The Noble Train Arrives

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Jake:
[0:03] Welcome to Hub History, where we go far beyond the freedom trail to share our favorite stories from the history of Boston, the Hub of the Universe.

The Arrival of the Noble Train

Jake:
[0:12] This is episode 345, The Arrival of the Noble Train. Hi, I’m Jake. January 1776 was a dark and scary time in Boston. By this time, the city had been on a wartime footing for nine months following the battles at Lexington and Concord the preceding April. The Redcoats had transformed the city into an armed garrison, but they were outnumbered and cut off by the patriots who surrounded them in Roxbury and Cambridge. The Americans had the numbers, but the British had artillery regiments and the guns of the Royal Navy to dissuade a frontal assault on the city. Those navy ships were a lifeline for the British troops, bringing in enough food and supplies to keep them alive, but only barely. Even though many residents had fled the town, leaving mostly loyalists behind, there wasn’t enough food or firewood to go around.

Jake:
[1:11] Things weren’t much better on the other side of the front line, either. The Patriots had enough to eat, though they were usually gouged on the prices that winter. But they were spending the winter shivering in hastily built barracks with no insulation and little firewood. They must have watched with some jealousy as the Redcoats across the river tore down the meeting house in North Square to use the timber of the church as firewood. On January 24th, George Washington wrote a seething letter to John Hancock, saying, No man upon earth wishes more ardently to destroy the nest in Boston than I do. No person would be willing to go to greater lengths than I shall to accomplish it, if I thought it advisable. But if we have neither powder to bombard with, nor ice to pass on, we shall be in no better situation than we have been in all the year.

Jake:
[2:02] Little did the general know when he wrote that that Boston’s salvation was just a day away. The very next day, January 25, 1776, 25-year-old Henry Knox arrived in Cambridge with 60 tons of artillery in tow. Against all odds, he’d managed to float, cart, and sled 59 cannons and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga on the icy shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York, over the Berkshire Mountains, to the Continental Headquarters in Cambridge.

Thank You to Our Supporters

Jake:
[2:34] In honor of this anniversary, I’m going to revisit an interview that first aired in May of 2020, where I talked to author William Hazelgrove about his book Henry Knox’s Noble Train and the audacious expedition that saved Boston 250 years ago this week. But before we talk about Henry Knox and his noble train of artillery, I just want to pause and say thank you to all the listeners who support Hub History financially. Whether you’ve been supporting the show since we first set up a Patreon account in early 2019, or if you just signed up last week, your support is what makes this podcast possible. Whenever I sit down here and ask you, the listener, for money, I like to remind you that the show has expenses. And it’s true. We need media hosting, hardware, processing tools, and more things. But I also recognize that you, the listener, have expenses, and things are getting worse every day for a lot of you. Between our skyrocketing health insurance premiums, inflation, gas prices, and the constant background noise of our terrible housing prices in Boston, I’ve been contacted by a few people who need to reduce or pause their support lately. If that’s you, don’t apologize. Take care of yourself, take care of your family, and rest assured that another listener will jump into the breach.

Jake:
[3:55] So to everybody who’s already supporting the show and able to keep doing so, thank you. If you’re not yet supporting the show and you’d like to start, it’s easy. Just go to patreon.com slash hubhistory or visit hubhistory.com and click on the support us link. And thanks again to all our new and returning sponsors.

Jake:
[4:17] Now, before I bring in William Hazelgrove to talk about Henry Knox and the noble train of artillery, I have a question for you, my dear listeners. Do any of you know who’s organizing neighborhood-level mutual aid or ice watch groups here in Boston? I’ve been watching Minnesota and Maine with Growing Horror, and I think we all know that Boston’s going to be high on the regime’s hit list. And before they get here in force, I would love to have the opportunity to build relationships with like-minded neighbors, people who are concerned, and plan how we can support each other and how we can support our immigrant neighbors when our government turns against us here in Boston. If you have any information about organizing, especially who is organizing around Hyde Park or Rosalindale, or if you’re interested in trying to plan this type of support, get in touch with me. You can go to the contact page at hubhistory.com or email me directly at podcast at hubhistory.com.

Introducing William Hazelgrove

Jake:
[5:20] So, my apologies for having to add that depressing diversion, and now it’s time for this week’s main topic.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[5:29] William Hazelgrove is the national best-selling author of seven non-fiction books, including biographies of George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Edith Wilson. Because that doesn’t keep him busy enough, he’s also written ten novels. He’s joining us this week to discuss his latest book, Henry Knox’s Noble Train, the story of a Boston bookseller’s heroic expedition that saved the American Revolution, which is coming out this week. William Hazelgrove, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you for having me.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[6:01] When I was a little, little boy, my very first exposure to the American Revolution and to history at all was through these story tapes that my parents would play on long car trips. It was called the Fisher-Price Spellbinder series. And Henry Knox loomed very large in the tape on the Revolution and the one about George Washington.

The Early Life of Henry Knox

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[6:22] So, to kick us off today, will you just introduce us to who Henry Knox was and what he would have been like in the early spring of 1775 before his fame and even the March on Concord? He was a bookseller. He basically became the breadwinner at nine, and he had a very interesting education where a lot of people at that time had no formal education. So he he went to work for these two gentlemen uh at a bookstore and they pretty much said you know read whatever you want so he did he was a very very prolific reader and then he got his own bookstore in boston so he so at 25 years old he had his own bookstore it was almost like a salon to uh strangely enough a lot of rebels would come to it but a lot of tories too a lot of british uh officers would come there so almost so it’s sort of like a a salon a place to be and henry knox just so we can paint the picture here is a very big guy today we might call him fat okay you know or zaftig or whatever you know porcine um uh whatever you want whatever adjective you want but he yeah he was a big guy he’s six foot he had a big booming voice he’s very affable, affable guy, which actually helped him a lot in his bookstore. And it was called the London Bookstore. And he did very well.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[7:47] So, he was a very physical guy, too, it sounds like. You describe a scene from the Pope’s Night processions or Pope’s Night riots where his physicality came in.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[7:59] Handy. Well, what was that all about? Right, right. So, they would take these carts out on sort of like a – almost like a Halloween night. It’s called a Pope’s night. And they would run them through the streets and they’re very heavy. And his cart basically fell apart. The wheel came off it. And these are very large. People would ride them and all sorts of things. And so, Henry Knox actually picked this cart up. And so his sort of prodigious strength uh sort of became sort of part of his legend very early on also he was good with his fist uh it’s sort of a he was you know he his mother had to fend for him and then at nine years old again he was supporting everyone because his father had left the family so he was on a rough part of boston he had a sort of you know school of hard knocks and he was known as somebody who could really hold his own. So he starts supporting the family at nine years old. Do you have any sense of how he is making ends meet that young?

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[8:59] Again, he started with these booksellers. So that’s already as a nine-year-old. He’s basically apprenticing. He is apprenticing. And a bookstore was much more than it is today. They actually would bind the books there. Books would be known as an imprint of that bookstore. They would also sell other things in the bookstore as well. Household items and different things like that. So, you know, it was a bookstore, but there was a general store quality to it as well. So he was, you know, he went to work. He would, you know, take the money, give it to his mother. And, you know, he was basically the primary breadwinner. His mother would clean homes and do all sorts of things to keep things going. But Henry Knox was really, from nine years on, really sort of the man of the house, which seems to us very incredible. But, you know, again, people grew up very, very quickly in the 1700s, especially young boys. They went to work very, very early. You know, we aren’t sort of used to that. We’re used to now this mode of, you know, high school and then college and then maybe you’ll go to work.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[10:13] But at this time, it was not abnormal for somebody by the age 12, 13 or 14 to have already had several jobs, you know, because, again, it’s a developing economy. It’s a new country, you know, so the entrepreneurial bent of America was is what’s much more intense than it is today. And that’s kind of hard. Another thing a lot of people have a hard time with, you know, a lot of a lot of our founding fathers and our our presidents from the time, you know, had myriad of jobs, had very different vocations that would they go out, fail, try something, fail, try again. So, his bookstore, him being this entrepreneur who takes on a bookstore, was not atypical of his time. So, how old would he have been when he went out on his own, when he opened his own bookstore? He was about 22, 21, and he started to establish that. Now, he did something interesting too.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[11:08] Nobody had used blurbs up to then, okay? So, what Harry Knox did was he took a review of, and he would put it on a book. And people were sort of, they thought this was sort of scandalous that he was advertising this way, but he started to do very well. Also, he priced his books lower than other people. And again, people thought this was outrageous because there was this feeling too that the upper classes will have the money to buy these books. But Henry Knox wanted poor people to get his books too. So, he would actually undercut a lot of people in selling his books. And as you mentioned, his bookshop gave him a window into a lot of different aspects of Boston society at the time because he had these sort of – at some point, he developed Whig-ish political leanings, but his clientele wasn’t limited

