Henry Knox

Knox was a Boston bookseller who joined the revolutionary cause and gained Washington’s confidence through his knowledge of artillery. His transport of cannon from Fort Ticonderoga helped force the British evacuation of Boston in 1776. He directed artillery during the Trenton–Princeton campaign and continued as the army’s senior artillery officer.

After the war he served as secretary of war and helped shape the military administration of the new United States. Henry Knox was a Continental Army artillery commander and close associate of George Washington who later became the first United States secretary of war. Henry Knox was born in Boston, Province of Massachusetts Bay and died in Thomaston, Massachusetts.

David Hackett Fischer’s Washington’s Crossing gives Henry Knox a practical role in the winter campaign that revived the American Revolution. Knox’s artillery expertise and logistical work help move guns and men through the difficult operations around the Delaware, placing him alongside Washington in the planning and execution of the Trenton and Princeton campaign rather than treating those victories as the work of the commander alone.