Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution »

Mark Puls is the author of Samuel Adams: Father of the American Revolution, winner of the Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award, and co-author of Uncommon Valor: A Story of Race, Patriotism and Glory in the Final Battles of the Civil War with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Melvin Claxton. Puls has worked as a journalist for The Detroit News. He lives in Hawntranck, MI.

Henry Knox played a key role in all of George Washington's battles, saving the city at the Siege of Boston and engineering Washington's famous Christmas night passage to safety across the Delaware River. In the postwar years, as the fledgling country was in desperate need of strong leadership, Knox employed the signature organizational skills that had earned him Washington's admiration during the war. His relentless pursuit of an effective defense of America has shaped our military strategy today. With riveting battle scenes and vivid prose, Mark Puls breathes new life into the American Revolution and firmly reestablishes Knox in his deserved place in history.

Publishers Weekly

In this brisk, informative biography, journalist and author Puls (Samuel Adams: Father of the American Revolution) celebrates Gen. Henry Knox, "a remarkably ubiquitous presence during America's founding generation," who has been "curiously overlooked by historians." At age 18, Knox (1750-1806) joined the local Boston militia and became a self-taught "skilled engineer and military tactician." Once the American Revolution began, General Washington appointed Knox to build and lead the army's artillery corps. Knox remained at Washington's side and supervised the 1776 Christmas Day crossing of the Delaware. He went on to command the Yorktown artillery in 1781. The then "youngest major general in the American army" retired to become secretary at war and to lay the basis for a visionary citizen army. Knox later sanctioned the American navy and promoted the creation of a military academy at West Point. His private life was burdened by years of separation from his wife and the untimely deaths of nine of their 12 children. In 1806 Knox died unexpectedly from an infection caused by a chicken bone lodged in his throat. Puls's authoritative and absorbing account of Knox's life is a fitting tribute to General Washington's "indispensable man." (Feb.)

Acknowledgments v

1 Love and War 1

2 Ticonderoga 27

3 Ragamuffins 47

4 Delaware Crossing 71

5 The Battle for Philadelphia 97

6 Turning of the Tide 119

7 Fortitude 139

8 Yorktown and Surrender 157

9 Confederation Secretary 183

10 Illusive Bubbles 203

11 Soldier's Home 223

12 Atoms upon This Atom 239

Epilogue Legacy 251

Notes 259

Bibliography 273

Index 277