Knox’s Political Awakening

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[12:01] to people who shared his political beliefs. No, no. In fact, these British officers would come into his bookstore and Tory ladies. Uh uh you know and and so he was a guy though who managed to walk the fence he managed to sort of uh cater to both sides um you know john adams would come into his bookstore.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[12:23] Other rebel figures and and yet again you know he he knew sort of what side his bread was butter on he had to be able to sell into society in general so you know it was sort of a salon almost uh where you know people would come there to be seen to to a certain degree and again he was a very affable, affable man um you know he he was his uh i’m not getting too far ahead but he had a hunting accident on his left hand where he blew off a finger or two and so he always kept a colorful scarf uh wrapped around his left hand because he was self-conscious about it so you know there was some of this swashbuckling air about him you know his hair was longish as of the time and you look at the young pictures of him and you know he was a jolly fellow too you know.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[13:12] And speaking of being able to walk both sides of the political fence, his sweetheart and eventual wife, Lucy, Lucy Flucker, was the daughter of a very prominent Tory. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, his daughter, Lucy Flucker’s father was in the British government, and he did not want her to marry this other side of the tracks bookseller, this rebel bookseller, if you will. Uh and he told her he told her specifically he said you know if you do this you will be cut off not you know we’ll cut you off your friends will cut you off you’ll be ostracized by society uh don’t do this but lucy fucker was very taken with henry knox uh she was taken with his intelligence with his political beliefs uh you know with the fact that he had supported his family and had this bookstore.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[14:11] She was a smart woman. She was well read. But, you know, they really were soulmates. I mean, that’s, you know, when I read about them, I mean, because they did have so much against them to do this. And so finally, finally, her father gives in, even after he tried to buy Henry off by saying, listen, you can tell you what, you can have a position in the military, the British military, if you want. We’ll handle it that way. And, you know, then I’ll make you’re respectable. And Henry said, no, no, no, I don’t want that. And his daughter basically said, I’m going to do this. And so the father gave in and they married. So, how does Henry Knox develop his Whiggish political leanings? It’s already obviously set in or taken root by the time he falls in love with Lucy. Where does he develop that? Well, actually, a lot of the sort of swirling feelings at the time of the Parliament Acts and the Currency Acts that were sort of restricting trade, and then there was the boycotts that were going on in Boston of British goods.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[15:19] These were infuriating to people. So people would come into his bookstore. He would catch the sort of tenor of the times through them. And he also had personal frustrations because it was hard for him to conduct business. Now, his total conversion was the Boston Massacre, which is a really strange story. He’s walking back one night um in march and uh he hears these bells chiming and ringing and generally that means fire so he runs to the middle of the town and he sees these british you know uh he’s red these lobsters he’s red bat red coats lined up against these people people are throwing things back and forth and knocks henry puts himself right in the middle of it and says don’t do this to the british don’t fire on these people if you do you’ll die for it because there’s an ordinance that if they fired on the colonists they could die well you know long story short the boston massacre occurs and he’s right there in the middle and he sees these uh colonials get gunned down and so you know this radicalizes him to use a current term um to the point where he realizes then that all this talk of liberty and freedom and a new country that in fact.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[16:40] It would have to take place, that a separation would have to occur. He believed from then on that the only course would be for America to become independent from Britain. And this is a big jump. You know, this is a radical belief for him. And so at the time, I mean, you know, to say, we’re going to break from this superpower and become this independent country. But, you know, So, again, he was right in the middle of this horrible massacre. And from then on, he sees the inevitable end as one of a country that’s going to break from Britain.

Knox’s Role in the Revolution

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[17:19] Now, there are a lot of folks in Boston at that time who share his opinion. You have folks like John Hancock and Sam Adams, Sam and John Adams. I wonder if Henry Knox’s experience of the early revolution, sort of before the war breaks out, is at all different from the other sort of ringleaders we remember because he’s so much younger. History’s funny that way because it picks out its figures and those figures seem to be the ones that we get handed down to us.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[17:50] Knox was ancillary in the beginning. okay he was he was just this boston bookseller um he.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[18:00] He had oratorical gifts, but they weren’t stellar. He wasn’t the leader of any movement. He wasn’t in Congress. So among the founding fathers or the people who we look as sort of integral to the United States being developed at this time, Henry Knox is sort of a dark horse. And I think that says a lot for how he’s come down through history to us. You know, you take 10 people, say, do you know Henry Knox? And they might say, well, Fort Knox, you know, but that’s about it. But, you know, he’s one of those characters. He’s very catalytic to the American Revolution. And, of course, I don’t want to jump ahead of our story. That catalyst that he provides will make a huge impact. And I would argue as much an impact as some of these other figures like John Adams or Sam Adams. Well, I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler for our audience that he’s eventually going to deliver artillery to Boston. I think a lot of our folks will know that already.

