“Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.” —Job 14:5

Tragedy Aboard the USS Princeton: President Tyler’s Cabinet Decimated, February 28, 1844

he single deadliest tragedy to claim multiple top government officials happened on February 28, 1844, during a Potomac River pleasure cruise. The U.S. was in a peacetime lull, with no major conflicts since the War of 1812 and the Mexican-American War still two years in the future. The “fabulous forties”, as the decade would later be known, was well under way. President Tyler was enjoying a successful—if rather turbulent—administration, having become the first Vice President to succeed to the office after the death of the incumbent, that being the short-serving William Henry Harrison.

John Tyler (1790-1862), circa 1842

Roughly three years into his term, President Tyler agreed to a diplomatic cruise on the new, state-of-the-art warship, the USS Princeton. She was the first of her kind with screw propellers enabling her to break through ice, and an engine mounted below the waterline to protect from gunfire. An innovative wonder and pride of the United States Navy, the ship also boasted an impressive 12 inch muzzleloader, named Peacemaker. The Princeton’s Captain, Robert F. Stockton, had designed the gun himself and had mounted it with only a limited amount of testing for its efficacy.

On February 28, USS Princeton departed Alexandria, Virginia with Tyler, members of his cabinet, former First Lady Dolley Madison, over half a dozen Senators and about 400 other prestigious guests. Crowds thronged the shoreline to watch her progress, and her guns were shot off in salute, repeatedly. Along the way Captain Stockton decided to fire his own invention, Peacemaker, at the behest of his impressed guests.

The USS Princeton

Peacemaker was fired successfully three times in total on the trip downriver. The many guests then retired below deck for lunch and refreshments. Toasts were raised to the Navy. Stories were swapped by the many distinguished guests. So pleasant a time was being had by many that Secretary of the Navy Gilmer’s urgings to go above deck and view Peacemaker’s final salute as they passed Mount Vernon was met with only tepid interest. Most of the ladies declined to leave their seats and only President Tyler’s agreement to go above convinced others to leave their refreshments and rejoin the crew on the gun deck.

However, in an incredible instance of Providence—touchingly outworked in the form of familial love—Tyler felt compelled to linger below a little while longer, until his son-in-law finished his rendition of a sea shanty. The delay most likely saved President Tyler his life. He was halfway up the ladder when above deck, Captain Stockton pulled Peacemaker’s firing lanyard and the big gun burst. Its left side failed completely, spewing chunks of hot metal all across the deck and into the assembled onlookers.

Captain Robert Field Stockton (1795-1866)

A contemporary Currier & Ives illustration of the Peacemaker’s explosion aboard the USS Princeton

Five men were instantly killed: Secretary of State Abel Upshur; Secretary of the Navy Thomas Walker Gilmer; Captain Beverley Kennon; the Navy’s Chief of Construction, Virgil Maxcy, a Maryland attorney and federal officeholder; and David Gardiner, a New York lawyer, Senator and the father of Tyler’s 23-year-old fiancée, Julia. A sixth man, Armistead—President Tyler’s valet and close friend—died only a few moments later.

Secretary of State, Abel Parker Upshur (1790-1844)

Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Walker Gilmer (1802-1844)

This dreadful death toll made the explosion stand out as the Navy’s worst disaster during peacetime up to that point, killing more high-level figures at once than any other incident in American history. Around twenty others were injured to varying degrees, including Captain Stockton himself. The entire ship trembled from the deafening blast, a dense cloud of white smoke smothered everything, quickly roiling down the stairs and choking the luncheon party, as the crew’s screams for a surgeon rose amidst the pandemonium. It was almost impossible to see or breathe as the ship’s occupants rushed above decks to ascertain the damage. The scene was gruesome in the extreme. According to the editor of the Boston Times—himself an eyewitness—when the smoke had cleared, dead bodies with detached arms and legs could be seen littering the deck. Unconscious guests with open head wounds lay near the destroyed gun. Some of the wounded were struck deaf by the explosion, their eardrums ruptured. Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri was blown flat on his back and suffered a concussion, while a woman who had been holding his arm was thrown into the rigging, although amazingly, she was unhurt.

