon received the news that a strong wind had beaten against the sides of a scow, which then foundered and became engulfed with water and sank. His brother William was on that scow. But a note from William soon arrived that the craft had gone down close enough to shore, with its gunnel above water, for the crew to bail out the vessel. They only waited for the wind to pick up to resume their trip. By Saturday, December 16, all the boats, along with his brother aboard the resilient scow, had arrived at Fort George. The cannons were unloaded, the crews brought them within the stockade walls of the fort, and Knox paid off the boatmen.
He then turned his attention to the sleds and teams of oxen and horses that Schulyer and Squire were rounding up. With the cannons safely over the lake, Henry welcomed the onset of winter weather and prayed for snow. He wrote to Washington on December 17 that the lake crossing took ten days, as he had expected, and the mission was on schedule despite the setbacks: "It is not easy to conceive the difficulties we had in getting them over the lake, owning to the advanced season of the year and contrary winds; but the danger is now past, please God, they must go." He expected by Wednesday to have 42 strong sleds and more than 160 oxen, and 500 fathoms of sturdy three-inch rope to haul the 43 cannon and 16 mortars as far as Springfield, Massachusetts, where he planned to get fresh animals for the final leg of the journey. He told Washington that he planned to follow a route through Kinderhook, Great Barrington, and on to Springfield, but the mission could not continue without another snowfall to provide a sufficient base to "make the carriage easy." Knox sanguinely predicted that the caravan could cover twenty miles a day and would arrive in Cambridge by New Year's Day to "present to your Excellency a noble train of artillery.“26
Henry's thoughts had constantly been with Lucy during the mission, and he wrote her that day: "Had I the power to transport myself to you, how eagerly rapid would be my flight.“27
Knox soon realized that he had to scuttle his timetable. No snow fell, day after frustrating day. On Christmas Eve, he left the teams with instructions to move out to Albany, usually an eight-day trip, as soon as the weather permitted. He traveled south on foot to Fort Miller, where a local judge procured a carriage that took him near Glen Falls. He proceeded to Saratoga and, by the afternoon, he saw to his elation that it was "snowing exceeding fast."
Henry awoke on Christmas Day at Ensing's tavern to view what he must have regarded as a holiday gift from heaven: a two-foot blanket of pristine snow. He braced himself for the bitter temperatures and wind, and headed for Albany, where he reached General Schuyler's headquarters by 2 P.M. on Tuesday, December 26. "I almost perished with the cold," he wrote in his journal.28
He and Schuyler rounded up sleds and transports for the next sixty-two-mile leg of the mission, destination Springfield, putting out a call and offering to pay anyone who sent sleighs and horses twelve shillings per ton hauled for each day of the trip. To Henry's dismay, the temperature began to rise, the snow started to melt, and the rivers began to thaw. On January 2, a day after Knox had told Washington that he would arrive in Cambridge, he still had most of the journey before him. In desperation, he ordered soldiers to pour buckets of river water over the ford in the Hudson to reinforce the ice, an effort that proved useless.
On January 4, he wrote to Washington: "The want of snow detained us some days and now a cruel thaw, hinders [us] from crossing the [Hudson] River, which we are obliged to do four times from Lake George to this town.“29 He explained to Washington that "these inevitable delays pain me exceedingly as my mind is fully sensible of importance of the greatest expedition in this case." General Schuyler wrote Washington a letter in support of Knox, blaming the delay on "the uncommon mildness of the weather for several days past. One frosty night if not deferred too long, however, will put everything in order.“30
To ease his anxiety, Henry wrote to Lucy late that evening. He had wanted to share so many sights along his journey with her. She would have appreciated the view of New York City, he thought, and he wished he could have shown it to her. "New York is a place where I think in general the houses are better built than in Boston," he wrote her. "They are generally of brick and three stories high, with the largest kind of windows. Their churches are grand, their college, workshop and hospitals most excellently situated and also exceedingly commodious; their principal streets much wider than ours. The people—why the people are magnificent; in their equipages, which are numerous; in their house furniture, which is fine; in their pride and conceit, which are inimitable; in their profaneness, which is intolerable; in the want of principle, which is prevalent; in their Toryism, which is insufferable, and for which they must repent in dust and ashes.“31
Albany had only a third of the population of Boston, he wrote, about 5,000 to 8,000 people, whom he believed were "honest enough, and many sensible and polite." He closed the letter: "It is now past twelve o'clock, there I wish you a good night's repose, and will mention you in my prayers.“32
The much-welcomed frost came on Saturday, January 6, and on Sunday the van of the procession of sleds headed out from Albany and crossed the Hudson, bound for Springfield. Schuyler jotted an excited note to Washington: "This morning I had the satisfaction to see the first division of sleds cross the river. Should there be snow all the way to Cambridge, they will probably arrive there about this day [next] week." Knox made a similar estimate of eight or nine days for the journey. He had inspected the ice and was careful not to test its strength too much. Almost all the cannons in the lead division were over when the last one crashed through the cracking surface, despite Knox's precautions. Ropes were secured to the cannon and it was rescued, with the assistance of many of the townspeople of Albany.