Washington’s Trust in Knox

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[19:02] But I do think it’s interesting to look at how he came to that point. So, again, from these children’s story tapes that I listened to as a kid, it sounded very much like Henry Knox read a lot of books about cannons and then he knew how to work a cannon. And I think part of that’s just because these kids’ story tapes wanted to encourage people to read. To read, right. But there was a lot more to his military education or self-education than just reading the books he carried in his bookstore, right? Right, exactly. He actually had a militia, a local militia that he trained with and a train of artillery.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[19:40] So, in one way, you know, it’s funny you bring up the kids’ books because that’s the only books that have been really written about, you know, this Henry Knox’s Novo train. I mean, that’s for some reason, historians have sort of slipped over this, you know, and of course, I stumbled onto it when I was reading 1776, you know, McCullough, David McCullough.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[20:01] And so, you know, Knox would go out, he closed the bookstore. And then he would go after work, per se, and go train with this local militia. And this was what a lot of the young men were doing. You know, it’s interesting. Yeah, Hancock. John Hancock had a militia as well. You know, it’s sort of hard for us to get this in our heads now. But the way to fame and glory and possibly fortune was through the military. You could become a hero through the military. You could get glory through the military. You could become somebody great through the military. I don’t think we think that anymore. I don’t think that’s really the path. I mean, maybe some people do, but for the main, you know, people are like, oh, I want to go be a rock star. I want to go be an actor, you know, or something like that, you know, I mean, but at this time to be some accomplished figure in the military was great. So training with this train of artillery, I did a couple of things for him. One, it sort of got his feet wet a little bit in terms of just any military training at all. And then, of course, working with cannons. And yes, he did read up on everything. I mean, he was a vociferous reader of military strategy and more, you know, all the arts of firing a cannon.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[21:21] So, just for some background, I guess, what did it take to fire a cannon in the 1770s? It was very involved. But you had sort of a symphony, right? It was sort of an opera of all these different guys. We have a cannon today, but the guy walks up, pulls the thing, and boom, it fires, right? But, you know, then you had somebody who had to, well, let’s take, you have your cannon. So then you have – if it’s clean, you have – or let’s say it’s not clean. They have a swabber, a guy who comes in with a big swab, cleans it out to make sure there’s – it’s a wet sponge. I want to make sure there’s nothing in there that – Yeah, it seems like having something burning in the barrel would probably be a bad idea. Right, right. Exactly. And so then you put in the powder. You have to put in this sort of cloth bag of gunpowder.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[22:11] And, uh, and then you have the cannon, uh, actually have some wadding and then you have the cannon get shoved down there. Well, then you have a guy who takes a pick basically through a hole, uh, and punctures the bag that’s full of all this powder inside the cannon. And then you take this lind stock, which has a potassium nitrate cloth on it. It’s sort of like a fuse and this thing starts burning. And then you lower that down to the hole into the in where the powder is and then bam it blows off and you know hopefully shoots that you know cannonball out but this has to be all it’s a symphony on this and then it has to be repeated again and again and again and uh so you know that that great movie uh last of the mohicans um one of my favorites my two and so the thing to take away from that, though, is when you’re watching that and they do that scene where they’re attacking, I’m not sure what that fort was. Fort William Henry, I think, maybe. Okay. They actually, you know, used these same type of cannons to film that. So, when you look at that, you see those big eruptions of fire and smoke. That’s basically what these guys were dealing with. You know, just these tremendous explosions and then, you know, this cannonball will go flying out.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[23:34] So, Knox is drilling with his militia, he’s reading in his book story. He’s carrying on commerce the best he can in the light of the Boston Port Act, selling books to any and all comers of any political leanings as the colony gets more and more divided and tensions grow. And then eventually, April of 1775 rolls around. Actually, 245 years ago today, we’re recording this on April 19th, the British decide to go look for four cannons and some other military supplies in Concord. And Henry Knox is still in Boston. Yeah, he’s still sitting in his bookstore. And he’s trying to figure out which way the wind’s going to blow on all this.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[24:15] He gets married during all of this. Optimistic. Optimistic. But he notices all the troops have marched out of Boston. And his bookstore is very empty.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[24:29] And then he starts to hear what’s happening at Lexington and Concord. You know this that you know these these these battles and he realizes that the war has begun that there’s no turning back and this is very hard because he realizes then he’s going to have to leave boston uh his friend paul revere same one makes the famous ride lets him know that he’s probably going to get arrested that he’s on a list that you know he’s known as a rebel bookseller He’s probably giving aid to the rebels, and he’s going to get arrested. So, Knox decides he’s got to leave. So, he and Lucy have this sort of elaborate ruse where they try and make it seem everything’s normal. And then at night, he closes the bookstore. And think about this. He’s leaving the life he’s known, the bookstore he’s created. And he and Lucy goes back to his home. He and Lucy put on disguises. She puts his sword into her petticoat, and they head down to Boston Harbor. And there’s a rowboat there, and they get into it.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[25:42] And they row out among these man-of-war, these British man-of-war that are there. And as they row out, you know, Henry and Lucy look back at Boston. She realizes she’s leaving her father, her family, her sister, and might never see them again.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[26:00] And Knox realizes that what he’s looking at, you know, in this part of the book, as he’s looking back at Boston, you know, the clock tower lit up and all. He realizes that he’s, in fact, now looking at a new republic, a new country that’s coming to life, and that his life will never be the same. And they’re basically rowing out. They get out, clear Boston, and he puts Lucy in with some friends. And then he heads for the colonial army on the outskirts of Boston that have sort of coalesced. And I call it an army. We’ll talk about this some more. It might be generous in those early days. It’s really a collection of farmers. I mean, it’s a bunch of backwoods men. It’s a it’s it’s sort of this ragtag group of people who fought very well.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[26:56] And of course, Bunker Hill will is coming. But. You know essentially there is sort of this motley crew and and when nox gets there um he’s he’s sort of a little disenchanted with uh how disorganized everything is um you know how it seems sort of helter skelter and and these men who are fighting don’t really see the army as well i’ve got to stay they feel like it’s i’ll stay and help out fight some and if i have to go back to my farm i’m leaving so it’s it’s very uh sort of chaotic and he ends up that but they they they know it’s interesting because they immediately recognize in knox this ability this sort of engineering ability and and they put him on building fortifications around roxbury so you know this this is to this is to sort of what here i’ll set the scene here um the british are are all right we have during this time, Bunker Hill occurs.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[27:59] And of course, Bunker Hill is technically a British victory, but they pay a heavy, heavy price. General Howe really realizes what they’re up against. And so the British make it back into Boston and basically barricade themselves in. They now are occupying Boston. And so the Colonials are all, the Colonial Army is all outside boston so you have a a straight siege setting up where you know you have the the occupying army of the city and then you have the army that outside which is the american army now who wants to get rid wants to get them out of boston the british out of boston and of course they have a new general coming in george washington, And Washington is obviously, he’s a figure who looms very large in this story. Will you describe what he was like, not as the George Washington on the dollar bill, but as he was in the summer of 1775? He was a guy who basically had been living off his wife’s money for 15 years. I mean, you know, this doesn’t really go with the great George Washington. But, you know, again, early in his life, he wanted military glory and he wanted to be part of the British Army.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[29:14] And so there were several campaigns where he figured in heavily. Some say he was the catalyst for the French and Indian War. He had these debacles that would occur. and the british actually he wanted to be an officer in the british army and the british said no we think you’re a little deficient so washington sort of retired in a sense um he married well um and you know martha washington had all this money and he kind of began the life of a planter where he, you know, Mount Vernon, he enlarged it, he had these very fine coaches, he had, he went on fox hunts, he, you know, he was sort of the landed gentleman. And, you know, for 15 years, that was basically what he was doing. So, you know, when he became appointed by, you know, the Continental Congress to say, go take over the army, he had no real experience with siege warfare at all uh well how do you take you know this this uh city back from the british he had no real idea but one thing he knew you know was that he was inheriting an army that was woefully deficient, and uh he would you know he would let he would let it known to his brother who he wrote many letters to saying if i had known what i was going to inherit i would have never done this.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[30:39] So, how does George Washington first encounter Henry Knox? What were their first impressions of each other? You know, he went to actually investigate the fortifications. So, you know, Washington was a man of habits.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[30:59] He always rose the same time every day. He rose before the dawn. He would pat around on his nightshirt, get things done, paperwork and things like that. Then he’d go out and he would see all his farms and then he had the same breakfast the same dinner he would have fish a lot of times drink a lot of madeira a lot of wine and things like that but he was really this man of pattern so you know he was up and at him doing inspections right away trying to whip this army into shape and he was very much about creating good fortifications in case the british came out and tried to attack the americans and uh so he he goes to roxbury these this area and he sees these very good fortifications and he bumps into henry knox walking along the road and there’s washington on his big white horse and everything and in and he talks to knox about the fortifications and you know some military engineering general and he realizes this guy really knows his stuff because you know knox was extremely well read about this as well as having some practical uh you know knowledge and some on on hands-on opportunities to to work with this kind of thing so so here is and this is again what’s amazing church washington would always take these young officers these guys who had no training at all all right basically the whole american army very few very few had any experience with anything Thanks.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[32:28] And so, Henry Knox is not atypical when he didn’t go through any basic training or anything like that. But, you know, he becomes Washington’s sort of aide-de-camp or, you know, right away.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[32:39] And so, Washington liked to surround himself with these young can-do type of officers. And Henry Knox was an optimistic person. He was, we can do this. We can do this. You know, and even if he couldn’t do it, he’d say, we can do this. You know, and so, Washington was drawn to that. So you have, you know, Henry Knox very quickly writing to his wife, Lucy, saying, well, I’m working for George Washington now, which is sort of amazing because he just joined the army. And, you know, but we see this time and again in the American Revolution where people from nowhere are suddenly promoted up through the ranks to, you know, a colonel or a general who have virtually very little experience. But see, Washington realized that if he was going to win this war, he had to look for ability and he had to, you know, short, short circuit this whole thing of, oh, well, you have to go up to the ranks or you have to be of nobility. And that’s more the British army. So Washington’s thing was, if you have ability, I’m going to push you up. And so Knox very quickly moved into Washington’s inner circle. So Henry and Lucy are being invited to dinner and Henry’s getting to attend meetings with General Lee and Putnam, all the top brass.

The Gamble for Artillery

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[34:00] And eventually Washington comes up with a new job for them.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[34:04] For us, with 245 years of hindsight, the idea of bringing guns from Ticonderoga all the way to Boston seems obvious. But at the time, in 1775, it was a huge gamble, an enormous gamble. So why did Washington decide it was a bet worth making? And why was Knox the man who was chosen? Well, a couple of things. Washington’s very sly.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[34:29] He goes to Henry Knox. listen uh you know i think you should head up the artillery and knox of course is like great i i accept that oh where’s the artillery well we don’t have any and so so really what he’s saying to knox is if you want this job you’ve got to come up with some artillery now as you say we have up in fort tyconderoga 300 miles away uh you know basically 60 tons of artillery there’s actually more, but that’s what he’s going to take out of there. But anyway, and the problem is there’s no easy way to get it to where Washington is in Boston, but it’s up there. Now, Henry Knox becomes aware of this as well. And, you know, Washington has a war cabinet that basically says to him, you know what, there’s no way you’re going to get this back here. It’s folly. It’ll waste time. I’m going to waste money. We shouldn’t be dealing with this. But, you know, Washington slyly approaches Congress and says, look, I want to do this and I need some money to do it. And Congress says, OK. So when he gives Henry Knox his charge and says, you’re now head of the artillery. OK, great. OK.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[35:44] And he says, you know, these cannons are up in Fort Ticonderoga, and I think, you know, if we brought them back, I know where to put them, and I think we could get the British out of Boston. So, Henry Knox, of course, being Henry Knox, says, absolutely. You know, I will do this. Can do. I can do. Yes, I will go do this. So it’s a confluence of an opportunity and this 25-year-old bookseller who has very little experience at anything really to do with war, okay, and a general who realizes, you know, A, I don’t have any gunpowder, okay, so this is a problem, and B, I don’t have any artillery, and you can’t get anybody out of a city in a siege warfare without artillery. And then he sees this man who he thinks, also think about this, Henry Knox is a Bostonian.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[36:40] And the British have taken over his hometown. So, he’s pretty motivated, you know, to get these guys out of there. So, you know, the chicken or the egg come first, and Henry Knox say to Washington, I’ll go get it. Did Washington say, you go get it? Nobody’s quite sure. But the upshot of it is that Henry Knox became the man who was going to go get

