Henry Knox’s Noble Train, with William Hazelgrove (episode 184)

Transcript

Music

Jake Intro-Outro:
[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.
This is Episode 1 84 Henry knox’s Noble Train with William hazelgrove Hi, I’m Jake.
This week we’re talking about Henry knox, the commander of the Continental Army’s artillery, who founded the academy that became West Point and went on to become the first secretary of war for the new United States.
Before any of that, though, he was a young man in Boston. He was a whig sympathizer who was in love with the daughter of a prominent Tory, and he owned a bookstore that was frequented by both sides.
Young Henry knox was catapulted to prominence after one nearly unbelievable feat,
bringing 60 tons of heavy artillery 300 miles through the New England wilderness in the dead of winter from Fort ticonderoga in upstate New York to Cambridge to tell us how he accomplished this nearly impossible task.
I’m gonna be joined in just a few minutes by William hazelgrove, author of a new book called Henry knox’s Noble Train.

[1:12] But before we talk about the noble train of artillery. It’s time for this week’s upcoming historical event for upcoming event. This week we’re hosting a bust in history, Happy Hour and Trivia Night.
All the event calendars were usually checker, basically just blank at this point, so we decided to throw our own co host.
Nicky is writing up some trivia questions so we can have virtual bar trivia at our virtual bar on Friday, May 15th we’re bringing the Nerdiest bar in Boston to you at 5:30 p.m.
So warm up your webcam and crack open a cold one. This party is about to be off the chain.
Check out the show notes This week. A Hub history dot com slash 184 For the registration form, Just submit your email address and we’ll send out a link to our zoom meeting.
Don’t worry, though. We’re not gonna span you. We’re not nearly organized enough for that.

[2:09] Also, if you or your organization have any online events coming up.
Book talks, video tours, slide shows, lectures, anything regarding Boston history. Drop us a line.
We’re desperate for events to feature.

[2:24] Before we hear from William hazelgrove, it’s time for a word from the sponsor of this Weeks podcast. Libertyand.co sells unique products inspired by the American Revolution.
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After a success with the Noble Train of Artillery, another of Henry knox, his finest moments was arranging the logistics for the Continental Armies famous crossing of the Delaware on Christmas Day in 17 76,
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that’s L I B E r T y a nd dot CEO and use the discount code Hub history.
And now it’s time for this week’s main topic. William hazelgrove is the national best selling author of seven nonfiction books, including biographies of George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt and Edith Wilson,
because that doesn’t keep him busy enough.
He’s also written 10 novels.
He’s joining us this week to discuss his latest book, Henry knox is Noble Train, the story of a Boston Booksellers heroic expedition that saved the American Revolution, which is coming out this week.
William hazelgrove Welcome to the show.

William Hazelgrove:
[4:39] Thank you for having me.

Jake Interview:
[4:41] When I was a little little boy, my very first exposure to the American Revolution and to history. It all was through these story tapes that my parents would play on long car trips and they were called.
It was called the Fisher Price Spellbinder. Siri’s and Henry knox loomed very large in the tape on the Revolution and the one about George Washington.
So to kick us off today, well, you just introduce us to who Henry knox was and what he would have been like in the early spring of 17 75 before his fame and his even the march on Concord.

William Hazelgrove:
[5:14] He was a bookseller. He basically became the breadwinner at nine.
And, ah, he had a very interesting education where a lot of people that time had no formal education.
So he went toe work for these two gentlemen.
Ah, in a bookstore. And they pretty much said, you know, read whatever you want. So he did. He’s a very, very prolific creator.
And then he got his own bookstore in Boston. So he so a 25 years old, he had his own books. That was almost like a salon. Teoh.
Strangely enough, Ah, lot of rebels would come to it. But a lot of Tories to a lot of British officers would come there. So So it’s literally a salon, a place to be.
And Henry knox just sewing paint. The picture here is a very big guy today, we might call him fat.
Okay, uh, zaftig or whatever.
A porcine whatever you whatever adjective you want. But he you know, he was a big guy who’s six foot.
They had a big, booming voice, is very affable, affable guy which actually helped him a lot in his bookstore and, you know, and it was called the London Bookstore and he did very well.

Jake Interview:
[6:27] It is a very physical guy to it. Sounds like it. You describe a scene from the pope’s night processions or Popes night riots, where his physicality came in handy. Well, what was that all about?

William Hazelgrove:
[6:40] Right, Right. So they would take these carts out on Sort of, like, almost like a Halloween night called a pope’s night.
And they would running 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 ride him and all sorts of things.
And so Henry knox actually picked this cart up, and so it’s sort of prodigious strength.
Ah, so that became sort of part of his legend. Very early on. Also, he was good with his fists.
Ah, is sort of Ah, he was, You know, he his mother had defend for him. And then at nine years old again, he was supporting everyone because his father had left the family.
So he was having a rough part of Boston. He had ah sought Ah, you know, school of hard knocks. And he was known as somebody who could really hold his own.

Jake Interview:
[7:32] So you start supporting the family at nine years old. Do you have any sense of how he is making ends meet that young?

William Hazelgrove:
[7:39] Again. He started with these book sellers.
Um, yeah, yeah, they he is apprenticing and you’re a bookstore was much more than it is today.

Jake Interview:
[7:43] So that’s already is a nine year old. He’s basically apprenticing.

William Hazelgrove:
[7:51] They actually would bind the books there. Um, you know, books would be known as an imprint of that book store.
They would also sell other things in the bookstore as well. Ah, household items and different things like that.

[8:07] So, you know, he was only it was a bookstore, but there’s a general store quality to it as well. So he was, you know, he went toe work. He he would, you know, take the money and 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 Harry knox was really from nine years on, really sort of the man of the house, which seems to us very incredible. But again, people grew up very, very quickly.
In 17 17 hundreds, especially young boys, they went toe work very, very early way aren’t sort of use that were used to now this motive, you know, high school and then college.
And then maybe we’ll goto work so but that this time it was not abnormal for somebody. By the age 12 13 or 14 already had several jobs, because yet it’s a developing economy.
It’s a new country, you know. So the entrepreneurial ah bent of America was is what’s much more intense than it is today.
That’s kind of hard at nothing at a lot of people. Have a hard time with, you know, a lot of a lot of our founding fathers and our,
presidents from the time you had myriad of jobs at very different vocations that would they go out fail, try something fail, try again.
So he’s, you know, his bookstore. Him being this entrepreneur who takes on a bookstore was not a typical of his time.

Jake Interview:
[9:37] So how old would he have been when he started when he went out on his own when he opened his own bookstore?

William Hazelgrove:
[9:41] Ah, he was about 20 to 21 I started to a stop that now he did something interesting to nobody had used blurbs up to them.
OK, so Harry knox did was he took ah review and he would put it on a book.
And people were sorta thought this was sort of scandalous, that he was your 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 to the, you know, 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.

Jake Interview:
[10:28] 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 the sort of. At some point he developed wig ish political leanings, but his clientele wasn’t limited to people who shared his political beliefs.

William Hazelgrove:
[10:42] Now. Now, in fact, you know, these British officers would come into his bookstore and Tory ladies, uh uh, you know.
And so he was a guy, though, who managed to walk the fence. He managed a sort of cater to both sides.
Um, you know, John Adams were coming to his bookstore, other rebel figures, and yet again, you know, he he knew sort of what side of bread was buttered on.
He had to be able to sell into society in general. So it was sort of, Ah, a salon. Almost where, you know, people would come there to be seen to a certain degree.
And again, he was a very affable, affable man.
Um, you know, he his, uh, get 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 cut the colorful scarf wrapped around his left hand because he was self conscious about it.
So, you know, there was some of the swashbuckling air about him, you know, it’s hair was long dishes f up the time, and you look at the young pictures of him and you know, he was a jolly fellow too, you know.

