Henry Knox

by Mark Puls

  Henry J. Knox then entered medical school at Dartmouth College, and graduated in 1811. Trying to combine his naval experience with his elementary knowledge of surgery, he applied for a job as a surgeon's mate aboard the privateer ship America in hopes of one day reentering the U.S. Navy as a doctor. His earnings aboard the ship were seized by creditors, and he again plunged into depression and addiction. Henry J. Knox then took up employment as a clerk for his mother. His wife was able to obtain a divorce in 1818.

  The family living at Montpelier could not help but hear the echoes of merrier days. Caroline commented to a friend in 1822 in offering an invitation to the mansion: "The glory of Israel has departed, the days of show and profusion are all gone and we are a plain, retired country family.“11

  Lucy Knox's health began to fail in the spring of 1824, and she became confined to bed in May. She suffered a great deal of pain and was rendered senseless for two weeks. Her agony became so unbearable that it took several people to hold her in bed. She reportedly imagined that she was once again young, dancing with Henry at a ball. She died at 3 A.M. on June 20, 1824, three days short of what would have been the fiftieth anniversary of her marriage. She was sixty-seven years of age, and had left her estate to be split between her three children, Henry Jackson Knox, Lucy Thatcher, and Caroline.

  Henry J. Knox underwent a religious transformation in the last years of his life after hearing an evangelist speak in Thomaston. His sister Lucy was amazed at his metamorphosis, and wrote to her son that "you will be much surprised to hear that your Uncle Knox has lately become a pious man—his conversion is one of the most wonderful things I have ever met with . . . at length he felt irresistibly impelled to the study of the scripture—in which he had been hitherto almost an unbeliever—the more he read, the more he became confirmed in the truth.“12

  Henry Jackson died in Thomaston in 1832, so repentant of his life that he requested to be interred away from the family burial ground. In compliance with his wishes, he was laid to rest at a community cemetery in an unmarked grave.

  Caroline married James Swan, who died within a few years from complications of alcoholism, and then married John Holmes, who became a United States Senator after Maine became a state in 1820. She lived at Montpelier until her death in 1851. Lucy Thatcher and her husband moved to Mercer, Maine, where he set up a law practice. Her family then moved to Bingham, Maine, where her husband died in 1842.

  After Caroline's death, Lucy Knox Thatcher returned to Montpelier and lived there for three years before passing away. Her son, Henry Knox Thatcher, who later became a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, did not have the time or interest in maintaining Montpelier and instead rented it out. The mansion eventually fell into disrepair and was finally demolished in 1871. The servants' quarters became the Thomaston railroad station. Because the home and property changed hands over the years, the grave of Henry Knox was relocated several times.

  The name of Henry Knox, which during his lifetime was as widely known as any of the founding fathers', faded from the public consciousness but was never forgotten due to the many memorials to him. A fort bearing his name was built in 1844 at Prospect, Maine, not far from Thomaston. This first Fort Knox was located at the narrows of the Penobscot River, opposite Bucksport. Joseph Totten, an army engineer who designed the fortification, took advantage of the abundance of quality granite in the area, and Fort Knox became the first fort in the state not built of wood and earth. During the Civil War, about ninety Union soldiers were stationed there. It remains a tourist attraction to this day.

  As the country expanded to the west in the nineteenth century, Henry Knox was memorialized in the naming of counties in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas. The third largest city in Tennessee, Knoxville, bears his name.

  Given his financial struggles, Henry Knox might have felt a tinge of satisfaction that the fort in Kentucky that bears his name has become synonymous with untold wealth. Since 1937, the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox has housed the bulk of the nation's gold reserves in its secure vault. Fort Knox is one of the largest installations in the U.S. Army, stretching more than 109,000 acres and housing 23,000 soldiers. A school to train officers for the Army Armor Corps is located there as well as the George Patton Museum of Armor and Cavalry.

  In Thomaston, the memory of Henry Knox was vigilantly kept alive in the early twentieth century by the Henry Knox Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who looked for a time when the general could again be prominently memorialized in their town. In the 1920s, they launched an ambitious plan to completely rebuild the Montpelier mansion. Charitable donations poured in and ground for an exact replica was broken on July 26, 1929. Despite the economic depression that soon plagued the country, Montpelier was rebuilt. Painstaking efforts were made to match all the details of the original home, including the wallpaper, drapes, and furniture.

  It was a fulfillment of the dream that Henry Knox had worked most of his life to achieve. In one of the last letters to his wife, he had written: "I hope our reunion will shortly be established, to separate no more.“13

  EPILOGUE

  LEGACY

  Henry Knox was a remarkably ubiquitous presence during America's founding generation. His life was replete with adventure, and an examination of his career provides a virtual tour of many of the most significant events of his time. Although Knox has been overlooked by historians for two centuries, even a cursory glance at his story reveals some of the most stunning achievements in American history.

  In fact, it almost stretches credulity that one individual could play as many key roles in such a variety of historical events. As fate would have it, a nineteen-year-old Knox unwittingly walked directly into the unfolding Boston Massacre, a tragedy that he tried to prevent. Three years later, he was present among the patriotic men guarding the tea-laden ships in the days before the Boston Tea Party.