The Journey to Ticonderoga

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[37:03] this artillery sitting up in Fort Ticonderoga. So on the other end of this journey, 300 miles away, way the heck up in the wilderness of upstate New York on a frozen lake, we have backwoods outlaw fighter Ethan Allen and this incredibly brilliant future general Benedict Arnold sitting in what had been an almost empty, barely garrisoned British fort with iron and brass cannon, howitzers, mortars, and a couple of pieces you called Big Bertha’s. in the book. What are all these different types of artillery? What are they supposed to be used for? Well, you know, the Big Breathers are big 5,000-pound cannons. So, these things can lob these shells miles, all right?

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[37:50] The howitzers, the mortars, these are basically, you know, so that we’ve seen the movies, you shoot them up, they arc over, and then they drop down in to the town that you want to attack. Now, as you said, this was an old fort that, you know, sort of after the French and Indian War and that nobody really cared about. And so when, you know, Ethan Allen and Ben Garnold take it, it’s not that great of a victory. It’s like, okay, they barely fought back. They go and they take it. They see all the cannons there. And they sort of, that’s sort of it. Now, the British realized too late that, that they should have reinforced this for it because this was sort of the back door to America. Right. And they could have used that, but they didn’t. And so – Years later, they’ll try to fix that in the Saratoga campaign with mixed results. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, at this point, you know, as you said, they’re just sitting up there and with these cannons that nobody’s quite sure what to do with. And, you know, this is a time where you said there’s frozen lake, there’s a frozen lake, Lake George, there’s frozen rivers, the Hudson, and then there’s the Berkshire Mountains, all between Ticonderoga and Boston.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[39:08] So Henry Knox gets his orders to go to Ticonderoga on November 16th. And this winter that we’re just wrapping up was extraordinarily mild, but we still had snow on the ground by Thanksgiving this year. Was the decision not to leave for Ticonderoga until mid-November strategic, or was it just when they thought of going to get the guns? You know, it really was more a function of, you know, finally getting the authorization, Washington giving Knox some letters of introduction to help him along. And just that was sort of the time they could just sort of get it together to head out and, go after these now of course hindsight there’s an awful time to go because you know i mean they’re they’re heading into this winter and this also though and you got to get of our story this also you know we should paint the picture of the way the british view warfare the british view warfare is hey you fight in the fall you fight in the spring the summer and the winter you go into a winter camp and you recover, you try and make yourself comfortable for when the spring games begin again. It takes a few months time out and just relaxes. Right, right. You go to the theater, you go to dinner. To the British, the thought that the Americans would be up to something like this.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[40:30] In this winter is simply unbelievable, you know, that they would attempt to do something like this is unbelievable. And, you know, I do want to mention, too, that, you know, the one thing the British have totally overlooked is Dorchester Heights at this point. Now, Dorchester Heights is this sort of hill, this cliff overlooking Boston, and it’s unoccupied by either side.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[41:00] Now, the British, though, a couple of British, you know, generals or lieutenants went up to General Howell and said, listen, you know, we should probably take that. Because if the if the colonists or the Americans ever put a cannon up there in Dorchester Heights, we would be very vulnerable. And so would the fleet in Boston Harbor. And, of course, Howell says, who has no respect at all, by the way, for Washington, doesn’t even regard him as really being a general because to him, all commissions come from the crown. He says if the Americans take it, we’ll just take it back. You know, no big deal. So don’t worry about it. But this Achilles heel is, you know, part of the perfect storm that will occur once, you know, Knox gets these cannons. So, to get the cannons, of course, Henry Knox first has to get to Fort Ticonderoga. And it seems like he took a convoluted route. He went from Cambridge to Worcester, and then from Worcester to all the way down to New York City, and then back up to Albany. Was there a reason in choosing such a strange route? You know.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[42:12] When I put this book together, this was very challenging because, first of all, as we said before, there was only some children’s books on this.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[42:20] Henry Knox did keep a diary, but it was a very rough, scanty diary. I saw the journal of his journey. So you had to kind of go from his accounts, letters, and also what other people had written.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[42:32] So what you put together is he’s basically on a scavenger hunt. Okay, Washington tells them, hey, go up to New York and see if they’ll give up some of their cannons first. Okay, and if they do, maybe we don’t have to depend on so much of these cannons from Fort Taiga and DeRoga. Because a lot of people are like, he’ll never do this. This is never, he’s never coming back. You know, this is folly. This is ridiculous, you know. And so, you know, Henry takes off heads for New York with these letters and saying, hey, if you have any to spare. Well of course in new york they’re like no we don’t because we have our own problems we know the british are heading here next so we aren’t going to give it up um and so he goes from there he heads to albany uh again he meets with some other people watching and put him in contact with they’re supposed to help him along here um but you know it is a securitist strange route he’s taking to finally get up to Fort Tygon Royale. And again, the only reason I can say that he did this was, again, it was sort of like, hey, does anybody have any cannons we can use as I’m making my way up? Which shows how this whole war was sort of make it up as you go. The necessity is the mother of invention. It’s sort of the mantra of this part of the war.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[43:52] I have to imagine that it was quicker to go from Cambridge to Ticonderoga without cannons than it was to come back with cannons. So what kind of time was Knox making on the way up to Albany and then on to the fort?

Gathering Resources on the Way

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[44:07] Very good time. In fact, you know, on his way out, he writes Lucy a letter and he says, hey, listen, I’m going up to do this thing for Washington. Get some cannons. It’s no risk. Don’t worry about I’ll probably be gone a couple weeks, maybe three weeks at the most So he paints it to her like this is a no big deal thing i’m doing and of course, you know, she’s pregnant She’s by herself. She’s never gonna see her parents again She’s with strangers and she just is not buying any of it But you know, he does he makes it up there in within a week, you know, and very very quickly He he moves along now again because there’s a lot of conflicting information of how he was traveling.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[44:55] I had to sort of ferret through. He left with some militia from Washington, right, with his brother. Did he have what he would later need, sleds and oxen? No, not yet. He didn’t. So he’s moving along without all the –, the apparatus of the sleds, the oxen, and everything that’s going to entail that’s going to really slow him down. So, yes, in a way, he’s very fleet-footed. He’s writing letters back to Lucy saying, hey, New York was really interesting. Here’s what I saw. And also, too, we have to remember, nobody traveled then. Nobody traveled. You stayed in your town your whole life. Yeah, this was Henry Knox’s first time outside Boston, from what I can gather from the book. Absolutely. He was a young man’s adventure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s a young man’s adventure. He’s out traveling around. Only government people traveled and it was hard. Roads were not good. They had inns along the way because you only go a couple of miles and then you had to stop.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[45:55] So, you know, he’s fascinated. He writes letters back about Albany and about New York. And then he finally makes his way up to Fort George. And he’s gathering mostly people, but people and supplies along the way. And especially around Albany, he starts to put together the party he’s going to need. Will you introduce us? I think there are two characters I want to make sure