Jake Interview:
[11:52] And speaking of being able to walk both sides of the political fences. Eventual sweetheart eventual wife Lucy Lucy Flicker was the daughter of a very prominent Tory.

William Hazelgrove:
[12:04] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. His daughter listen flickers Father was in the British government and he did not want her to marry this of other side of the tracks.
Bookseller, This rebel bookseller, if you will.
Ah, And he told her He told her specifically 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.
Don’t do this. But Lucy Fucker was very taken with Henry knox.
She was taken with his intelligence with his political beliefs. Ah, you know, with the fact that he had supported his family and had this bookstore.
She was a smart woman. She was well read, but they really were soul mates.
I mean, that’s you know when 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 say what you can have a position in the military of the British military.
If you want, I’ll will handle it. that way and, you know, and I’ll make you respectable.
And Henry said No, no, no, I don’t want that.
And his daughter, basically, I’m gonna do this. And so the father gave in, and yet and they married.

Jake Interview:
[13:30] So how does Henry knox develop his wig ish political leanings? It it’s already obviously set in or taken root. By the time he falls in love with Lucy, where does he develop that?

William Hazelgrove:
[13:42] Uh, actually a lot of the for swirling feelings at the time of the parliament acts and the currency acts that were sort of restricting trade.
And and then there was the boycotts that were going on in Boston of British goods.
You know, these These were infuriating people. So people would come into his bookstore. Hey, would catch the sort of tenor of the times through them. And he also had personal frustrations because he was hard for him to come conduct business.
Now, his total conversion was the Boston Massacre, which is really strange story.
He’s walking back one night in March and, ah, he hears these bells chime ing ringing and and generally that means fire.
So he runs to the middle of the town and he sees these British, you know, uh, read these lobsters.
Red bat red coats lined up against these people, people throwing things back and forth.
And knox 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 because there’s an ordinance that if they fired on the colonists that they could die well,
long story short, the Boston Massacre occurs that he’s right there in the middle and he sees these colonials get gunned down.
And so you know, this radicalizes him to use a current term.

[15:09] To the point where he realizes then that all this talk of liberty and freedom and a new country that in fact, it would have to take place it that a separation would have to occur.
He believed from then on that the only course would be for America to become independent from from Britain.
And this is a big jump, you know, this is this is a radical belief for him and some at the time. I mean, you know, to say we’re going to we’re going to break from this superpower and become this independent country.
But, you know, again, he was right in the middle of this, this horrible massacre.
And from then on, he he sees you know the inevitable and is one of ah ah, country that’s going to break from Britain.

Jake Interview:
[15:59] Now there are a lot of folks in Boston at that time. He shares his opinion.
If folks like John Hancock and Sam Adams, Sam and John John Adams,
I wonder if Henry knox, his experience of the early revolutions or before the war breaks out is at all different from the other sort of ring leaders we remember because he’s so much younger.

William Hazelgrove:
[16:22] History is funny that way because it picks out its figures and the figures seem to be the ones that we get him down to us.
Um knox Waas ancillary in the beginning, OK, he was He was Justice Boston bookseller, um, he he had or rhetorical gifts, but they weren’t stellar.
He wasn’t the leader of any movement, you know, he was in Congress.
So among the Founding Fathers or the people who we look is so integral to the United States being developed at this time.
Henry knox in sort of a dark horse.
Um, and I think that says a lot for how he’s come down through history to us, you know, you take 10 people said, You know, Henry knox is, and he might say, Well, Fort Knox, you know, uh, but that’s about it.
But you know, he’s one of those character. He’s very catalytic to the American Revolution.
And, of course, I don’t jump ahead of our story.
That that catalyst that he provides will make a huge impact and, I would argue, is much an impact of some of these other figures, like John Adams of Salmon.

Jake Interview:
[17:34] Well, I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler for our audience that he’s eventually gonna deliver artillery to Boston. I think a lot of our folks will know that already.
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 listen 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 cause these kids story tapes wanted to encourage people to read Children to read, but there was a lot more to his military education or self education than just reading the books he carried in his bookstore, right.

William Hazelgrove:
[18:02] To read, right?

[18:11] Right. Exactly. He actually had a militia, a local militia that he trained with Annie. A train of artillery.
Um, 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 is noble train. I mean, that’s for some reason historians have sort of slipped over this, you know? And of course, I stumble onto it when I was reading 17. 76 a.
McCullough, David McCullough, Um and so you know, knox would go at, he closed the book store,
and then he would go after 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 because, 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, what’s through the military?

Jake Interview:
[18:58] Hancock, John Hancock, out of militia as well.

William Hazelgrove:
[19:08] You could become a hero through the military. You could get glory through the military. You become somebody great to the military.
I don’t think we sink that any more. I don’t think that’s really the path I mean, maybe some people do. But for the main, you know, people like, I want to go be a rock star. I want to be an actor, you know?
It’s something like that, you know? I mean, but at this time, to be some accomplished figure in the military was great. So So training with is this? Ah, train of artillery did a couple things for him. One.
It sort of got his feet wet a little bit in terms of this, any military training at all.
And then, of course, working with cannons. And yes, he did read up on everything, and he was a vociferous reader of military strategy and more all the arts of of firing a cannon.

Jake Interview:
[20:01] So just for some background, I guess. What did it take to fire a cannon in the 17 seventies?

William Hazelgrove:
[20:08] Very involved. But you had a sort of a symphony, right? Was sort of an opera of all these different guys.
We have, Ah, Canon today, but the guy walks up, pulls the thing boom and fired, 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 if it’s clean, you have our listen.
It’s not clean. They have a swab. Er, guy who comes in with a big swab cleans it out to make sure there’s it’s a wet sponge. Always make sure there’s nothing in there that right? Right, exactly.

Jake Interview:
[20:40] Yeah. Seems like having something burning in the barrel would probably be a bad idea.

William Hazelgrove:
[20:45] So then you put in the powder. You have to put in this sort of cloth bag of gunpowder and ah, and then you have the cannon actually have the wadding, and then you have the cannon get shoved down there.
Well, then you have a guy who takes a pic basically through a hole in punctures, the bag that’s full of all this powder inside that cannon.
And then you take this Lynn stock, which has a so 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 whole into where the powder is.
And then bam, it blowed off and, you know, helpfully shoots at, 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 ah, so you know that that great movie, last of the Mohicans?
Um, my two. And so the thing to take away from that those when you’re watching that and they do that scene where they’re attacking, I’m not sure what that Fort Waas for William, for you. Okay, Okay.

Jake Interview:
[21:44] One of my favorites.

[21:53] For William Henry. I think maybe.

William Hazelgrove:
[21:56] They actually used these same type of cannons to film that. So when you look at that, you see the big eruptions of fire and smoke.

Jake Interview:
[22:00] I m.

William Hazelgrove:
[22:05] That’s basically what these guys were dealing with, you know, just a tremendous explosions. And then, you know, this cannonball goes flying out.

Jake Interview:
[22:14] So knox is drilling with his militia, reading in his book Stories, carrying on commerce the best he can in the light of the Boston Port Act, selling books toe any and all comers of any political leanings.
As the colony gets more and more divided, intentions grow. And then eventually April of 17 75 rolls around.
Actually, 245 years ago today, we’re recording this. On April 19th the British decided to go look for four cannons and some other military supplies in Concord, and Henry knox is still in Boston.