  After the opening shots of the American Revolution were fired in 1775, Knox performed the heroic feat of dragging fifty-nine cannons from Ticonderoga more than 300 miles to the Cambridge shores opposite Boston. The guns gave the Continental Army and Knox's artillery the firepower needed to liberate Boston in 1776, thus enabling Washington to claim his first victory of the war. The achievement of supplying the guns and reopening Boston provided the colonies with the crucial military triumph needed to justify cries for independence in the heady spring days of 1776. It is doubtful that many of the colonies would have supported separation from Great Britain if the army had been unable to free Boston from occupation. The victory led patriots to believe that the British could be beaten in the field and that freedom was attainable.

  If George Washington was the indispensable man of the Revolution, then Henry Knox was his indispensable man. As commander of the Continental Army's artillery corps, Knox played a major role in every one of Washington's victories and received some of the war's most critical assignments. Knox directed the army's desperate evacuation of Brooklyn Heights over the East River for the safety of New York in the summer of 1776. He was charged with getting the patriot soldiers across the icy Delaware River on Christmas night, 1776, during the famous crossing, and his guns led the way at the successful charge at Trenton the next morning. He set up a military academy at his artillery headquarters in 1778 to train officers in strategy, tactics, logistics, and engineering. The school became a forerunner of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Every aspect of the nation's ordnance was placed under his authority. It was Knox's artillery corps that devastated the British at Yorktown in 1781, thus providing the victory that ended the war.

  His achievements were no less conspicuous during peace. As secretary at war under the Articles of Confederation, he oversaw the federal response to Shays' Rebellion and was among the leading voices calling for a new constitution. Knox was among the small circle that swayed Washington into his decision to attend the Constitutional Convention, telling him that the country trusted his leadership.
Knox even provided a plan for a bicameral national government and a draft of a constitution that was strikingly similar to the one adopted by the country in 1787 and ratified a year later.

  Knox went on to serve in the nation's first administration as secretary of war alongside fellow cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. As head of the War Department, he helped launch the U.S. Navy, built frontier fortifications and coastal defenses, negotiated treaties and set policy with the American Indians. He advocated the building of a military academy at West Point, a proposal that would not be acted upon until 1802. The military historian and Knox biographer Callahan North wrote in the 1940s and 1950s that Knox more than anyone deserves the title of founder of West Point.

  Yet despite all of his lasting achievements, the name of Fort Knox is more widely recognized than the exceptional man the installation memorializes. It seems like a comment on the fleeting nature of fame that one man could accomplish so much and yet fade from the public mind.

  Knox's name is even less recognizable than that of many of his contemporaries, including Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, Molly Pitcher, Betsy Ross, John Marshall, and James Madison. The reasons appear to have less to do with the nature of his achievements than other complicated factors.

  Knox is understandably overshadowed by George Washington, and he himself willingly relegated his career to a supporting role to the commander in chief during his lifetime. In his letters, Knox was quick to acknowledge his great debt to Washington. He believed that for the good of the country, Washington's reputation should be canonized in order to cement the union behind a single glorious leader and to raise American prestige in the eyes of the world.

  Yet the success of the Continental Army was obviously due to the heroics of many brilliant patriots. Washington delegated a great deal of responsibility to subordinates, and he trusted no one with more critical assignments than Knox. In many instances, Washington depended on Knox to save the army, and in doing so, he placed the fate of the country in his hands. Imagine Washington's thoughts as he decided to chance everything on the ability of twenty-five-year-old Knox to find a way to drag nearly sixty tons of cannon from Ticonderoga over the Berkshire Mountains in order to keep alive the American cause. Consider that in Washington's most desperate moment, Christmas 1776, he turned to Knox and asked him to get the troops and tons of cannon across the freezing Delaware River in an attempt to surprise the Hessians at Trenton. If Knox had failed, what would have been the fate of the army or of American independence?

  Washington's reputation as a military leader rests on the success of officers and soldiers such as Knox, who defied impossible odds and accomplished amazing feats. It may be tempting to believe that the men under Washington served in perfunctory roles as dutiful soldiers, merely following orders with little need of ingenuity, inspiration, and vision. This was certainly not true of Henry Knox.

  He applied remarkable creativity and imagination to every endeavor. It is difficult today to envision the United States as the undeveloped country that it was in 1775, lacking heavy industry, foundries, gunpowder manufacturers, munitions, ordnance depots, arsenals, and government ships. At the time, the country even lacked the ability to cast cannons or excavate for iron, bronze, or copper. Under colonial rule, America was prohibited from developing the key tools to build an army or a navy.

  Unlike any other artillery commander in American history, Henry Knox had no foundation to build on. He not only had to educate himself in the use of all the weapons at his disposal, but he also had to develop manufacturing and production processes to build them. No detail was too minute for him to grasp, and no strategy was too large for his imagination.

  Knox, of course, did not have the benefit of a military school to guide his education. He taught himself strategy, tactics, and the calculus involved in firing cannons. He drove himself to learn every aspect of his craft, even setting up military laboratories and learning all the science behind making munitions.