It is said that when President Tyler saw the bodies of his cabinet officers, Upshur and Gilmer, and that of his valet Armistead, he wept. Lovely, plucky and very young, Julia Gardiner rushed above deck, saw the mangled remains of her father, and promptly fainted into the arms of President Tyler. Another vessel came alongside the devastated Princeton and took aboard the wounded and the two hundred shaken ladies: President Tyler carried Julia Gardiner over the gangway himself before returning to lend whatever help he could. One woman who did not leave Princeton’s decks in the immediate aftermath was the grand dame of Washington, former First Lady, Dolley Madison. At seventy-seven years of age, she stayed behind and tended to the wounded with her own hands, pale but staunch in her nauseating work.

Dolley Madison (1768-1849), photographed in 1846

In the aftermath, rather than ascribe responsibility for the explosion to individuals, Tyler wrote to Congress the next day that the disaster “must be set down as one of the casualties which, to a greater or lesser degree, attend upon every service, and which are invariably incident to the temporal affairs of mankind.”

The public reaction to the tragedy aboard the Princeton was, of course, one of profound shock and national mourning. The National Intelligencer noted soberly:

“Never in the mysterious ordinance of God has a day on earth been marked in its progress by such startling and astounding contrasts—opening and advancing with hilarity and joy, mutual congratulation and patriotic pride, and closing in scenes of death, and disaster, of lamentation and unutterable woe.”

The ship’s bell from the USS Princeton

The unease the incident sparked was amplified by the near-miss of losing President John Tyler himself, along with the contextual complication of Tyler having no clear successor. The situation was such that by February of 1844, there was still no clearly defined succession in regards to the Presidency in the event of a President’s death.

Back in 1841, John Tyler had been William Henry Harrison’s Vice President, and upon Harrison’s untimely death, Tyler had rushed from his home in Williamsburg, Virginia to Washington, D.C. in order to have himself installed as Harrison’s successor—fearing with good reason that Senate majority leader, Henry Clay, might make a claim for the same. Tyler had been successful in his daring and had served out the rest of the ill-fatted Harrison’s term as his own, although he was referred to ever after as “His Accidency.” Thus Tyler had set the precedent for succession under the Constitution’s “accidental presidency” clause, but he had done so without a replacement Vice President of his own.

An 1844 map titled “Map of Texas and the Countries Adjacent”

If Tyler had died in this freak accident, the rules for Presidential succession might look very different today, and matters of great consequence to our nation never have been achieved. One such accomplishment that Tyler achieved was laying the groundwork for bringing the great Republic of Texas into the Union. This goal became the great ambition of Tyler’s last year in office, one that he was energetically aided in by his young wife, the pretty Miss Julia Gardiner who had lost her father aboard the Princeton. After Tyler had signed the necessary papers to bring Texas in, he gave Julia the golden pen he had used, and she proudly wore it from a necklace about her neck. It was said this joint goal of theirs cost him re-election, but by that time Tyler had become known as the President without a party, one of the only men in Washington principled enough to vote in line with his conscience and not affiliation.

Julia Gardiner Tyler (1820-1889) in 1844, the year of both the Princeton incident as well as her marriage to John Tyler

In the same vein, John Tyler would become the only United States President to die a citizen of another country—he had, along with his native state of Virginia, seceded in 1861 from the Union he had once sought to enlarge, and was serving at the time of his death as a Representative of the Confederate States of America.