William Hazelgrove:
[22:49] Yeah, he’s still saying in his bookstore, and he’s trying to figure out which way the wind is gonna blow on all of this.
Ah, he’s you know, he made He gets married during all of this and, you know which is optimistic.

Jake Interview:
[22:59] Optimistic.

William Hazelgrove:
[23:02] And But he notices all the troops and marched out of Boston and his bookstores very empty.
And then he starts to here. You know what’s happening in Lexington and Concord.
You know this thes 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 goingto have to leave Boston.
His friend Paul Revere, same one, makes the famous ride lets him know that he’s probably gonna get arrested,
that he’s on a list that, you know he’s known as a rebel book seller is 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 had this sort of elaborate ruse where they try and make it seem everything’s normal.
And then at night that he closes the book starting. Think about this. He’s leaving the life he’s known the bookstore he’s created, and he and Lucy goes back with home.
He and Lucy put on disguises. She puts his sword into her petty coat and, um, and they head down to Boston Harbor.

[24:17] And, ah, there’s a rowboat there and they get into it and they grow out Among these man award, these British Man of Wars that air there.
And as they grow out, you know, Henry and Lucy look back of Boston. She realizes she’s leaving her father, her family, her sister and might never see them again.
Um, 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 he realizes that he’s 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 and with some friends.
And then he heads for the colonial army on the outskirts of Boston that have sort of coalesced the nice call it an army. We’ll talk about this some more.

Jake Interview:
[25:22] Well that might be might be generous in those early days.

William Hazelgrove:
[25:25] It’s really collection of farmers. I mean, it’s a bunch of backwoods men. It’s Ah, it’s Ah, it’s sort of this rag tag group of of people who fought very well.
Um, in a course, Bunker Hill was coming.
Um, but, you know, essentially, there is sort of this motley crew.
And when knox gets there, um, he saw a little disenchanted with the how disorganized everything is.
Um, you know how it seems Sort of help your scalp there. And these men who are fighting don’t really see the Army is I’ve got to stay. They feel like it’s I’ll stay and help out fight someone. If I have to go back to my firm, I’m leaving.
So it’s very ah, sort of chaotic.
And he ends up. They know it’s interesting because they immediately recognised knox disability, this sort of engineering ability, and they put him on building fortifications around Roxbury.
So you know this this is to this is so what? Here, I’ll set the scene here.
The British are are all right. We have bunker. During this time, Bunker Hill occurs.

[26:39] And of course, Bunker Hill is technically a British victory, but that they pay a heavy, heavy price, General, how really realizes what we’re up against.
And so the British make it back into Boston and basically barricade themselves in, they now occupy in Boston.
And so the colonials are all the clay armies all outside Boston.
So you have a straight see setting up where, you know, you have 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.

Jake Interview:
[27:23] 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 17 75?

William Hazelgrove:
[27:35] He was an eye who basically had been living off his wife’s money for 15 years.
I mean, you know, this This doesn’t really go with the great George Washington, but, uh, he again early in his life, he wanted military glory, and he wanted to be part of the British Army.
Uh, and so there were several campaigns where he figured in heavily. Some say he was the catalyst for the French and Indian war.
Um, he had these debacles that would occur. And the British, actually he wanted to an officer in the British Army and British said no.
We think you’re a little deficient.

[28:11] So Washington sort of retire?
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, e Mount Vernon?
He enlarged it. He had these very fine coaches.
Hey, had you went on Fox, Hans, He you know, he was so the landed gentleman.
And and, you know, for 15 years, I was basically what he was doing.
So, you know, when he became appointment by the kind of congress and say good take over the army, he had no real experience with siege warfare at all.
Uh, how do you take, you know, this this 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.

[29:09] And ah, he would you know, he would let he would let it Known to his brother. He wrote many letters to ST.
If I had known what I was going to inherit, I would have never done this.

Jake Interview:
[29:19] So how does George Washington first encounter Henry knox? What were their first impressions of each other?

William Hazelgrove:
[29:25] You know, he, uh he went to actually investigate the fortifications, so, you know, you know, Washington was a very was Amanda Habits.

[29:39] He always rose the same time every day. He always he rose before the dawn.
He would pad around in 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.
Hey, would have ah, fish a lot of times, Drink a lot. Um, a deer, A lot of wine and things like that. But he’s really this man a pattern. So, you know, he was up and Adam doing inspections, right? Always trying to whip this army into shape.
Ah, 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 goes to Roxbury.
These this area, any season is very good fortifications, and he bumps into Henry knox walking along the road.

[30:27] And there’s Washington on a big white horse and everything and,
and he talks a knox about the fortifications and some military engineer in general, and he realizes that 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 hands on opportunities to work with this kind of thing.
So so here is And this is again, what’s amazing.
George Washington would always take these young officers, these guys who had no training at all.
All right, basically, the whole American army. Very, very few had any experience with anything.
And so Henry knox is not a typical when he didn’t go through any basic train. Everything.

[31:13] But you know, he becomes Washington sort of aid to camp or, you know, right away.
Uh, so why shouldn’t like to surround himself with ease?
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 said he’d say, we can do this, you know? And so?
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 their American revolution, where,
people from nowhere are suddenly promoted up through the ranks to, you know, a colonel or a general, uh, have virtually very low experience.
But Washington realized that if he is going to win this war, he had to look for ability and he had to, you know, short, short circuit, this whole thing of low well, you have to go up to the rank for you have to be a nobility, and that’s more the British Army.
So why should the thing what have you have? Ability. I’m going to push you up.
And so knox very quickly moved into Washington’s inner circle.

Jake Interview:
[32:31] Henry and Lucy are being invited to dinner, and Henry’s getting to attend meetings with General Lee and Putnam, all the top brass and eventually Washington comes up with a new job for him.
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 17 75 it was a huge gamble. Enormous cable.
So why did Washington decide it was a bet worth making? And why was knox the man who was chosen?

William Hazelgrove:
[33:05] Well, a couple of things weren’t Washington’s very sly. Um, yeah, he goes to Henry.
Nice. Listen, uh, you know, I think you should head up the artillery and knox. Of course. It’s like, great. I accept that.
Where’s the artillery? Well, we don’t have any.
And so really, we send in accents. If you want this job, you got to come up with some our killer.
Now, as you say we have up and four ticonderoga 300 miles away.
Uh, you know, basically 60 tons of artillery. There’s actually more, but that’s what he’s gonna take out of anyway.
Um, 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 Washington’s a war cab that basically says, Storm, you don’t want.
There’s no way you’re gonna get this back here. It’s folly and a waste time and a waste money.
We shouldn’t be dealing with this, but you know, Washington slyly.

[34:10] Approaches Congress and says, Look, I want to do this and they need some money to do it when Congress says okay, so when he gives Henry knox his charge and says, You’re now head of the artillery. Okay, great.
Um and he says, You know, there’s cancer up in in four ticonderoga. And I think, you know, if we brought them back, I know where to put them. And and I think we could get the British out of out of Boston.

[34:36] So Henry knox, of course, being Harry knox is absolutely, you know, I will do this.
I can. Yes, I will. Go do this. So it’s a complete. It’s a confluence up an opportunity in this 25 year old bookseller who has very little experience in anything really to do with war.
Okay, Uh, and a general who realizes you don’t 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 ah city in a siege. Warfare without artillery.
And then he sees this. This this man who he thinks you also think about this.
Henry knox is a Bostonian, 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, Saito, Washington I’ll go get it to watching. Say, you go get it. Nobody is quite sure.
But the upshot of it is that Henry knox became the man who was going to go get this artillery sitting up in four ticonderoga.