Allies for the Expedition

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[46:17] we introduce that he picks up are in the Albany area. We have Philip Schuyler and John Becker. Yeah, exactly. Now, Schuyler is sort of the point man here who is a general. And Washington sort of said to Knox, look, connect with him because he’s going to really help you do this. And because, first of all, Knox has, you know, just to be clear, Knox has no real idea how to move all this artillery. OK, he’s never done this. OK, and we’re not talking about putting it on a truck. OK, this is 1775. So he has no idea how to do this.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[46:53] But Becker Who is a teamster Which is you know still kind of The same thing it means today He was a man who made his living Moving things, Um, and they, they would move freight for the army or for whoever, and they would do it with oxen and carts and sleds and horses, whatever it took. But these were big hardy men who basically moved freight. So Becker and Skyler are sort of this team that’s going to help Knox get these cannons back to Fort Tire or back to Boston.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[47:32] But, but they meet, they kind of hatch out a plan. And yet there’s some fuzziness of how he’s going to get these sleds and these oxen and how it’s all going to come together. And Knox isn’t quite sure as he heads up when he’s going to get it still. These guys are the ones who have the knowledge. They’ve moved freight before.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[47:56] Becker’s moved it For all sorts of people And Skyler Also does something else.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[48:03] He negotiates with Indian tribes to give them safe passage, to let them sort of pass through so they wouldn’t be attacked. You know, and again, part of the danger of this, and we’ll talk about the other dangers, of course, but was that, you know, they could be attacked by Indians and they could be attacked by people loyal to the British, you know, who would say, you know, we’re going to stop you. Yeah, patriot militias certainly weren’t the only militias in North America at the time. Half the country didn’t believe in breaking from Britain. So, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Again, even while the battle of Boston is going on, that there was a lot of colonies who had not sent their representatives

From Fort George to Ticonderoga

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[48:46] to the Congress because they were trying to see which way the wind was going to blow. Now, before I interrupted you, you had taken Henry Knox all the way to Fort George. And just to give people a mental image, Fort Ticonderoga sits on this sort of narrow strip of land in between Lake Champlain, which is a massive lake flowing up to today’s Canada, and on the Vermont-New York border. And Ticonderoga is at the southern tip of that, or almost at the southern tip, and this little land bridge over to Lake George, which then Fort George is at the southern end of that. So, Henry Knox and his group have to get from Fort George up the lake to Ticonderoga.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[49:27] Right, right. So, they reach Fort George, and now they have to get up to Fort Ticonderoga, as you say, go over Lake George. Now, Lake George is mostly frozen. Yeah. It has an opening, sort of a narrow channel in the middle that they’re going to go through. But the danger is this thing is going to freeze over, and they’re not going to be able to get where they’re going. Well, now he has to get a sort of a fleet of boats to transport these cannons. And so he comes up with all these different types of boats to do it. He hires some extra men who seemingly have the knowledge to do this kind of thing. But, you know, again, he’s making this up as he goes. You know, we have this view of Henry Knox’s always being with the group that he’s moving with. But in fact, he’s sort of moving around a lot, doing sort of advanced work.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[50:22] You know, trying to solve problems that he anticipates. So when he gets to Fort George, you know, he’s trying, you know, and there’s some great descriptions of Fort George, which is just these forts were like these outposts in the middle of nowhere. And conditions inside these forts became awful. There was disease and everything else. And Fort George is, I think, just almost within spitting distance of Fort William Henry, which is portrayed in Last of the Mohicans, if people want some sort of, again, a visual, something to picture for that. Right, exactly. And, you know, these crazy outposts. And so he finally gets, you know, his men together, some boats together.

The Frozen Wasteland

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[51:00] And now they head up all the way up Lake George. And they head all the way To the northern end And going up is pretty uneventful They’re pretty good No real bad storms It seems like Things are going well And it’s really sort of A moment for Henry To be in this small fleet of boats, Heading up When Months before he was Just this bookseller And now he’s going to get, The artillery for George Washington for the American Revolution that could change the course of the war at this very early point that could, you know, get the British out of Boston. So this is a pretty heady moment for this young bookseller.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[51:51] And so they get up and they finally make it up to Fort Ticonderoga. What would things have been like at Fort Ticonderoga? at the time. My co-host and wife Nikki and I drove up to Crown Point in Ticonderoga in February this year just to see basically to see what it’s like in winter up there and it is cold. What would it have been like at the time of Knox’s arrival? Awful. I mean, it was just, you know, it was this frozen wasteland, first of all, and there weren’t a lot of people there and they’re viewing knocks and these men coming up there like what are you doing here and you know they have no knowledge that this guy’s going to come now now skyler had done some advance work he had been up there and investigated the cannons and figured out you know that there were roughly 59 good cannons.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[52:50] So, Knox, they had some inkling Knox was coming. But when they see Knox and his men, again, they’re sort of a little flabbergasted. They aren’t quite sure. And so, Knox is… By this time, it’s December, right? Right, right. We’re in December. And again, you know, I had to work out the dates and the time, because Knox and his diary a lot of times did not coincide with other people. So, you know, in this whole journey, like Henry Knox, you were constantly having to sort of re-evaluate, okay, what really happened and what’s the myth that was handed down to history? And there’s just a lot of division between that, you know, the real story versus

Knox’s Plea for Help

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[53:31] the sort of kids’ book story that came down to us all. So, they’re going up there. Now, as you said, Fort Togonaroga is mostly on Lake Champlain. So there’s this river that goes up there and also a portage trail or road that leads up to the fort.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[53:49] So, you know, Knox and then when they get up there, Knox has to basically do a pitch to the men of the fort to help them and say, listen, this is for the revolution. This is for George Washington. We need your help. We need your help in getting these cannons out of here. And so they reluctantly say, OK, but this is what Knox is good at. Knox is good at talking, okay, and getting people enthused. So he does this. Well, now they have to get, you know, Knox does a quick inspection. He finds a lot of the cannons are no good. A lot of them have just not been fired for years and years. So he picks the 59 good ones.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[54:27] And, you know, time is of the essence because this Lake George could freeze solid. And so now they have to get these things down out of the fort onto these boats.

A Race Against Time

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[54:40] And it’s a race against time, a race against ice. A race against ice. And how did he do it? Well, they did all sorts of different ways. They took them down. They floated some down the river. They used some oxen. They used block and tackle to lower them over the sides. They did anything they could to basically get these things down as quickly as they could to the boats. And then they had to distribute them in these boats. So what was this little fleet like that Knox had at his disposal? What types of boats are we talking about?

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[55:12] Betoes, Paraguays. These are, you know, when I read about them, I’m like, what are these things? So I had to go see pictures of them. And basically, they look like large canoes, sort of like little flat barges. But here’s the thing you have to know about all of them. They sit very low in the water. And so, when they loaded them down with all this iron, they sat even lower in the water. That sounds dangerous. Yeah. And so, they’re constantly trying to balance them with the men and everything. And it’s freezing. So, you know, you’re talking about a 5,000-pound cannon in basically these oversized canoes. And so, when it’s time to go, they push off. And the return trip is not at all like the trip coming up.