Step into Virginia’s living history on this immersive journey through four generations of the Tyler family. From the founding era and the constitutional defense of the young Republic, through the trials of the War Between the States and into the modern age of historic preservation, Dr. Bill Potter will lead you through ancestral homes and gravesites that anchor each generation’s story. Along the way, we examine themes of multigenerational vision, public service, and preparing one’s children for lives of purpose. We will reflect on Jamestown’s centennial commemorations and attend the annual reenactment at Fort Pocahontas, considering the war’s impact on this important Virginia family and the enduring importance of historical memory. Learn More & Register >>

Image Credits: 1 John Tyler (wikipedia.org) 2 USS Princeton (wikipedia.org) 3 Captain Stockton (wikipedia.org) 4 Currier & Ives Illustration (wikipedia.org) 5 Abel Upshur (wikipedia.org) 6 Thomas Gilmer (wikipedia.org) 7 Dolley Madison (wikipedia.org) 8 Ship’s Bell (wikipedia.org) 9 1844 Texas Map (wikipedia.org) 10 Julia Tyler (wikipedia.org)

“By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”
—1 John 3:16

Corporal Thomas William Bennett, Awarded the Medal of Honor, February 11, 1969

ew conflicts in the course of American history have stirred such profound division and soul-searching as the Vietnam War. This era was marked by new heights of governmental deception, catastrophic irresolution, and social rejection of the American identity. Perhaps most odious of all at the time was the implementation of the draft to fuel this war, pulling young men from farms, factories, and campuses into a conflict that many questioned, protested, or outright fled.

Amid the chaos of war and public dissent, there emerged a different breed of hero. With a response unique to his time, one devout young man decided to serve his country in the medical corp despite his personal convictions regarding war. In the fullness of God’s plan, he would become our nation’s second conscientious objector to earn the Medal of Honor.

Corporal Thomas William Bennett was a young Baptist from Morgantown, West Virginia, whose gentle spirit belied a steel resolve. Born in 1947, Bennett grew up steeped in the teachings of Christ, on the front row of a fundamentalist church which instilled in him a profound aversion to taking life. In college, Bennett taught Sunday School, drafted a students’ code of ethics, and founded the Campus Ecumenical Council. When the draft called in 1967, Bennet volunteered for service as a conscientious objector and pursued the role of a medic—thus reconciling his religious convictions with the spirit of patriotism instilled in him by his stepfather, a veteran of WWII. So it was, that on January 5, 1969, after being trained as a medic throughout the previous summer and fall, Private First Class Thomas Bennett said goodbye to his family for the last time and travelled to Vietnam to join Company B of the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Division.

Cpl Thomas William Bennett (1947-1969)

The jungles of Pleiku Province, in the Central Highlands—wherein he soon found himself—were a hellish labyrinth of booby traps, monsoons, and ambushes. Despite such harrowing conditions, Bennett kept up the steady correspondence with his family that he had begun in basic training, sending back to the States both letters and audiotapes, candidly describing his experience and the ethical struggle that remained warring inside him. As he said in one letter home, “Out of obligation to a country I love I will go and possibly die for a cause I vehemently disagree with.”

Members of the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division take a break from building a bunker in Vietnam, November 25, 1967

Then on February 9, 1969 as Bennett’s company patrolled the thick jungle around Chu Pat, they were ambushed by Northern Vietnamese troops. Despite the ensuing firefight, Bennet ran forward past his lines to give first aid to three wounded men and carry each casualty back to safety. His sergeant, James McBee, promptly nominated Bennett for the Silver Star in honor of the risks he took that day. When nominating Bennett, Sergeant McBee also marveled to Company Commander Cowsert that “nothing stops him… he said he wasn’t afraid at all, that he was trained to be a medic and that was his job. He said the Lord would protect him and if he dies it’s God’s will.”

Silver Star

The action, however, was far from being over, and as was common in that brutal guerrilla war, the firefight bled on from February 9th to the 10th, and carried on through the morning of the 11th. Throughout this time Bennet continued caring for the wounded that only multiplied as the hours passed. On the 11th, Bravo company got pinned down by enemy snipers; five American soldiers were wounded in the initial volley alone. Bennett once again risked his life dodging from one place under heavy shelling to another to treat and retrieve these men. When he made it clear to his fellows that he intended to go out from behind their shelter again and help a man some 45 meters away, his friends protested that he’d never make it. Courage prevailed as Bennett yelled back over the gunfire that he had to get to the wounded soldier or the man would die. It was as simple as that in his mind.