Jake Interview:
[35:47] 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 backwards out off 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 Berthas in the book.
What are all these different types of artillery? What they were supposed to be used for?

William Hazelgrove:
[36:22] Well, you know, the big brothers are big £5000 cannons. So these can. These things can lobby shells, Miles. All right.
The howitzers, the mortars. These are basically in that. So have we seen the movies?
You shoot him up, they arc over, and then they dropped down in to your town.
That you want to attack now is he said this This was an old fork that, you know, little after French and Indian War, and nobody really cared about.
And so when you know, easy now in bed and guard will take it is 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 sort of it.
Now, the British realized too late that they should have reinforces for it because it was sort of the back door to America, and they could have used it, but they didn’t.
And so the Oh, right, exactly.

Jake Interview:
[37:15] Years later, they’ll try to fix that in the Saratoga campaign with mixed results.

William Hazelgrove:
[37:20] Exactly. So you know, a to this point, you know, is as he said, they’re just 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 when you said, There’s there’s frozen lake,
a frozen lake or Lake George.
There’s frozen rivers, the Hudson.
And then there’s the Berk Shyer mountains, all between ticonderoga and Boston and the.

Jake Interview:
[37:48] So Henry knox gets his orders to go to ticonderoga on November 16th. And this winter that were 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?

William Hazelgrove:
[38:08] You know, it really was mawr a function of, you know, finally getting the authorization. Washington giving knox, um, letters of introduction toe help him along.
And just that was sort of the time. They could just sort of get it together that head out and go after these. Now, of course, hindsight is awful time to go because, you know, I’m either they’re headed into this winter.

Jake Interview:
[38:30] Yeah.

William Hazelgrove:
[38:34] And this also, though, and I got to get of our story this also, you know, we should paint the picture of the way. The British view warfare, the British for your warfare is a You fight in the fall.
You fight in the spring, summer and the winter.
You go into winter camp and you you recover. You try and make yourself comfortable for when the spring games begin again.
And so yeah, yeah, right, right.

Jake Interview:
[38:57] Where everybody takes a few months time, time out, just relaxes.

William Hazelgrove:
[39:01] You’re the theater. You go better. And yes, to the British.
The thought that the Americans would be up to something like this in this winter is simply unbelievable.
You know that they would attempt to do something like this.
Um, isn’t unbelievable. Any I I do want to mention to that you know, the 11 thing the British have totally overlooked is Dorchester Heights.
At this point, the Dorchester Heights is this sort of hill, this cliff overlooking Boston, and it’s unoccupied by either side.
Now the British, though a couple of British you know generals are lieutenants went up to General Hound said, Listen, you know, we should probably take that,
because it’s a If the economists of the Americans ever put a cannon up there in Dorchester Heights, we would be very vulnerable.
And so, with the fleet in Boston Harbor and of course, houses has no respect at all, By the way, for Washington doesn’t even regard him is really being a general, because to him, all commissions come from the crown, he says.
If the British, if the Colin Americans take it, we’ll just take it back.

Jake Interview:
[40:18] Okay.

William Hazelgrove:
[40:18] You know, no big deal. So don’t worry about it. So but But this Achilles heel is part of the perfect storm that will occur once you know knox gets these cannons.

Jake Interview:
[40:29] So to get the canons, of course, Inter knox first has to get to four ticonderoga.
And it seems like he took a convoluted route. He went from Cambridge, Toe Worcester and then from Worcester to all the way down to New York City and then back upto Albany.
Was there a reason on choosing such a strange route?

William Hazelgrove:
[40:50] It’s You know, 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.
Okay, Henry knox did keep a diary, but it was a very rough, scanty diary and saw the journal of his journey.
So you had to kind of go from his accounts, letters and also what other people read.
Okay, so will you put put together is he’s basically on a scavenger hunt.
Okay, Washington, tell 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 four ticonderoga because a lot of people like he’ll never do this.
This is never he’s never coming back. You know this this is folly.

Jake Interview:
[41:31] Fool’s errand.

William Hazelgrove:
[41:35] This is ridiculous, you know? And so, you know, Henri takes off heads for New York with these letters and saying, Hey, if you have any despair, the full course in New York like no, we don’t cause Guess what?

Jake Interview:
[41:48] We have our own problems.

William Hazelgrove:
[41:49] Yeah, we know the British are heading here next, so we are gonna give it up.
Um, And so he goes from their heads to Albany again. He meets with some other people. Washington put him in contact. What? They’re supposed to help him along here.
But, you know, it is a secure this strange route he’s taking to finally get up to four tiger and run again.
The only reason I can say that he did this was again, you know, it was sort of like havens. Anybody have any cannons we can use?
You know, as I’m making my way up which, you know, shows how this this whole war sort of making up. Is he going? The necessity is the mother of invention.
It’s of the mantra of this part of the war.

Jake Interview:
[42:33] I have to imagine that it was quicker to go from Cambridge to ticonderoga without cannons than it was to come back with Cannon. So what kind of time was knox making on the way up toe all Albany and then on to the fort?

William Hazelgrove:
[42:47] Ah, 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. Teoh, do this thing for Washington.
Get some cannons is no risk.
Don’t worry about. I 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 see your 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, and within a week, you know, and very, very quickly he moves along now again because there’s a lot of conflicting information of how he was traveling.
I had to sort of fair it through. What was he left with? Some militia from Washington, Right with his brother.
Did he have what he would later need? Slides and oxen? No, not yet. He did.
So he’s moving along without all the apparatus of the slabs, the oxen is and everything that’s gonna tail that’s going toe really slowing down. So, yes, in a way, he’s very fleet footed.
You know, he’s writing letters back to Lucy saying, Hey, New York was really interesting. Here is what I saw. There were also two. You know, we have to remember. Nobody traveled them.
Nobody traveled. You stayed in your town your whole life, you know?

Jake Interview:
[44:15] This was Henry knox is first time outside Boston. From what I could gather from the book, astounding to me, right?

William Hazelgrove:
[44:19] Yeah. Absolutely. He was a young is a young man’s adventure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is young man’s adventure. He’s out traveling around on Lee. Government people traveled and it was hard. Roads were not good.
They had ends along the way because you only go a couple miles and then you had to stop.
Um, so you know, he’s He’s fascinated. He writes letters back about Albany in about New York, and then he finally makes its way up 24 George.

Jake Interview:
[44:46] And he’s gathering mostly people of people in supplies along the way, and especially around Albany. He starts to put together the party he’s gonna need.
Will you introduce us? I think there are two characters I want to make sure we introduce that he picks up in the Albany area. We have Philip Skylar and John Becker.

William Hazelgrove:
[45:02] Yeah, exactly. Now, Skylar is sort of the point man here who is general and Washington sort of said to knox, Look, connect with him because he’s gonna really help you do this.
Because first of all, knox has, you know, just to be clear, that says no real idea how to move all this artillery, Okay?
He’s never done this, okay? And we’re not talking about putting it on a truck, okay? This is 70 75 so he has no idea how to do this.

Jake Interview:
[45:28] Uh huh.