The Hell of Lake George

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[56:03] Now the whole tenor of it changes up to now things have gone relatively well but now they’re heading back down they hit immediately hit storms in fact they can make no progress so the sales on these you know bentos and paraguas are not even working so they have to use poles to push off the ice to to move so they’re moving incredibly slowly um and this is This chapter is called The Hell of Lake George, where basically they have to fight their way down through Lake George, and some of the boats start to sink.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[56:42] Which sounds like a bad thing in December in upstate New York. Yeah, and here’s what’s amazing. So, these things sink.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[56:50] They pull up the cannons. I mean, they don’t just go, well, we lost a few. Let’s keep moving. Knox is convinced he needs every cannon. That George Washington needs every single one. He can’t afford to lose any. So they go back to Fort Tyre Guy and the Rogue and get more men, more things, more ropes and such to help them pull these cannons up and continue on. Now, here’s where you have to sort of clarify this. They become like a caterpillar. and this will be true of the whole expedition going back they aren’t this cohesive unit of boats all together they’re they’re spread out because some move slowly some move faster and they didn’t all set off at the same time so you know today we see fleets set off all the boats are together that’s not the way it was so you know there’s guys that are way out on the lake and guys who are just leaving so knox is you know sort of moving around trying to kind of do advance work and keep things going but he’s not privy to everything that’s going on so he’s hearing hey this boat sunk you know with other men you know at a later time and again this when you’re putting it together this too is part of the confusion so they get as far as sabbath island and sabbath island is this sort of midpoint in lake george where they’re like we’re too cold to go on. We’re frozen.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[58:14] And they make a huge fire and put their feet to the fire. And then, of course, Indians pop out. And again, Knox’s brother William grabs his knife, thinking they’re going to have trouble. Indians turn out to be fine. They help them out, give them some food. But, you know, again, men are freezing. Right. You know, they’re all freezing. They’re getting frostbit.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[58:38] You know, these cannons are impossible to move. They set off in the morning. And, you know, again, you know, debacles, sinkings. And it just takes another hellish day where Knox makes it to another small island further down um stay stays the night and then he decides and this is what he did a lot during this journey he decides to go ahead you know and and he goes ahead to fort george and reaches there and and sort of you know starts already trying to set up for you know the next phase now the next phase is going to be the oxen it’s going to be 90 oxen and 42 sleds, And that’s how we remember Henry Knox’s noble train for the most part is a journey, a heroic effort of getting of his tonnage over land. Right. Forget about the part where he was sailing down Lake George. Right. Exactly. No, absolutely. That and, you know, but that was just horrific. Now, he does a couple of things when he reaches when he reaches Fort George. He writes some letters.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[59:48] And he writes one letter to Lucy saying, hey, look, hey, you know, this is going to take a little longer than I thought.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[59:55] You know, hope you’re well. You know, I’m in this frozen fort in the middle of the night writing you this letter.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:00:02] And then he writes to George Washington and basically says, you know, we made it back. You know, we’re going to start the next leg of the journey. I think within three weeks, we should have your noble train of artillery to you. Now, so that’s his words, the noble train of artillery. Now, Knox is a very religious man, as most men were of this time, all right? And so he saw the American Revolution as a quest, as a religious crusade, that God wanted this country to come of age, to come alive and be a place where liberty and justice and, you know, where a man could have a chance and live a full life in pursuit of happiness. So he saw the revolution in those terms already, but then he elevated his journey to a religious quest where saying, I’m going to bring you your noble train or artillery. Well, it’s a noble train because this is going to give us liberation. This is going to further our cause. This is going to get the British out of Boston and ultimately allow our country to be this place on earth where people can be truly happy. So he elevates it right there.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:01:25] Now, Washington is religious somewhat, okay? But it’s almost a practical religion. He does everything he’s supposed to, But you often wonder how much does he really believe, you know? So anyway, so he’s, he makes, he writes these letters. Now the, the cannons are arriving. All right. But there’s a, there’s a problem. There’s no oxen and there’s no sleds. At this point so this is a this is a real problem now now this and this is where you deviate from the kids book stories okay because the kid book stories oh the accident sleds are all waiting he gets in them and goes right but but the truth is this was an operation that had no precedent, and knox had contracted with another man named palmer all right and palmer was this sort of a slippery charlatan guy who said, yeah, I’ll get you the oxen and sleds. Well, Palmer doesn’t. And Knox has already given him money. And, and basically what happens is he’s.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:02:27] Knox gets a letter from Schuyler saying, look, don’t deal with this Palmer guy. You know, they don’t do this. And so Knox has a situation where all these cannons are coming in.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:02:41] He’s been told, don’t use Palmer. He doesn’t know when Schuyler and Becker are going to give him his sleds. So he does a very strange thing. He goes down to Albany with a few men himself. takes this incredible journey down gets lost in the woods in a snowstorm you know just you know here here’s the colonel of the artillery of the american revolution he’s lost in the woods he finally makes it down there he actually meets with palmer and skyler and and basically palmer turns out to be a fraud and and skyler says we’ll get you these sleds and oxen and so then knocks heads back up with all these sleds and oxen’s heading up to and and during the way to and again he’s sort of doing some advance work he’s seeing where he can cross the hudson he’s looking at very very various routes and he gets back up there and so now now the sled the the cannons are there the sleds and the oxen are there and now he breaks it up into like five groups five packets if you will okay and all the sleds are loaded up again you know there’s 42 sleds there’s um 90 oxen this is this is the kind of a number that keeps coming down to us and so the the cannons are loaded everything’s ready and in january they head off they’re heading back south now to boston.

The Journey to Albany

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:04:11] When I drove back from Fort Tye to Boston just a couple of months ago, I think I went through Rochester and Ripton and Middlebury, all these great towns with great names in the Green Mountains in Vermont. But crossing the Green Mountains wouldn’t have been practical for Knox at that time, even without Cannon. So, what was his route that he was planning to take back to Boston?

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:04:34] He was going to go straight down, and then he was going to veer. So, first of all, he has to cross the Hudson four times coming down, which is incredible to think about. Hudson River is an enormous river. Enormous river, right? And up as far as Albany, it’s open to sailing, to ocean-going vessels. It’s a huge river. Yeah, and it’s the vein of America. You know, the British will do all sorts of crazy things later to try and take and take West Point and every other thing. But, you know, he’s heading down and as he’s coming down, he realizes he has to cross this Hudson four times. Four times. Four times. Wow. And here’s the thing. You know, they don’t understand how to pull these heavy, heavy cannons and these oxen and sleds. And they would turn over And so these teamsters Would then have to.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:05:39] Pull the sleds, take the oxen off, pull the sleds back over, use block and tackle to sort of wrap it around a tree and get the sleds and the cannons back over and go on. Now, snow was a problem. Not a lot of snow, but they would have that problem, but also lack of snow. So, a lot of times they’re pulling along in mud. So, this is another awful, awful thing they have to deal with. And as they’re coming down um you know they have to go across the hudson the first time and the hudson looks frozen um but knox had comes up with a technique to thicken the ice where he drills these holes and you know where the water bubbles up through the holes goes over and thickens the ice, Get it up in the cold, cold upstate New York air. Right, right, exactly. And so he still creates ice roads almost. But even still, they’re not sure they’re going to make it. So here’s the methodology they used to cross. Jim Becker would be holding an axe, walking next to the lead sled, say the 5,000-pound Big Bertha, and the oxen pulling. And if they heard a crack, he would swing that axe and cut loose the oxen so they wouldn’t go down to the river along with the cannon.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:07:08] And so this is very harrowing, this kind of crossing, going across this long, long river. But they do it the first time, and everything works out. But the second time they do it, they’re going across, and sure enough the cannon breaks through and you know they cut the rope becker uses the axe uses the axe swings it cuts off the axe and they’re free but they still have a rope connected to the cannon and again most people would say you know we just lost the cannon into the hudson oh well let’s you know go on but now they want to pull it back up and so they have to pull it to the shore and in the case of albany they get all the people in albany to come out and help them to pull this this cannon up and it takes all day and and you know in one instance it takes all day just to get this one cannon back up but they do it and again he he doesn’t want to lose one so you know this and and again these temperature variations are going on to the point where They have to wait for the temperature To drop a lot of times before they cross The Hudson again, And Knox writes letters to Washington saying We’re waiting for the you know cold to come Back.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:08:29] Which you know, Could it get any harder than that? I mean, they have thousands and thousands of pounds of cannons and men and oxen and sleds, yet they have a river that is in the midst of thawing at different times. It’s funny. In those Fisher-Price tapes, the incident near Albany where they end up christening the gun, the Albany, is presented so dramatically that for most of my childhood, I think of that moment as being the turning point of the revolution. Right. Yeah. Most people would say the revolution hadn’t even really started yet at that point. They were very formative to my outlook on the revolutionary era.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:09:06] So eventually, Knox and his party will make these four crossings of the mighty Hudson. They’ll recover the gun that they eventually christened the Albany twice out of the water. And then they’re faced with the Berkshire Mountains of Western Mass. Right. And I have to admit, I chuckled a bit of your imagery of the Berkshires and the thin alpine air and the quotes from great mountaineers. They were definitely a feat with 120,000 pounds of cannons, but the Berkshires aren’t exactly the Himalayas. No. No, they are not. They are not. No, they’re not. But they were a huge challenge. So, how did they defeat that challenge? How did they use technology and ingenuity to get the cannons across that mountain chain? You know, you’re right. You know, in the book, a lot of times I use some quotes from guys who went up Everest and things like that. Because one thing I was after with those was I.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:10:06] So it sets a stage for, these guys are worn out, these gangsters. They’ve been doing so long. They don’t have Arctic gear that have been frozen for a long time. So now they’re crossing the Berkshires.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:10:18] And they’ve got these cannons and these oxen, it’s slippery.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:10:24] And so they have to do a lot of creative things to go not only up but down. One of the things they have to do is they have to use the oxen in a whole different way to increase the pulling power. They wrap ropes and pulleys, pulling system around trees, and they would disconnect it from the sleds and then reconnect it to the oxen so that the oxen could get increased pulling power to get them up, you know, certain slopes. And then when they’re coming back down, the same thing, they could break the fall going down. They would put hay and things under the runners to slow them down.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:11:01] But a lot of times, you know, they would just hit impasses where they couldn’t go any further because they would hit a precipice a fall off you know a cliff of some sort and this was very very discouraging for knox’s men because again these these men were used to more hauling their freight getting it done this would turn into sort of a quest um as this this journey with these these cannon and again you know they would spread out they would contract um uh you know again it’s been a long journey for them and it all breaks down at one point where they say we’re not going any further we’re not going to do this anymore and so henry knox is sort of an impasse you know in his diary he he writes about he says you know that they stopped you know we were stopped.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:11:57] And so then what happens is Henry Knox has to talk his way out of it again. He has to get these men moving. And, you know, basically he connects it all to the cause, as George Washington would call it, the holy cause. You know, and Knox had a great phrase he used a lot, and that was, we’re doing this for the unborn millions. You know, for the people who are not yet born, we’re creating this country, and this is part of it. And that’s what we’re really doing this is getting this you know and he also promised more oxen fresh oxen you know and in things that were tangible uh to the man but he got them moving again you know and again you know they’ve come across late george they’ve been coming across the hudson they’ve they’ve surmounted a lot of obstacles they were nearly frozen to death, And so now in the Berkshires, which, again, it’s not Everest, but it’s very difficult to move 5,000 pounds of iron up any kind of hill. I wouldn’t want to do it. Well, and for our listeners, here’s a point of comparison. It’s 120,000 pounds. It’s 28 SUVs. Imagine dragging 28 SUVs across the frozen lakes, frozen rivers, and frozen mountains.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:13:20] With nothing but oxen. You can’t even imagine it, you know, that it’s possible to do that. And Henry Knox wrote in his diary, he said, when he looked at the Berkshires, he said, I can’t believe any man could pull this load up these mountains, you know. And again, this is a guy who had never been out of his hometown. And by the way, he was very taken with the Berkshires, You know, I mean, he wrote about them in his diary a lot and a lot about how beautiful they were and about the falls and things like that, you know. So, but this was certainly the most difficult part of the journey. And a lot changed as they finally make it through the Berkshires. And you described the noble train’s arrival in Westfield, Mass, as being like astronauts returning from the moon. Yeah. What was it like for the men of Henry Knox’s party as they start arriving in these small towns out of the mountains? Well, you know, so, again, people didn’t leave their towns. We are this provincial country.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:14:26] And so, out of the wilderness comes these big bearded men with this immense amount of artillery. And most people have never seen big weapons before. They never heard a big cannon go off. So, they come in and the townspeople are all over. Again, like seeing an astronaut. not you know they had by the way they had heard about them too they’d heard that they were coming you know the you know news traveled quickly in the colonies and everybody knew what’s going on fighting the british and that this this noble train of artillery was going to george washington to save the americans and to get the british out of boston so you know the country coalesced around that so then when they come in they’re they’re given a feast a sort of a festival they’re given rum.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:15:16] Henry Knox obliges and, you know, fires off old Sal, one of the big mortars, you know, and it rattles all the windows. But people had never heard anything like that before. So so they they are heroes, you know, already. And Knox’s stature is growing. And as they move across, you know, from town to town, each town this happens in, you know, where each time they come in, they’re more lionized. And the, you know, the townsmen are all looking at the cannon and measuring them and making predictions about, you know, what would be the most effective. But again, you know, these are people who never have seen this before. Right. And that’s a big change for the men in the party to go from sort of half starved and half frozen, sleeping on the ground in the woods to being feasted and plied with rum and sleeping indoors. Yeah, exactly. And in this way, it becomes much more of a palatable journey for them here. You know, and they’re starting to see the, you know, light at the end of the tunnel. I mean, they’re starting to get there. They’ve gone through all the hard stuff. They’ve gone through, you know, freezing, the cannons going through. So now it’s more, these are the bennies that they’re starting to get.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:16:28] Right. So even though conditions are getting better for the men in the Noble Train, the Teamsters, once they reach Springfield, that original group feels