  As an artillery commander, Knox was innovative and skilled. He favored the use of highly mobile brass cannons rather than more powerful iron guns, and advocated using cannons to lead charges rather than in support of infantry. Napoleon would later use this same strategy to great effect in Europe.

  As a military commander, Knox was well liked and respected by his men and by his colleagues in Washington's military family. He developed a wide circle of deep friendships, many of which lasted for years after the war. His corps was often cited as exemplary and as well trained as any in the Continental Army. To Knox's lasting credit, the American artillery corps performed on par with the formidable French at Yorktown and outdueled the British. According to the Marquis de Lafayette, Knox's gunners even exceeded their French counterparts.

  Knox never led troops into battle. Throughout the war, he remained at Washington's side in a supporting role. As a strategist, he was well read and by all accounts possessed strong judgment. In planning for battle at councils of war, he leaned on the side of caution. Even when faced with tremendous political pressure, Knox insisted that the American army refrain from staking all in one decisive battle; instead it should remain on the defensive and invite the British to attack. Some critics, including Alexander Hamilton, thought that Knox was overly cautious and believed that Washington should take greater risks.

  It is impossible to ascertain today the proper level of caution, but it can be noted that Washington did decide to wait patiently for the opportune moment and never gambled on a tempting offensive strike until blessed with favorable odds.

  When that opportunity arose in 1781, Knox acted decisively and moved the American artillery from upstate New York to Yorktown, Virginia. At the Battle of Yorktown, he personally directed his artillery guns and was a hands-on commander who haunted the trenches and even aimed the cannons under fire. Knox was an exceptionally versatile commander, an expert in every branch of the service and a skilled engineer, artilleryman, strategist, and ordnance master.

  As the war drew to a close and Washington stepped down from command, he turned the army over to Knox, who was given the assignment of reducing it to 700 men. He demonstrated a prophetic vision as a statesman. While serving as secretary at war under the confederation government, Knox realized that he needed to redefine perceptions about the army to suit the needs of a democratic republic. Many prominent American leaders wanted to disband the army completely and viewed any force as antithetical to representative government. Knox created a vision of a new kind of army in which soldiers were instilled with the nation's most cherished values. He believed that soldiers could be trained to fight to preserve political ideals rather than geographic boundary lines, to love liberty more than personal ambition, and to value honor above greed and the spoils of war.

  That vision of the American soldier continues today. For the past two centuries, U.S. soldiers have exemplified patriotism and have professed an ardent love of liberty. Needless to say, American soldiers have marched into battle for the sake of defending the American principles of liberty, and many have given their lives for the sake of preserving freedom. Today, the very picture of patriotism is often that of a soldier. It is difficult to envision a time in America when politicians feared that soldiers would not feel a proper attachment to their country.

  Knox was among the first who advocated drafting a new constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation. Even before the end of the Revolution, he wrote a letter to Gouverneur Morris recommending that a convention be held for that very purpose. Four years later, Morris would draft most of the language for the U.S. Constitution.

  As war secretary in the Confederation government, Knox favored a regular army despite strong opposition from many in Congress. He argued the need for a force to deal with disputes between settlers and American Indians and suggested sending officers and soldiers to live in the frontier to help train militias.

  Knox
had mixed success as secretary of the United States Department of War during the Washington administration. He built up the army, laid out frontier fortifications in the West, and set up coastal and harbor defenses along the East Coast. But he had only uneven results in dealing with the Indian tribes. He established an enlightened policy for dealing with them, which later government leaders failed to follow or live up to. Knox held the rights of Indians to be equal with those of white settlers and demanded that crimes committed against the tribes be punished.

  His warm, gregarious personality helped him negotiate several treaties with tribes in the southwestern region of the country and in the Ohio Territory. But Knox oversaw two disastrous expeditions against the hostile Miami tribes near present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was plagued by incompetent subordinates.

  Perhaps his greatest achievement as war secretary was the launching of the U.S. Navy. Knox gambled on building super-size frigates, a move that many top shipwrights warned against. His intuition paid off as America soon became engaged in an undeclared naval war with France. American frigates that he requisitioned immediately established their presence on the high seas. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who each had opposed a navy, came to be thankful that Knox had won the political battle over the issue.

  Knox found politics distasteful, and understandably did not enjoy the criticism leveled by the press. None of the major leaders in Washington's administration felt satisfied in their positions. The president regretted serving a second term, and Knox, Jefferson, and Hamilton turned in letters of resignation long before Washington left office. As a member of the Federalist Party, Knox was criticized in the Republican press controlled by Thomas Jefferson, who appears to have felt no personal animosity to Knox, only political antipathy. Knox's reputation through the years has undoubtedly suffered from the appraisals of Jefferson, who had little respect for military accomplishments. Washington's reputation also suffers from similar criticisms leveled by Jefferson. The validity of Jefferson's assessments of Knox must be weighed against his lifetime of remarkable achievements. As is the case with most praise or criticism, they each provide a prism too narrow in scope to render a full portrait of a life.