William Hazelgrove:
[45:32] Um, 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 would move frank for the Army or for whoever, and they would do it with oxen, Zand cards and sleds and horses, whatever, tuck.
But these were big, hearty men who basically move freight.
So Becker and Skylar are sort of this team that’s going to help knox get these cannons back to four.
Tire back to Boston, 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 in these oxen and how it’s all going to come together and not just I’m quite sure as he heads up when he’s gonna get it.
Still, these guys are the ones who have the knowledge.
They move freight before Becker’s move that for all sorts of people and ah, and Skylar also does something else.

[46:43] 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 when we talk about the other dangers, of course, but was that 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.

Jake Interview:
[47:07] Yeah, Patriot militias certainly weren’t the only militias in North America at the time.

William Hazelgrove:
[47:11] Half the country doesn’t believe in breaking from Britain.
So it wasn’t a foregone conclusion again, even while the Battle of Boston’s going on that, you know, there was a lot of colonies who had not sent their representatives to the Congress because they were trying to see which way the wind was gonna blow.

Jake Interview:
[47:29] Now, before I interrupted you, you had taken Henry knox all the way to Fort George and just toe give people a a mental image.
Four ticonderoga sits on this sort of narrow strip of land in between Lake Champlain, which is massive lake flowing up to today’s Canada and on the Vermont New York border.
And ticonderoga is at the southern tip of that almost at the southern tip in 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.

William Hazelgrove:
[48:07] Right, Right. So they reach for George, and now they have to get up to four ticonderoga, as he say, go over Lake George, late Georges, mostly frozen.
It has a air opening foot of us narrow channel in the middle that they’re gonna go through.
But the dangerous this thing’s gonna freeze over and they’re not gonna get with.
Well, now he has to get a photo of Fleet a boat 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 had the knowledge Teoh do this kind of thing.
But, you know, again, he’s making this up as he goes, you know, we have a view of Henry knox is always being with the group,
that he’s moving with, but in fact, he’s sort of moving around a lot, doing sort of advance work,
you know, trying to solve problems that he anticipates when he gets before George, you know, he’s trying.
You know, 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, um, this.

Jake Interview:
[49:20] And Fort George is I, 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 toe picture for that.

William Hazelgrove:
[49:27] Right.

[49:32] Right. Exactly. And these it is He’s crazy outposts. And so he finally gets, you know, his men together, some boats together.
And now they head up all the way up late. George do They had all the way to this northern and and going up is pretty uneventful.
They’re pretty good. It’s now, you know, real bad storms. It seems like you know, this is things are going well and, you know, it’s really it’s really sort of Ah, a moment for Henry to be in this small fleet of boats.
You heading up when? You know, Months before he was just this book seller and now he’s going to get,
the artillery for George Washington for the American Revolution that could change the course of the war.
It is very early point that could, you know, get the British out of Boston is a pretty heady moment for this young bookseller.
And so they get up and they finally make it up to four ticonderoga.

Jake Interview:
[50:37] What would things have been like at four tie At the time, my co host and wife, Niki and I drove up to Crown Point in ticonderoga in February this year, just basically to see what it’s like and winter up there. And it is cold.
What would it have been like at the time of knox, his arrival sick It?

William Hazelgrove:
[50:56] Awful. I mean, is this you know, it was his frozen wasteland, first of all, and there weren’t a lot of people there,
and and they’re viewing knox and these men coming up there like, what are you doing here?
And, you know, they have no knowledge that this guy’s gonna 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 candidates.
So knox, they had some inkling knox was coming. But when they see knox and he’s been again, this sort of little flabbergasted, they aren’t quite sure.
And so knox is a right, right? We’re in December and again, You know, I had to work out the dates and the time is because knox, in this diary a lot of time did not coincide with other people.

Jake Interview:
[51:42] By this time, it’s December, right?

William Hazelgrove:
[51:53] So, you know, in this whole journey, I like Henry knox.
You’re constantly having to sort of re evaluate, OK, what really happened And what’s the myth that was handed down to history?
And there is there’s just a lot of division between that, you know, the real story versus the sort of kidsbooks story that came down to us all.
So they going up there now, as he said for ticonderoga, is mostly on Lake Champlain.
So this is river that goes up there. And also a portage trail or road that leads up to the four.
So, you know, knox it. And 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, Okay, but this is what knox is good at.
That’s is good at talking, okay? And getting people into so he does is well, Now they have to get no knox death. A quick inspection. He finds most a lot of the cancer. No. Good.
Well, I’m just not been fired for years and years, so he picks the 59 good ones.
And, you know, time is of the essence because this Lake George could free software.
And so now they have to get these things down out of the fort onto these boats.
And again he is a race against ice and and there’s, you know, how did he do it? Well, they did all sorts of different ways.

Jake Interview:
[53:21] And it’s a race against time to a race against ice, if nothing else.

William Hazelgrove:
[53:29] They took him down. They floated some down the river.
They used some oxen they used block and tackle the lower him 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 him in these these votes.

Jake Interview:
[53:45] So what was this little fleet like that knox at is disposal. What types of boats are we talking about?

William Hazelgrove:
[53:50] Uh, tattoos. Paraguay’s thes air, you know?
And when I read about it, I’m like, What are these things? So I had to go re go see pictures of them, and basically they look like large canoes.
Um, it’s a little like little flat barges, but here’s the thing you have to know about all they sit very low in the water.
And so when they loaded him now, with all this iron, they sat even lower in the water.

Jake Interview:
[54:18] That sounds dangerous.

William Hazelgrove:
[54:18] Oh, yeah? And so they’re constantly trying to balance them with the men and everything, and it’s freezing.
So you talk. You talk about a £5000 cannon and the is basically these oversized canoes and eso.
When they was time to go, they push off.
And the return trip is not at all like the trip coming up.
Now the whole tenor of it changes. Until now, things have gone relatively. Wow.
But now they’re heading back down. They hit immediately hit storms. In fact, they can make no progress of the sales on these.
You know, Bentos and parent Woz are there not even working.
So they have to use Paul’s to push off the ice T to move.
So the move incredibly slowly, Um is this chapter is called the Hell of, Like George where basically they have to fight their way down through Lake George and and,
they some of the boat started to sink.

Jake Interview:
[55:22] Uh, which sounds like a bad thing in December in upstate New York.

William Hazelgrove:
[55:22] You know?
Yeah, and when here’s what’s amazing. So these things sink, they pull up the cannons.
I mean, they don’t just go out. We lost a few. Let’s keep moving.
Knox is convinced he needs every can in the George Washington’s every single one. He can’t afford to lose any.
So they go back to Fort Tiger on growing it. More men, more things, more ropes and such.
Toe helped them pull these cannons up and continuing. Now, here’s where the You have to sort of clarify this.
They become like a caterpillar and this will be true. The whole expedition going back, the artist cohesive unit of boats altogether.
They’re spread out because some move slowly move faster and they didn’t set off of the same time.

[56:11] So, you know, today we see fleet set off. All the boats are together.
That’s not the way it waas. So you know, there’s guys that are way out on the lake, and guys were just leaving.
So knox is your sort of moving around trying. Teoh can 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 it at a later time.
And again, this when you’re putting together this, too, is part of the confusion. So they get is faras Sabbath island.
And Sabbath Island is a sort of midpoint in Lake George, where they’re like, we’re too cold to go on, were frozen and they make a huge fire and put their feet to the fire.
And and then, of course, Indians pop out and, ah, again, you know, knox, his brother William grabs his knife thinking they’re gonna have trouble they needed turned out to be fine. They help him out, getting some food.
But, you know, I get men are freezing, you know, They they’re all freezing. They’re getting frost bit, you know, the cannons are impossible to move.
Ah, they set off in the morning and, you know, again, you know, I think the Bach als sinkings,
Um and it just takes another hellish day where knox makes it to another small island further down.