At 8 A.M. Monday, January 8, Knox was again at the river supervising each crossing. Along the shores, inhabitants and soldiers watched throughout the day, many holding their breath as e
ach team inched across the precarious bridge of ice. Teamsters walked the animals slowly to prevent the hammering of hooves on the fragile ice, but they still needed to move with enough celerity and momentum to tow the weighty cargo. The teams had to work hard against the slippery surface. At the completion of each successful crossing to the east side of the Hudson, onlookers cheered, and heads shook almost in disbelief. Knox wrote thankfully in his journal that the teamsters had "proceeded so carefully that before night we got over twenty three sleds."
Thanks to a continued cold front, most of the sleds crossed the river the next morning, and at noon Knox rode on ahead, traveling south about fifteen miles on the Old Post Road to pass through Kinderhook and then continuing another nine miles to Claverack, on the edge of the Berkshire Mountains. He decided to ride to the snow-covered crest of one of the highest elevations and see if he could spot the teams behind him. He noted that he could "have almost seen all the kingdoms of the earth."
The next stretch of the trip was over a difficult twelve-mile stretch of mountainous passes through the Berkshires and a dense pine forest called Greenwoods. The animals quickly became exhausted. It seemed "almost a miracle that people with heavy loads should be able to get up and down such hills as are here," Knox noted in his diary. Many of the teamsters became discouraged. It took Henry "three hours of persuasion" and cajoling as he appealed to the teamsters' patriotism and stoked their desire for these guns to avenge the sufferings inflicted by the British before the teams were moving again.33
After emerging from the mountains and forest, the trekking was somewhat easier along an old American Indian trail. When Knox arrived at West-field, Massachusetts, ten miles short of Springfield, inhabitants came out to see the curiosity, bring food, cider, and whiskey for the crews. Many local militia leaders turned out to meet Knox; in fact, they all seemed to boast of leading one company or another. Knox commented, "What a pity it is that our soldiers are not as numerous as our officers.“34 Knox agreed to unleash some fireworks and directed the men discharge an eleven-foot, twenty-four-pound cannon to entertain the local residents.
Knox rode ahead and reached Cambridge on Wednesday, January 24, to report to Washington, who was overjoyed to hear that the artillery would arrive in the next few days. Knox finally learned that his appointment as a full colonel had been approved by Congress and he would head the army's artillery corps of 635 men. His mission had taken twenty-four days longer than his prediction on December 15. Instead of fifteen days, the return trip took forty days, and the entire mission stretched for about fifty-six days. The rest of the train reached Framington, about ten miles from Washington's camp, on January 25. John Adams, who was dining nearby with Elbridge Gerry, heard about the procession and went to see it. He excitedly scribbled down an inventory of the load: "nine eighteen-pounders, ten twelves, six to nine pounders, three thirteen-inch mortars." He wrote in his diary that the sight made his dinner that night taste "very agreeably.“35 His support for Knox's promotion in the Continental Congress had not been misplaced, and Henry was already producing significant results. Washington's faith in Knox had been reaffirmed as well. As a token of his appreciation, Washington sent an invitation on Thursday, February 1, for Henry and Lucy to join him and Mrs. Washington for dinner the following day. Lucy had been bored and lonely during the two months of her husband's absence and was ecstatic over a social invitation. At 2 P.M., she and Henry were received by the Washingtons. Martha, who came from an affluent family atop the social hierarchy of Virginia, instantly took to the pregnant Lucy and was pleased at her vivacity and cultivated manners.
Knox had little time to recuperate from his exhausting mission and immediately went about putting the army's artillery in order. He decided that the forty-three cannons and sixteen mortars taken from Ticonderoga did not completely fill his needs. He wrote to General Charles Lee, who had headed to New York City, with a requisition for more guns. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that shortly after he had left camp on his mission, the American can ship Lee captured the British transport Nancy outside of Boston. The vessel was laden with military supplies, including 3,000 shells for twelve-pound guns and 4,000 shells for the six-pounders. The spoils also provided the army with 10,500 flints, 2,000 muskets, and a supply of musket balls. But for all of Knox's efforts over the past two months, his artillery supplies lacked one critical component: powder. The cannons were useless without it.
