Knox Drags Cannons to Boston: Winter's Bold Gamble

Colonel Henry Knox, a 25-year-old bookseller turned artillerist, set out from Fort Ticonderoga on December 5, 1775, to drag 60 tons of captured British cannons across 300 miles of frozen wilderness to the siege lines around Boston. The mission, which George Washington considered essential to breaking the British occupation, required Knox to transport 59 cannons, mortars, and howitzers by ox-drawn sledges across the Berkshire Mountains in the dead of winter. Military logistics of this scale had never been attempted in North America. Fort Ticonderoga, captured by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold in May 1775, held a substantial arsenal of British artillery that the Continental Army desperately needed. Washington's forces surrounding Boston had few cannons capable of threatening the British garrison. Knox, who had learned artillery science from books in his Boston shop, volunteered for the seemingly impossible task and received Washington's blessing. The "Noble Train of Artillery" moved south along Lake George by boat, then overland by ox-drawn sledges through January snowstorms and thaws. Knox's men reinforced frozen river crossings, hauled cannons up mountain passes, and improvised solutions when ice gave way beneath the loads. One cannon crashed through thin ice on the Hudson River and had to be fished out. Knox kept a diary recording temperatures, distances, and the steady profanity of his teamsters. The cannons arrived at Washington's camp in Framingham, Massachusetts, in late January 1776. Washington deployed them on Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor on the night of March 4. When dawn broke, the British found themselves staring up at artillery that could reduce their ships and positions to rubble. General William Howe evacuated Boston on March 17 without firing a shot. Knox's winter trek had liberated the first major city of the American Revolution.