General Henry Knox

Henry Knox (1750-1806), born in Boston, became a close advisor to General Washington during the revolutionary war. 

It was Washington who sent Knox to Ticonderoga, during the winter of 1775-76, to retrieve the British artillery which Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold had captured on May 10, 1775.  Those weapons were successfully used to force the British to leave Boston. 

When they withdrew, one of the British ships carried Knox’s in-laws (who were Boston Loyalists).  Lucy Flucker Knox (1756–1824), Henry’s wife, never saw her parents again.

Credits

Oil on canvas, by Charles Willson Peale, c. 1784.

Courtesy, U.S. National Park Service.