[57:38] States 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 us next face.
Now, the next phase is going to be the oxen.
It’s gonna be 90. Accident, 42 floods.

Jake Interview:
[58:05] And that’s how we remember. Henry knox is noble, trained for the most part of the journey. A heroic effort of getting of his tonnage overland. We forget about the part where he was sailing down Lake George.

William Hazelgrove:
[58:09] Ah,
right.

[58:16] Right. Exactly. Know? Absolutely that, you know. But that was this horrific. Now he does a couple things when he reaches.
When he reaches for George, he write some letters.
And one that he writes one letter Lucy saying, Hey, look, you know this, but a little longer than I thought.

Jake Interview:
[58:34] Uh huh.

William Hazelgrove:
[58:35] You know, hope you’re well, you know, I’m in this frozen fort in the middle of night writing you this letter.
Um, and then he writes to George Washington and basically says, uh, you know, we made it back, you know, we’re going to start the next leg of the journey.

[58:54] I think within three weeks we should have your noble train of artillery to you.

[59:00] Now it’s 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 to come of age, to come alive and be a place where liberty and justice.
And you know, uh, where a man could have a chance and and live a full life and pursuit of happiness.
So he saw the revolution in those terms already.
But then he elevated his journey to a religious quest for saying, I’m going to bring your noble train or Charlie what’s a noble train?
Because this is going to give us liberation.
This is this is going to further our cause is going to get the British out of Boston and ultimately allow our country to be this place on earth where, you know, people could be truly happy.
So So he elevates it right there.
Uh, you know, toe now Washington is religious somewhat OK, but it’s almost a practical religion. He does. Everything is supposed to. But you have to wonder, how much does he really believe? You know.
So anyway, right, so he’s he makes it. He writes these letters.
Now the the cannons are arriving. All right, But there’s a problem.
There’s no oxen, and there’s no slants at this point.

[1:00:30] So this is a This is a real problem. Now, now this This is what you deviate from the kidsbooks stories.
Okay, because the kid books, threats of accidents leads, we’re all waiting, you get cinnamon goes.

[1:00:41] But but the truth is, this was an operation that had no precedent.
And knox had contracting with another man named Palmer.
All right. And Palmer was this sort of slippery Charlotte in guy who said, Yeah, I’ll get you the oxen. That’s leads. Well, Palmer doesn’t, and knox has already given him money.
And basically what happens is knox gets a letter from Skylar saying, Look, don’t deal with his Palmer guy.
You know they don’t do this.
And so knox is has a situation where all these cannons were coming in, he’s been told, Don’t use Palmer.
He doesn’t know when Skylar and Becker gonna give him his sleds.
So he does a very strange thing. He goes down to Albany with a few men himself.

[1:01:33] Takes this incredible journey down, gets lost in the woods in a snow storm.
You just, you know, here’s the kernel of the artillery of the American Revolution. He’s lost in the woods.
He finally makes it down there. He actually meets with Palmer in Skylar, and basically Palmer turns out to be a fraud.
And in Skylar says, We’ll get you these sleds and oxen.
And so then knox heads back up with all these sleds and oxen is heading up to and during the way to again, he’s so doing some advance work.
He’s seen where he could cross the Hudson. He’s looking at very great, their various routes and gets back up there.
And so now, now the slit, the the cannons air there, the sleds and the oxen er there.
And now he breaks it up into, like, five groups. Five packets, if you will.

[1:02:27] All the sleds are loaded up again. You know, there’s 42 sleds. There’s 90 oxen.
This is This is the kind of number that keeps coming down to us. And so the cancer loaded, everything’s ready. And in January, they head off.
They’re heading back south now to bustin.

Jake Interview:
[1:02:51] When I drove back from Fort Tide of Boston just a couple of months ago, I think I went through Rochester and ripped in the Middlebury, all these great towers of great names in the Green Mountains of Vermont.
But crossing the Green Mountains wouldn’t have been practical for knox at that time, even without Cannon. So how was he played Moses route? That he was planning to take back to Boston?

William Hazelgrove:
[1:03:14] Um, yeah, he was gonna go straight down, Um, and then he was gonna veer right?
First of all, he has to cross the Hudson four times coming down, which is incredible to think about.

Jake Interview:
[1:03:30] Hudson River is a enormous river.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:03:32] Enormous, enormous river, right, and.

Jake Interview:
[1:03:35] Ah Oppa’s faras Albany. It’s it’s open to sailing, but the ocean going vessels. It’s a huge river.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:03:40] Yeah, it is in its the vein of America, You know, which the British, you know, do all sorts of crazy things later to try and take and take West Point and every other thing.
But, um, you know, he’s heading down, and as he’s coming down, he realizes he has to cross this Hudson four times four times. And here’s the thing.

Jake Interview:
[1:04:00] Four times Wow!

William Hazelgrove:
[1:04:05] You know, they don’t understand how toe pull these heavy, heavy cannons and these oxen sleds, and they would turn over.
And so these Teamsters would then have to,
pull the sleds, take the you know, the oxen off, pull sleds back over you block and tackle to sort of, you know, wrap it around a tree and get the sleds and the cannons back over and go on.
Now, snow was a problem, not not the 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 looked Fresen,
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.

Jake Interview:
[1:05:12] Get it up in the cold cold upstate New York air.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:05:15] Right? Right. Exactly. And so he so creates ice roads All knows, but even still, they’re not sure they’re gonna make it. So here’s the methodology they used across got Jim Bakker would be holding an axe.
Walking next to leaflet will say the £5000 Big Bertha and the oxen pulling.
And if they heard a crack, he would swing that ax and cut loose idiot oxen so they wouldn’t go down to the river along with his slut with the cannon.
And so this is very harrowing that, you know, this kind of crossing, Um, going across this thing is 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.

Jake Interview:
[1:06:11] Becker uses the axe.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:06:12] Yeah, he uses the ax swings that cuts off the oxen. They’re free, but they still have a rope connected to the cannon.
And again most people say, you know, we just lost the cannon into the Hudson.
Oh, wow, let’s, you know, going. 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 all going to come out and help them,
to pull this this cannon up and it takes all day and, you know, it’s one instance it takes all day just to get this one can and back up.
But they do it and again, he doesn’t want to lose one. So you know this and again these temperature variations are going on to the point where they have toa wait for the temperature to drop a lot of times before they cross the Hudson again.
And knox writes letters the Washington saying we’re waiting for the, you know, cold to come back. Um, which, you know.
Could it get any harder than that? I mean, they have. They have thousands and thousands of pounds of pan ins and men and oxen and sleds, yet they have a river that is in the midst of thawing at different times.

Jake Interview:
[1:07:22] It’s funny in, Ah, those Fisher Price tapes the incident near Albany, where they end up christening the gun. Three. Albany has presented so dramatically that for most of my childhood, I think of that moment as being the turning point of the Revolution.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:07:36] Right, right. Yeah.

Jake Interview:
[1:07:36] And then it’s mostly would say the Revolution hasn’t even really started yet at that point, there were very formative to my to my, uh, outlook on the revolutionary era.
So eventually there, knox in his party will make these four crossings of the mighty Hudson.
They’ll recover the gun that they eventually Chris in the Albany twice out of the water.
And then they’re faced with the Berkshire Mountains of Western Mass.
And I have to admit, I I chuckled a bit of your imagery of the Berkshires and a thin alpine air and the quotes from great mountaineers.
They were definitely a feat with £120,000 of cannons. But the Berkshires aren’t exactly the Himalayas, Uh, is it?