And so, Thomas Bennet left his cover and ran towards his stricken comrade. As he did, he was mortally wounded by a burst of AK-47 fire.

Bennett had been in Vietnam for only three weeks. He was several months shy of his 22nd birthday. His Sergeant, McBee, wrote that Bennet not only saved many lives, retrieved the bodies of those who had been killed in action, and gave medical aid to “many others,” but also inspired the company to soundly defeat the numerically superior enemy force. McBee changed his recommendation that Pfc Bennett, (posthumously promoted to Corporal) be awarded the Silver Star to that of being given the Medal of Honor. This was approved and President Richard Nixon presented the medal to Bennet’s parents on April 7, 1970, Bennett’s 23rd birthday.

Bennett is the only conscientious objector to earn the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War. He is only the second in all of American history.

Medal of Honor, Army edition

It is common and entirely right for us as children of God to desire our sacrifices to mean something, whether they be small everyday pains or the finality of laying down one’s life. We may envision such sacrifices as glorious; for some of us that may be the case. Yet for many of us the times may place us where our sacrifices are threatened to be swallowed up by events larger than ourselves, events where the cause looks far different than we expected, where our sacrifices get muddied in the brutal crucible of fallen reality. Here is where Providence has painful lessons—whatever our circumstances, God has promised us a way of escape, a way to glorify Him regardless. He has shown us what He requires of us. Thomas Bennet longed for a war like the one his stepfather served in on the beaches of Iwo Jima; one that was just as brutal but where the principles of good and evil were undeniable. Instead, Bennet found himself in the perpetual nightmare that was Vietnam. Yet he knew what gave actions their meaning. It is God alone who does that, and He does it well.

Thomas Bennet lived his life for others, and willingly gave it up in an errand of mercy. Such bravery is never anything less than the beautiful outworking of God’s love for us, through each other.

Image Credits: 1 Thomas W. Bennett (wikipedia.org) 2 Vietnam (wikipedia.org) 3 Silver Star (wikipedia.org) 4 Medal of Honor, Army (wikipedia.org)

Dear Reader, if you have not yet read last week’s essay on Henry Knox’s adventure, click here to read Mary Turley’s full account.

The Aftermath of Knox’s Noble Train

ollowing Henry Knox’s prodigious feat in January 1776 of moving 60 plus abandoned cannon for the patriot cause over 400 miles of treacherous terrain for the relief of Boston, several notable characters commented on the mission’s success. One such was British military commander, General William Howe. Upon waking one day, Howe found Dorchester Heights around Boston bristling with patriot cannon, their muzzles bearing down on his position, their threat having materialized overnight. He is said to have exclaimed, “My God, these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.”

General William Howe (1729-1814)

The chief British engineering officer, Archibald Robertson, calculated that to have carried everything into place as the rebels had—“a most astonishing night’s work”—must have required at least 15,000 to 20,000 men. The true number was closer to 3,000.

Major Archibald Robertson (1745-1813)

Later that spring, one of the London papers would carry portions of a letter attributed to an unnamed “officer of distinction” at Boston who summed it up as:

“They [the fortifications] were all raised during the night, with an expedition equal to that of the genie belonging to Aladdin’s wonderful lamp. From these hills they command the whole town, so that we must drive them from their post, or desert the place.”

The British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776 without a fight.

We bring you these sober reminders in the duty of thanksgiving for all good gifts bestowed from above during this 250th year anniversary of the founding of America. These acts of gratitude to Almighty God are required—the recounting of the many instances of God’s Mighty Hand in the establishment our great nation. Prayer, both national and individual, bathed this struggle, and the resultant miracles attendant upon it were due entirely to this great reliance upon the Divine Disposer of all things.

