Henry Knox's Noble Train: How a Boston Bookseller’s Expedition Saved the American Revolution

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2020

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

During the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling sixty tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some three hundred miles south and east over frozen, often-treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first major victory for the Colonial Army.
William Hazelgrove, author of “Henry Knox’s Noble Train,” joins us today to discuss one of the great stories of the American Revolution, still little known by comparison with the more famous battles of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. At this time, the ragtag American rebels were in a desperate situation. Washington's army was withering away from desertion and expiring enlistments. Typhoid fever, typhus, and dysentery were taking a terrible toll. There was little hope of dislodging British General Howe and his 20,000 British troops in Boston--until Henry Knox arrived with his supply convoy of heavy armaments. Firing down on the city from the surrounding Dorchester Heights, these weapons created a decisive turning point. An act of near desperation fueled by courage, daring, and sheer tenacity led to a tremendous victory for the cause of independence.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of North America podcast is a sweeping historical saga of the United States,
0:09.4	Canada, and Mexico from their deep origins to our present epoch.
0:14.2	Join me, Mark Vinet, on this exciting, fascinating epic journey through time, focusing on the compelling,
0:20.8	wonderful, and tragic stories of North America's inhabitants, heroes, villains, leaders,
0:27.1	environment, and geography.
0:29.5	I invite you to come along for the ride.
0:44.5	History is in just a bunch of names and dates and facts.
0:47.5	It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explain how and why we got here.
0:52.5	Welcome to the History and Plug podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,
0:58.0	and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.
1:02.0	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
1:12.0	One of the most unlikely heroes in the American Revolutionary War was Henry Knox.
1:17.0	He was born in 1750 in Boston to a shipmaster who was lost at sea when Henry was 9,
1:22.0	so he had to work to sport his family from there on.
1:25.0	He was almost completely self-educated, like George Washington and Nathaniel Greenworth,
1:30.0	and through the self-starting attitude, he became a successful bookseller.
1:33.0	He read about military arts as Nathaniel Green, and he became good friends with him.
1:37.0	He was also enormous for the time, six feet tall and 250 pounds.
1:42.0	Before the war started, he had lost two fingers in a bird hunting expedition prior to the war.
1:47.0	When he joined the war effort with vigor and rose the level of colonel,
1:51.0	this was at a time, including the Civil War, when people who really didn't have military experience could become an officer.
1:57.0	During the brutal winter of 1775 to 1776, he commanded an oxen train that went to Fort Taikon,
	...

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