William Hazelgrove:
[1:08:21] No, no, they’re not. They’re not. Now that.

Jake Interview:
[1:08:25] But they were a huge challenge. So how how did they defeat that shot? How did they use technology and ingenuity to get the cannons across that mountain chain.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:08:34] You know, you’re right. You know, in the book a lot of saying times, I use some quotes from guys who went up Everest and things like that.
One thing I was after with those was I wanted to USO sets stage for these guys are worn out.
These teamsters they’ve been doing so they don’t have arctic gear that have been frozen for a long time to have a crossing the Berkshires.
And And they got these these cannons and these oxen slippery and and so they have.
You have to do a lot of creative things to go not only up but down.
One of things have 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 reconnected to the oxen,
so that accent could get increased pulling power to get him 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 him down.
But a lot of times, you know, they would just hit impasses where they couldn’t go any further because they would hit a a precipice of fall off a cliff of some sort.
And this was very, very discouraging.

[1:09:55] For knox is men, because again, these these men were used to more holing or freight getting it done.
This it earn its of a quest.
Amassed. Is this journey with these cannon And again, you know, they would spread out, they would contract.
Um, 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 impassioned when it is his diary. He writes about that. He says, you know that they stopped, you know, we were stopped.

[1:10:38] And so then what happens is Harry 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 causes.
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?
They also promised more oxen, French oxen, you know, and in things that were tangible to the men.
But he got them moving again, you know, And again, you know, they come across Lake George had been coming across the Hudson.
They surmounted a lot of obstacles. They nearly frozen to death.
And so now in the birth charts, which again, It’s not Everest, but it’s very difficult to move £5000 of iron up any kind of hill.

Jake Interview:
[1:11:41] Uh huh. I wouldn’t want to do it.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:11:44] Well in in for listeners. Here’s point of comparison. It’s £120,000 is 28 SUVs.
Imagine dragging 20 SUVs across frozen lakes, frozen rivers and frozen mountains with nothing but action.
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 Berkshire IRS, he said, I can’t believe any man could pull this load up these mountains, you know? And again, this guy has never been out of his hometown.
By the way, he was very taken with the Berkshire IRS, you know?
I mean, he wrote about them in his diary a lot, a lot about how beautiful they were in about the falls and things like that, you know?
So but this was certainly the most difficult part of the journey.

Jake Interview:
[1:12:38] And a lot changed as they finally make it through the Berkshires. And you, you describe the noble train’s arrival in Westfield, Mass. As being like astronauts returning from the moon.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:12:50] Yeah.

Jake Interview:
[1:12:51] What what was it like for the men of Hinder? Knox is party as they start arriving in the small towns out out of the mountains.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:12:59] Well, you know so again people didn’t leave their towns. We were this provincial country.
And so out of the wilderness comes ive 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 in the towns. People are all over again.
Like it. Like seeing an astronaut.
You know they, by the way, they had heard about them too. They had heard that they were coming.
You know that. You know, news travelled quickly in the colonies and write new was going on fighting the British and that this this noble train artillery was going to George Washington to save the Americans and to get the British out of Boston.
So you’re the country coalesced around that so that when they come in, they’re given a feast of sort of a festival there.
Given Rahm Henry knox obliges and fires off Old sow, one of the big mortars, you know, in the rattle follow windows. But people have never heard anything like that before.
So so they they are heroes.
You already and knox. His stature is growing.
And as they move across, you know, from town to town, each town this happens in.

[1:14:18] You know where each time they come in, they’re more lionized in the town’s mineral, looking at the Canada and measuring them and making predictions about you know what would be the most effective.
But again, you know, these are people who never seen this before.

Jake Interview:
[1:14:34] All 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 Rahman’s sleeping indoors.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:14:46] Yeah, Yeah, exactly. In this way, it becomes much more, uh, a palatable journey for them here, you know, and their friend to see that, you know, light at the end of the tunnel.
I mean, they’re starting to get that. They’ve gone through all the hard stuff that gone through freezing of cannons going through.
So now it’s it’s more. These are the Bennies that they’re starting to get.

Jake Interview:
[1:15:08] 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 like they need to turn back. Why was that?

William Hazelgrove:
[1:15:22] You know, the original agreement was that they would only go as far. Springfield and knox, I think believed he could talk him into going all the way.
But also, there were some regional differences. The Green Mountain Boys who, uh, you know, had been instrumental in getting for ticonderoga were there was sort of, like a ridge, a regional guerrilla band.
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 need to return to New York for that.
Um, a lot of them just felt like they had gone far enough, and they had been away from their families for a long time.
Um, you know, by the way, one of things that knox did during this, as his train progressed was he was constantly swapping out horses,
oxen, men trying to keep it going anyway.
He could, um, you know.

Jake Interview:
[1:16:26] It seems like you would have to with horses and oxen that they just couldn’t sustain that level of activity for for too long.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:16:32] Yeah, exactly. I mean, the photos and pains have come down to a 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 a sort of biting his not goes trying to figure out.
OK, where am I going to get the next horse? We’re gonna get the next oxen. How am I gonna keep this all together?
Um, and that’s what it was, that sort of, Ah, make it up as you go. And so it’s Springfield and he loses all these men.

Jake Interview:
[1:17:02] Right. And livestock, I think.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:17:02] And it seems that you know that in livestock and it in, you know, there’s a terrible thing where Jim Becker’s son, John Becker, wrote in his journal later that they left the cannons lane in the mud.
You know, so you know that all this glory is any up in the mud.
And yet again, knox rallies The people of the town help him, Um, and he’s able to replace the men, replace the livestock,
get the cannons, you re hook up again and then continue on.
You know, um, and again, it’s it’s it’s one crisis after another. These having to overcome that’s really the noble train is really just.

[1:17:46] And I think this goes to, uh, go.
I’ll let the World War two where, you know, they always said what was it.
The about the American soldier that allowed us to beat the Nazis and everybody else on Day 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 ago.
All right, we 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 go around this way and I’ll try this and and so it’s a 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.

Jake Interview:
[1:18:39] By this point. By the time he’s in Springfield, Henry knox has to be thinking about Lucy not too far ahead.
And Wester, What’s What’s this final sprint like from Springfield Toe Worcester, where Lucy was, and then to Framingham, where John Adams to come out and see the train and then finally to Cambridge.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:18:48] Uh.

[1:19:02] Well, you don’t. Henry knox again. Uh, he rides ahead and he he goes to see Lucy.
You know, he realizes we’re almost there.
And so he goes to see Lucy and they they’ve spent very little time together since they’ve been married.
And so, of course, this reunion. Fantastic. But at the same time, sheet Awesome 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 current lower the artillery in the American Army.
She’s not gonna see a lot of him.
So that that dual realization and with all that, he has to be off because he has to get to Washington. Let George Washington Oh, that the noble trains 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 it Washington and I did this a lot in the book.
I go between Washington and knox, where, you know the war complicates telling Washington No, you can’t do that.

Jake Interview:
[1:20:16] Washington keeps coming up with plans that air on the verge of foolhardiness lake and amphibious assault on Boston, across a mile of open water in the Back Bay and into the salt marshes.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:20:20] Absolutely, absolutely, yes.