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
incline your ears to the words of my mouth!
I will open my mouth in a parable;
I will utter dark sayings from of old,
things that we have heard and known,
that our fathers have told us.
We will not hide them from their children,
but tell to the coming generation
the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might,
and the wonders that he has done.
—Psalm 78:1-4

Image Credits: 1 General William Howe (wikipedia.org) 2 Major Archibald Robertson (wikipedia.org) 3 Newspaper (Babel.HathiTrust.org)

“Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”
—Proverbs 9:9

Henry Knox and
the Guns of Fort Ticonderoga,
January 24, 1776

t is not hyperbole to say that America has produced some of the most singularly audacious individuals in the history of the world. And they, in turn, were essential in creating America, the greatest experiment in liberty ever attempted, with the greatest passion for justice ever embodied in a people.

Without these rugged individuals with their inexhaustible faith, and self-made genius, the Declaration of Independence and its world-altering impact would have remained a political manifesto with no collective will behind it. By their blood and love, these brave founding Americans ensured the future of our nation, and in the process defined what it meant to embody the American spirit.

One such American was a common Boston bookseller, Mr. Henry Knox. This is the story of only one of many pivotal contributions he made to the American cause, achieved 250 years ago this week.

Henry Knox (1750-1806)

After the climactic clashes in April 1775 between American militia and the British Army at Lexington and Concord, tensions were high. A stalemate ensued—both politically and militarily. The Battle of Bunker Hill followed but did little to change the landscape other than to cement the gravity of the situation, and underscore that this was now a fight for independence, not just a colonial misunderstanding. General Washington immediately laid siege to the British inside of Boston in April 1775, with a Continental Army comprised of a most irregular and ill-supplied collection of volunteers from the various colonies.

The besieging colonists had plenty of muskets and did not lack enthusiasm, but they were without heavy artillery like cannons, which were essential for bombarding the in-town fortifications, or dominating the high ground. Most of their powder and shot were homemade, and they had no foundries to produce big guns domestically. The British, on the other hand, had naval support in Boston Harbor and professional artillery, giving them the edge in the prolonged standoff that resulted. The siege of Boston continued thus for nine months, into January of 1776, with every council of war that Washington held ending in agreement that an all-out attack would be disastrous.

During this time, Washington put increasing trust in two young, self-made New Englanders: Nathanael Greene, a Rhode Island blacksmith, and his close friend and bookseller, Henry Knox.

Advertisement for Henry Knox’s London Book Store in Boston

Six feet tall and weighing about 250 pounds, Henry Knox was hard not to notice. He was gregarious, jovial, quick of mind, highly energetic, and all of twenty-five years old. Like his friend, General Nathanael Greene, he was a voracious reader and almost entirely self-educated. After a hard upbringing, Knox had, at the age of twenty-one, founded the London Book Store in Boston, fostering it into a “fashionable morning lounge,” which attracted the city’s intelligentsia, including notables such as John Adams. When Boston came under siege, Knox’s bookshop was looted by the British, and Knox fled with his wife Lucy to Washington’s army.

By the end of 1775, Knox was enjoying the distinguished rank of colonel in Washington’s newly-formed artillery regiment. Such a regiment did not, in fact, actually exist as there was no artillery for the patriots to employ. But by appointing the ingenious Knox as its head, Washington doubtless hoped for a remedy to this crippling disadvantage.

Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain

Knox’s bright mind soon supplied it. Fort Ticonderoga, on Lake Champlain in northern New York, had been captured by the patriots in early 1775, but the fort and its captured artillery were soon after abandoned. Knox told Washington he was confident the precious guns could be retrieved and hauled overland and used to besiege Boston, despite the inclement weather and grueling distance presented. Washington agreed to his plan at once, and put the young officer in charge of the expedition. Knox left to accomplish his proposed feat on November 16, 1775, accompanied by only a few aides and his nineteen-year-old brother, William, possessing the authority to spend as much as $1,000 on logistics.