The Teamsters’ Turnback

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:16:39] like they need to turn back. Why was that? oh you know the original agreement was that they would only go as far as springfield and knox i think believed he could talk them into going all the way but also there were some regional differences uh the green mountain boys who uh you know had been instrumental in getting for ticonderoga um or there was sort of like a ridge a regional guerrilla band and and so a lot of the teamsters felt like, you know, that they could be in danger if they stayed with this, with the Noble train, you know, and that they needed to return to New York for that. A lot of them just felt like they’d gone far enough and they’d been away from their families for a long time. You know, and by the way, one of the things that Knox did during this, as this train progressed, was he was constantly swapping out horses.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:17:39] Oxen, men, trying to keep it going any way he could. It seems like you would have to with horses and oxen that they just couldn’t sustain that level of activity for too long. Yeah, exactly. And I mean, the photos and paintings that have come down to us show these very uniform oxen and everything looks good. But the truth is, it was very serendipitous. It was very, you know, Henry, you could see him almost sort of biting his knuckles trying to figure out, OK, where am I going to get the next horse? Where am I going to get the next ox? And how am I going to keep this all together? And that’s what it was. It was sort of a make it up as you go. And so he hit Springfield and he loses all these men. And livestock, I think. And livestock. And there’s a terrible thing where Jim Becker’s son, John Becker, wrote in his journal later that they left the cannons laying in the mud. So all this glory is ending up in the mud. And yet again, Knox rallies. The people of the town help him.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:18:47] And he’s able to replace the men, replace the livestock. Get the cannons, you know, re-hooked up again, and then continue on, you know. And again, it’s one crisis after another that he’s having to overcome. That’s really, the Novo train is really just, and I think this goes to, this will go all the way up to World War II where, you know, they always said, well, what was it about the American soldier that allowed us to beat the Nazis and everybody else? And they said that it was the ability of the American soldier to improvise, that the citizen soldier was used to making up things as they went, whereas a German soldier would wait for orders. An American soldier would go, all right, we’ve got to take that hill, but you know what? Everybody’s dead except for the three of us. So why don’t you go around that way? I’ll go around this way, and I’ll try this. And so it’s that constant innovation, which I would argue started with the American Revolution, you know, with men like Henry Knox, who were like, well, you know, technically speaking, I have no idea what I’m doing. But let’s try it this way, which is very American.

The Final Sprint to Lucy

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:19:59] By this point, by the time he’s in Springfield, Henry Knox has to be thinking about Lucy not too far ahead in Worcester. So what’s this final sprint like from Springfield to Worcester where Lucy was and then to Framingham where John Adams would come out and see the train and then finally to Cambridge?

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:20:22] Well, you know, Henry Knox, again, he rides ahead.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:20:28] And he goes to see Lucy he realizes we’re almost there and so he goes to see Lucy and they’ve spent very little time together since they’ve been married, and so of course this reunion is fantastic.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:20:44] But at the same time, she also has realized that she’s married to a zealot who has hitched his wagon to the American Revolution and that he now is, you know, the colonel of the artillery in the American Army. She’s not going to see a lot of him. So it’s that dual realization.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:21:06] And with all that He has to be off Because he has to get to Washington To let George Washington know that The noble train is almost here And so you know he rides in And Washington is You know concluding Another disastrous meeting With his war council Who basically keeps telling Washington And I do this a lot in the book I go between Washington and Knox Where you know the war council Keeps telling Washington no You can’t do that. Washington keeps coming up with plans that are on the verge of foolhardness. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yes. Amphibious assault on Boston across a mile of open water in the back bay and into the salt marshes where the men will be just cut apart by the British defenders. The idea of storming across the ice with pikes because most of his men at that point don’t have muskets that can fit a ring bayonet. Grady’s being proactive, wants to be an aggressive commander. The ideas that he’s generating need to be shot down at that point. That’s right. You know, and somebody once said that, you know, inside that calm, placid exterior was the heart of a wild man about George Washington. And he does have that. He has this impulse to want to attack, to do the bold move. And at the same time, he has this very reticent exterior, you know, very cold, aloof. But of course Crossing the Delaware Is.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:22:34] Sending henry knox on this mission these are all sort of hail marys you know when everybody else thought you know we’re done we’re we’re in trouble here so he kept going to his war council and saying as you said you know hey let’s let’s go across the ice and the war council is like no.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:22:51] No no and what a part of it is that washington is beginning to get kind of beat up now by people a lot of people like you know we handed you this army nothing’s happened you aren’t doing anything, you know half the men have gone home half the men have gone home he’s lost a lot of men from disease they’re starving they don’t have any gunpowder so you know things are not going well for the americans at all so henry knox is becomes more and more washington’s only hope and he starts to fret and say where’s henry knox well then he after meeting with a war council one night he comes out and he sees a rider coming in he thinks it’s a you know a dispatch rider an express rider And he sees that scarf and it’s Henry Knox. And, you know, Henry Knox is, I’ve returned, you know, with your noble train of artillery. And from this moment, the war shifts. And I have to imagine from that moment, Henry Knox’s life and prospects shift as well. Absolutely. He had done the impossible. And by the way, not to get too ahead of us, this is Henry Knox’s finest moment. Really? I mean, this is, you know, whenever I write a book, I come away saying, oh, there is such a thing as destiny. There is such a thing as destiny. Wilbur Wright, Teddy Roosevelt, Henry Knox.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:24:15] There aren’t people who are meant to do one thing. And I would argue with Henry Knox, this is it. So when he comes back with this, he is immediately…