Knox accompanied Washington and his staff on Sunday, February 11, as they rode beyond the Roxbury works and ventured up Boston Neck to get a glimpse of the enemy defenses. They dismounted and had walked about half a mile when they spotted a British officer riding hard in their direction. Cannon fire erupted from the British fortifications as the Americans raced back to their horses. No one was injured. Knox along with Washington and his men must have berated themselves for this reckless bit of daring. Had the commander in chief, his staff, and his top artillery commander been killed or captured, the damage to the American cause would have been catastrophic.
Washington felt tremendous pressure from Congress and many leaders around the country to order a strike at Boston. He also was desperate to attack and felt a golden opportunity was slipping away. Because of the small amount of powder on hand, he thought that an artillery bombardment would be ineffective and would destroy sections of the town without dislodging the British. Instead, he favored taking advantage of a strong track of ice that lay across the harbor between Dorchester Heights and Boston, where his soldiers could march into the city and avoid the fortifications and cannons at Boston neck. He believed they needed to strike quickly before the king's troops received reinforcements, which were expected any day, and estimated that he had a superior force of 8,797 men fit for duty and another 1,405 available against 5,000 British regulars in Boston. At a council of generals on Friday, February 16, Washington urged "that a stroke well-aimed at this critical juncture might put a final end to the war and restore peace and tranquility so much to be wished for.“36 But his generals disagreed and wanted to wait for powder for Knox's guns and additional militia troops from other states. Only half of the anticipated men promised by other colonies had arrived.
Washington wrote pleading letters to other colonies, such as Connecticut, that had not sent the amount of powder that had been pledged, along with an admonition to Congress to supply the deficiency of military supplies. On February 18, Washington told Knox that Connecticut was sending 3,000 pounds of powder, which Henry said would provide his guns with enough ammunition to force the king's men from the city. The critical point of his plan was for the army to take Dorchester Heights, which overlooked Boston Harbor. His aim was to mount his big guns on the heights to attack the royal battleships. By February 26, while the army waited for the powder, preparations were underway for a major attack. Knox readied his guns to fire on the city from three sides: Roxbury from the south, Lechmere's Point from the north, and Cobble Hill from the west. On Saturday, March 2, Knox ordered his men to begin a cannonade of his hometown. Shells whistled into the town, panicking inhabitants. Soldiers and townspeople scrambled for any kind of cover. "The shots and shells were heard to make a great crashing in the town," the Pennsylvania Journal reported.37 The British opened fire from batteries at the neck and along the west side of Boston.
The American troops, meanwhile, watched from behind their entrenchments to see if the British would march out of Boston in an attempt to stop Knox's guns. The bombardment was a diversion, however; Knox planned to level a more serious blow. On Monday evening, March 4, as the cannons blazed uninterrupted, 2,000 men under the command of General John Thomas marched to Dorchester Heights. Under Knox's direction and with the help of 400 oxen, the heaviest guns from Ticonderoga were hauled up the hills and mounted in a position to strike at the city and the battleships in the harbor. Entrenchments were dug throughout the night, and by morning the guns were afforded secure spots from enemy fire. Washington wrote enthusiastically to Congress that this tactical victory was "equ
al to our most sanguine expectations." An American captain who slipped past the British posts to escape occupied Boston during the confusion of the attack reported that the "bombardment and cannonade caused much surprise in town as many of the soldiery said they never heard or thought we had mortars or shells.“38 The mission to Ticonderoga had been completely undetected by the British.
Knox's artillery corps continued to shell Boston on Tuesday, the missiles ripping through houses, sending chunks of brick and splintered wood flying. A British admiral spotted the new works on Dorchester Hills and immediately recognized the danger to the fleet and the royal army. He sent an urgent message to General William Howe, who had taken over command in Boston from Gage the previous October. Howe immediately ordered an attack on Dorchester Heights and sent men aboard marine transports to Castle William Island in preparation to launch the assault. But a furious wind sprang up and continued through Wednesday, preventing the British from landing troops on the shores surrounding Dorchester. During that time, Knox continued to direct the mounting of additional cannons on the works, and Washington sent thousands of troops to support the position. When the wind died down, Howe realized "that I could promise myself little success by attacking them under such disadvantages; wherefore I judged it most advisable to prepare for the evacuation of the town.“39 The troops on Castle William returned to Boston to pack for the retreat. Many felt bitter about the order to move out; throughout the siege, their commanders had promised that reinforcements would arrive and that they would destroy the American army and conquer Massachusetts in the spring. Now, just days before help was to arrive, the regulars were forced to accept defeat. Knox's Ticonderoga mission provided the Americans with punishing firepower. The British battleships could no longer remain safely in the harbor.