A map showing what is now commemorated as the Henry Knox Trail, outlining the majority of his route

They went to New York City first, and there Henry Knox put his autodidactic brilliance to work in arranging for the materials and supplies needed, and then headed to Fort Ticonderoga itself, making the rigorous progress of forty miles a day at times.

The first snow of the year fell on November 21, and in the days to follow it was obvious winter had come to stay, with winds as bitter as January and still more snow. The distress within besieged Boston grew extreme, as did the plight of the patriot besiegers: desertions surged, smallpox killed hundreds, and all of Washington’s efforts and those of his senior officers were concentrated on trying to hold the army together. If Knox failed to accomplish this mission—an undertaking so enormous, so fraught with certain difficulties, that many thought it impossible—then devastation appeared to be the only possible outcome for the American cause.

On December 5, 1775 Colonel Knox arrived at the fort and took inventory of the abandoned artillery pieces. The guns Knox had come for were mostly French mortars, some 12- and 18-pound cannon (that is, guns that fired cannonballs of 12 and 18 pounds, respectively), and one giant brass 24-pounder. Not all were in usable condition. After looking them over, Knox selected 58 mortars and cannon. Three of the mortars weighed a ton each and the 24-pound cannon, more than 5,000 pounds. The whole lot was believed to weigh not less than 120,000 pounds.

Knox and his crew employing oxen to pull the cannons through the snowy mountains

The plan was to transport the guns by boat down Lake George, which was not yet completely frozen over. At the lake’s southern end would begin the long haul overland, south as far as Albany before turning east toward Boston across the Berkshire Mountains. The distance to be covered was nearly 300 miles. Knox planned to drag the guns on giant sleds and was counting on snow. But thus far only a light dusting covered the ground. With the help of local soldiers and hired men, he set immediately to work. Just moving the guns from the fort to the boat landing proved a tremendous task. The passage down Lake George alone, not quite forty miles, took eight days.

The Champlain Valley

Three boats carrying the cargo of fifty-eight guns set sail on December 9. Judging from Knox’s hurried, all-but-illegible diary entries, their first hour on the lake appears to have been the only hour of the entire trek that did not bring “the utmost difficulty.” One of the boats, a scow, struck a rock and sank, though close enough to shore to be bailed out, patched up, and set afloat again. Knox recorded days of heavy rowing against unrelenting headwinds—four hours of “rowing exceeding hard” one day, six hours of “excessive hard rowing” on another. At other times, they had to cut through ice to make a path for the boats.

On his journey up to Ticonderoga, Knox had arranged for heavy sleds or sledges to be rounded up or built, forty-two in all, and to be on hand at the southern end of Lake George, about thirty-five miles south of Ticonderoga. Now ashore, with the sleds and eighty yoke of oxen, he was ready to push on. In a letter to his wife, Lucy Knox, he now assured her the most difficult part was over, and speculated, “We shall cut no small figure through the country with our cannon.” But then there came no snow. Instead, a “cruel thaw” set in, halting progress for several days. The route south to Albany required four crossings of the Hudson. With the weather being so mild, the ice on the river was too thin, and the heavy caravan could only stand idly by at Fort George and wait for a change. When the change came, it was a blizzard. Three feet of snow fell, beginning Christmas Day. Determined to go ahead on his own to Albany in order to prepare the way, Knox nearly froze to death struggling through the snow on foot, until finding horses and a sleigh to take him the rest of the route.

One of many markers along Knox’s route (this one in West Ghent, NY), commemorating the incredible feat

Eventually, his “precious convoy” pushed off from Fort George. “Our cavalcade was quite imposing,” remembered young John Becker, who at age twelve had accompanied his father, one of the drivers on the expedition. They proceeded laboriously in the heavy snow, passing through the village of Saratoga, then on to Albany, where Knox had been busy cutting holes in the frozen Hudson in order to strengthen the ice—the idea was that water coming up through the holes would spread over the surface of the ice and freeze, thus gradually thickening the ice. He had read of it in a book.