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:24:28] You know, not only lionized by people, but also he’s elevated in Washington’s eyes and others as this person who did the impossible. And they really didn’t expect him to succeed. You know, his whole war council thought this was just a foolhardy idea. But he does come back, and he brings with him the artillery, and this changes the equation of the war. And so, very famously, or famously here in Boston, at least, Knox and Washington managed to, in the dead of night, secretly position the artillery at the summit of Dorchester Heights. And then the next morning, the British look up the hill and see that there’s an instant fort looking back at them. Yeah, it’s an amazing feat. They use the oxen and the sleds again. And in one night, they pull them all up to the top of Dorchester Heights, build all the fortifications. It’s an amazing amount of engineering that goes in. And sure enough, it’s the checkmate where General Howell wakes up and the shells are raining down on Boston. And they can’t believe they see all those cannons skylit, you know, in the morning. and they can’t believe, hey, where did they come from?

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:25:43] And B, how did they get him up there all in one night? And by the way, his spies, a lot of spies had been telling the British, hey, you know, the Americans are bringing back all these cannons from Fort Ticonderoga. And the British officers simply didn’t believe them. They just said nobody would do that. It’s March. You’re crazy. Yeah. Who would go out? Or February. It’s February. Who would go out and do this? Nobody. And so they just simply didn’t believe them. So, right, when they wake up and the shells are raining down, they’re incredulous. And, of course, then Hal tries to send an attack force against Dorchester Heights, but then a Northeaster blows in and they can’t even get the men off the boats. And then Hal decides. He realizes because the admirals out in the ships say, you know what? We can’t stay here.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:26:42] Those 5,000 pound cannons It would be a lucky shot but they could hit us And, And we’ve got you’ve got to get rid of them or we got to go And so Howell realizes And his whole war council knows Severus lieutenants wrote later It took a little bit but he finally got it, We’ve got to abandon Boston, Which is amazing because this superpower that the whole world was sort of watching, crushing this American rebellion, now is technically losing the first battle of the American Revolution. They’re being forced out of Boston. And of course, the parade had to be canceled this year because of our stupid pandemic. But here in Boston, we remember March 17th as Evacuation Day, basically the day that the revolution was won, at least here in New England.

The Evacuation of Boston

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:27:29] What did evacuation mean for Henry and Lucy Knox? What happened to Henry’s bookstore, for instance? Well, okay. So, you know, after the British leave, and by the way, Lucy’s parents left with them.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:27:42] And, you know, all those loyalists left with them because they, you know, they figured they were going to be tarred and feathered or even worse if they didn’t. So, it’s basically panic as they get out. And, you know, Hal said to Washington, if you leave us unmolested, we won’t burn Boston down. So leave us alone and let us go. And so they do. And they leave. And so then, you know, Knox gets to march back into Boston. This is returning son, this hero. Right. And he goes back to his old bookstore. And, of course, it’s ransacked and everything. And, you know, he goes in there. and you know he had to have that poignant moment where he realized you know six months ago this was my life and now i’m returning as the man who forced the british out of boston you know and british you know when the you know the british had to when they were leaving had to look up and see those cannons well they know that was henry knox up there you know who who was really instrumental in getting them out of Boston there. So he and Lucy then, you know.

A Hero’s Return

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:28:53] You’d like to say, oh, they could live this life together, but Henry Knox was now forever wedded to the American Revolution and to George Washington. Right. You know, and he would go on and, of course, crossing the Delaware, he was right there getting the men into the boats. You know, that big voice yelling at them in the darkness and that snowstorm, you know, to get across. And he served beside Washington all the way through to Yorktown, seven long years after evacuation day here in Boston. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then he, of course, he was in his first cabinet. I think it’s the Secretary of War.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:29:33] And, you know, go ahead. I know Knox finished out his life in, I think, Maine, somewhere in the front, either New Hampshire or Maine. Did he and Lucy ever live in Boston in a meaningful way again after 1775? No, not really. I mean, after the war, Knox followed Washington to Philadelphia and the First War Cabinet and such. But one thing about Henry Knox is he was not a good businessman. Um and he decided after he left government life that he would become this man of wealth and he built himself a big mansion up in maine and uh and you know he leveraged himself he invested in a lot of things and things did not work out also too uh tragically most of his children died they didn’t make it to adulthood um and so you know they were they had a lot of debt and then henry knox uh he actually choked on a chicken bone i think it was and he got a throat infection and that’s what he died from.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:30:55] And so that left Lucy in this big mansion, and she fell on hard times and had to sell it off, and she died a pauper. Well, that is a terrible end to a family that America owed a lot to. When I think of Henry Knox, his finest hour was certainly the noble train in the fact that he did something nobody else could do. Nobody else thought he could do he was with no experience um in a pivotal moment of the american revolution he managed to get 59 cannon 300 miles in the dead of winter of 1775 all the way back to boston that george washington could use to get the british out and and really, changed the momentum of that war at that moment. Most of our listeners are in the Boston area or around New England, as you might guess. If one of them is inspired and they want to go out and walk in the footsteps of Henry Knox and the Noble Train, what’s an easy way to do that? Well, you can follow those markers, right?

Tracing Knox’s Noble Train

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:32:09] So that’s the Henry Knox Trail. Yeah, the Henry Knox Trail, which is amazing. You can drive that whole trail. And then, of course, as you said.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:32:19] Just going to Fort Ticonderoga is such an education to see that fort and to see understand where he had to get to to get these cannons.

Interview with William Hazelgrove:
[1:32:32] So, the book is Henry Knox’s Noble Train, and that’s coming out later this week. If people want to find out more about Henry Knox or follow you and your work online, where should they look? You can go to williamhazelgrove.com. There’s a whole wealth of information there on the book. And I also have a Facebook page, Henry Knox, Henry Knox’s Noble Train. And we’ll have a link to purchase the book in this week’s show notes, of course. Uh one thing too um for your listeners they might check my site i do quite a few zoom presentations, oh great that’s great in this uh this time of distancing yeah yeah and i usually do about 100 speeches a year for libraries if your listeners want to go to my website williamhaysgrove.com they’ll see where all the speaking events are all right we’ll make sure to link to that as well so folks can see when and where to catch up with you. Fantastic. So William Hazelgriff, I just want to say thank you very much for joining us today. Oh, thank you for having me.

Jake:
[1:33:37] To learn more about Henry Knox and his noble train of artillery, check out this week’s show notes at hubhistory.com slash 345. I’ll have an affiliate link where you can buy the book, a link to William’s website, and I’ll include some pictures that I took at Fort Ticonderoga during a visit a few winters ago. I’ll also include the details of an event that’s coming up at the Longfellow House, Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge, on January 29th. If you’re available, you can celebrate the 250th anniversary of the noble train’s arrival in Cambridge and hear historian and friend of the show J.L. Bell describe the importance of the noble train to the continental cause and the challenge that George Washington and his general staff faced in figuring out how to put this windfall of artillery to good use in a way that would effectively drive the British out of Boston. If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email podcast at hubhistory.com. Again, especially looking for organizers for mutual aid or Ice Watch in Hyde Park and Roslindale.

Jake:
[1:34:46] For social media, you can find me posting a lot these days out of outrage and horror and sadness at Blue Sky. You can find my profile over there by searching for hubhistory.com. I also still have profiles for Hub History on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, also on Mastodon, where I’m at hubhistoryatbetter.boston. If you’ve stepped away from social media, just go to hubhistory.com and click on the Contact Us link. While you’re on the site, hit the subscribe link, and be sure that you never miss an episode. If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please consider writing us a brief review. If you do, drop me a line, and I’ll send you a Hub History sticker as a token of appreciation. That’s all for now, and stay safe out there, listeners.