Jake Interview:
[1:20:29] Or the men will be just cut apart by the British defenders that if storming across the ice with Pikes because most of his men at that point don’t have bus kits that considering bay and at Great is being proactive was to be an aggressive commander.
The ideas that he’s generating need to be shot down at that point.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:20:46] That’s right, you know, And somebody once said that, you know, inside that calm, placid exterior with the heart of a wild man about George Washington.
And and he does have that he has this impulse tow one attack to do the bold move at the same time.
He has his very reticent exterior, you know, very cold, aloof.
But of course, you know, crossing the Delaware.
Sending Harry knox on this mission. These air, all for the Hail Marys.
You know, when everybody else thought, you know, we’re done, we’re in trouble.
So he kept going to his war council in saying and she said, You know, let’s let’s go across the ice And the working councils like No, no, no, it wanted.
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 had you this army. Nothing’s happened.
You aren’t doing anything, you know after a minute going home. He’s lost a lot of men from disease.

Jake Interview:
[1:21:44] Half the men have gone home.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:21:48] They’re starving and 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 friends 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 ah, you know, dispatch writer and express writer, and, uh, and he sees that scarf and it’s Henry knox.
And you know, Harry knox is I’ve returned, you know, with your noble train of artillery.
And in from this moment, the war Chefs.

Jake Interview:
[1:22:29] And I have to imagine from that moment, Henry knox is life and prospects shift as well.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:22:34] Absolutely that he had done the impossible. He in by and by the way, nothing into ahead of us.
This is Henry knox. His finest moment, Really. I mean, this is you know, whenever I write a book, I come away saying There is such a thing is destiny.
There is such a thing. It’s testing Wilbur Wright, Teddy Rose about Henry knox, Um, the their arm, people who are meant to do one thing and and I would argue with Henry knox.
This is it. So when he comes back with this, he is immediately,
you know, not only lionized by people been, but also he’s elevated in Washington thighs and others as this person who did the impossible and they really didn’t expect him to succeed.
You know, they, his whole War Council, thought it 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.

Jake Interview:
[1:23:33] And so very famously famously here in Boston, at least, knox in Washington managed to, in the dead of night, secretly position the 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.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:23:51] Yeah, it’s an amazing feat. Um, they use the oxen and the sleds again, and they 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, how wakes up.
And the shells were raining down on Boston, and they can’t believe they see all those cannon sky lit, you know, in the morning.
And they can’t believe a Where did they come from?
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 cannon from Fort ticonderoga, and the British officer simply didn’t believe him.
They just nobody would do that.

Jake Interview:
[1:24:44] It’s March, You’re crazy. February, it’s February.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:24:46] Yeah, who would go out and yeah, who would want to do this? Nobody. And so they just simply didn’t believe them.
So right when they wake up and the shells were raining down, it’s their incredulous and, of course, And how tries to send you an attack force against, you know, Dorchester Heights.
But then a northeaster blows in and they came and get the men off the boats.
And then how, besides, he realizes? Because the advert the admiral’s out in the ship’s say, you know what were we can’t stay here.
Those £5000 cannons. It would be a lucky shot, but they could hit us and and we’ve got You’ve got to get rid of where we got to go.
And so how realizes? In this whole War Council knows, Summers lieutenants wrote later, it took a little bit, but he finally got it.
We’ve got a banned in 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.

Jake Interview:
[1:25:56] 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 the day that the Revolution was one, at least here in New England.
What did evacuation mean for Henry and Lucy knox? What happened to Henry’s bookstore first?

William Hazelgrove:
[1:26:14] Well, okay, so, you know, after the British leave, And by the way, Lucy’s parents left with them.
Ah, and you know, all those loyalists left left with them because they, you know, they figured they were gonna be tarred and feathered or even worse if they didn’t.
So it’s basically panic as they get out. And you know how? Said the Washington view leave us un molested. We won’t burn Boston down, so leave us alone. Let’s go.
And so they dio and they leave insulin.

[1:26:46] 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 point your 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 when they were leaving, had to look up and see those cannons.
Well, they know that was Henry knox up there.
You know who was really instrumental in getting them out of Boston there.
So he and Lucy, then, Ah, you know, you’d like to say they could live this life together, But Henry knox was now forever wedded to the American Revolution and to George Washington, you know, and he would go on.
And, of course, um, 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 it’s no storm, you know, to get across.

Jake Interview:
[1:27:58] And he served beside Washington all the way through to Yorktown. Seven long years after Evacuation day here in Boston.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:28:05] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then the You know that he of course, he was in his first cabinet. And I think that the secretary of war of war and, uh, you know, go ahead.

Jake Interview:
[1:28:11] Secretary of War,
I. I know knox knox finished out his life in, I think Maine on the somewhere in the front. Either in New Hampshire or Main did.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:28:22] Main. Yeah, yeah.

Jake Interview:
[1:28:24] Did he and Lucy ever live in Boston in a meaningful way again after 17 75.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:28:31] No, no, no, not really. I mean, um, they afterward, after the war, knox Ah, follow Washington and Philadelphia in, you know, the first war cabinet and such.
But, you know, one thing my 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 felt 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 to, uh, tragically, most of the Children died.
Um, 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 waas and he got a throat infection.
And that’s what he died from. 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 popper.

Jake Interview:
[1:29:47] Well, that is a terrible end to ah, family that America owed a lot to.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:29:49] Yeah. Yeah.

[1:29:54] When I think of Henry knox, his finest hour was certainly the noble train,
in the fact that he did something nobody else could dio Nobody thought he could dio he was no experience.
Um, in a pivotal moment of the American Revolution, he managed to get,
59 canon 300 miles in the dead of winter of 17 75 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.

Jake Interview:
[1:30:34] 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 in the Noble Train, what’s an easy way to do that?

William Hazelgrove:
[1:30:47] Well, you could follow those markers, right? Yeah, The Henry knox Trail, which is, you know, amazing.

Jake Interview:
[1:30:50] So that’s the Henry knox trail.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:30:55] You can drive that whole trail. And then, of course, as he said, just going to Fort ticonderoga is such an education.
To see that for and to see understand where he had to get Teoh to get these cannons.

Jake Interview:
[1:31:03] Okay.

[1:31:12] So the book is Henry knox is 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.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:31:23] You can go toe William hazelgrove dot com. Um, there’s, ah, whole Waltham information there on the book.
And I have a Facebook page with Henry knox.
Henry knox is noble train.

Jake Interview:
[1:31:38] And we’ll have a link toe purchase? The book in this week’s show notes, of course.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:31:42] Ah, One thing, Teoh for your listeners, they might check my site.
I do quite a few zoom presentations.

Jake Interview:
[1:31:51] Oh, great. That’s great in this. Ah, this time of distancing.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:31:54] Yeah. Yeah, and I usually do about 100 speeches a year for libraries.
Your listeners want to go to my website, William, his group dot com. They don’t see where all the speaking events are.

Jake Interview:
[1:32:05] All right, well, make sure link to that as well, so folks can see when and where to catch up with you. So, William hazelgrove, I just want to say thank you very much for joining us today.

William Hazelgrove:
[1:32:09] Fantastic.

[1:32:14] Oh, thank you for having me.

Jake Intro-Outro:
[1:32:16] To learn more about Henry knox and his noble train of artillery, check out this week’s show notes at hub history dot com slash 184 We’ll have a link to buy the book and a link to Williams website.
We’ll also include links to information about visiting Fort ticonderoga and how to find the Henry knox Trail and, of course, love the registration form for our Boston history. Happy Hour, this week’s featured upcoming event.
If you’d like to get in touch with us, you can email us at podcast of hub history dot com.
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Music

Jake Intro-Outro:
[1:33:14] That’s all for now. Stay safe out there, listeners.