The Hudson River, frozen over

For several hours it appeared that the theory had worked perfectly. Indeed, nearly a dozen sleds crossed without mishap. But then, suddenly, one of the largest cannons, an 18-pounder, broke through and sank, leaving a hole in the ice fourteen feet in diameter. Undaunted, Knox at once set about retrieving the cannon from the bottom of the river, losing a full day in the effort, but at last succeeding, as he wrote, “owing to the assistance of the good people of Albany.”

On January 9, as the expedition pushed on from the eastern shore of the Hudson, they still had more than a hundred miles to go. Snow in the Berkshires lay thick, exactly as needed, but the mountains—steep and dissected by deep, narrow valleys—posed a challenge as formidable as any. Knox, with no prior experience in such terrain, wrote of climbing peaks “from which we might almost have seen all the kingdoms of the earth. . . . It appeared to me almost a miracle that people with heavy loads should be able to get up and down such hills.” To slow the descent of the laden sleds down slopes as steep as a roof, check lines were anchored to trees. Brush and drag chains were shoved beneath the runners. When some of his teamsters, fearful of the risks, refused to go any further, Knox spent three hours arguing and pleading until finally they agreed to head on.

News of the advancing procession raced ahead of them and, as Knox had imagined, people began turning out along the route to see for themselves the procession of the guns from Ticonderoga. “We found that very few, even among the oldest inhabitants, had ever seen a cannon,” twelve-year-old John Becker later recalled. “We were the great gainers by this curiosity, for while they were employed in remarking upon our guns, we were, with equal pleasure, discussing the qualities of their cider and whiskey. These were generously brought out in great profusion.”

At Springfield, to quicken the pace, Knox changed from oxen to horses pulling the sleighs, and on the final leg of the journey the number of onlookers grew by the day. The final halt came at last about twenty miles west of Boston at Framingham where the guns were unloaded, awaiting orders. Knox, in the meantime, sped on to Cambridge to report to Washington—by God’s grace he had done it. His “noble train” had arrived intact. Not a gun had been lost. The siege of Boston was broken shortly thereafter, the juggernaut of British occupation fleeing to safety in Canada.

The British evacuating Boston—the event is celebrated locally as Evacuation Day to this day

Hundreds of men had taken part in the endeavor of procuring the guns from Fort Ticonderoga, and their labors and resilience had been exceptional. But it was the daring and determination of Henry Knox that had counted above all. In the words of historian David McCullough: “The twenty-five-year-old Boston bookseller had proven himself a leader of remarkable ability, a man not only of enterprising ideas, but with the staying power to carry them out.”

He would retain his position as chief of artillery under General Washington—this time with the fire-power to back it. Knox would go on to fight through the entirety of the War for Independence and, after independence was secure, would go on to serve as President Washington’s Secretary of War during the former’s first term. But this was all in the future—what cemented Knox as an American hero was his daring resourcefulness in the early days of the fight, before our independence had even been proclaimed. Such risks and such devotion are why, by God’s great lovingkindness, our dear country came into being at all. It is unsurprising that a man of books had the vision to perceive what monumental times he was in, and lend his hand accordingly, as he wrote his wife, “We are fighting for our country, for posterity perhaps. On the success of this campaign the happiness or misery of millions may depend.”

Knox and his crew arrive in camp, having successfully brought all the cannon they had set out to retrieve

Image Credits: 1 Henry Knox (wikipedia.org) 2 London Book Store (wikipedia.org) 3 Fort Ticonderoga (wikipedia.org) 4 Route (wikipedia.org) 5 Trekking through the mountains (wikipedia.org) 6 Champlain Valley (wikipedia.org) 7 Henry Knox Trail marker (wikipedia.org) 8 Hudson River frozen (wikipedia.org) 9 The Evacuation of Boston (wikipedia.org) 10 Cannon arrive in camp (wikipedia.org)