Henry Knox (26 page)

Washington wrote a note of condolence to Lucy, and to Henry he inquired, "I wish you to make this an object of particular attention. I shall be glad to hear how Mrs. Knox is, to whom I beg my respectful compliments and best wishes for her health.“
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Despite Knox's hope that the war would end soon, he continued to advise Washington to maintain a cautious defensive strategy while simultaneously making preparations for a joint campaign with the French fleet. Within weeks, however, these plans were disrupted. The French admiral did not want to navigate the difficult waters of New York Harbor and the Hudson, and instead sailed to Savannah to coordinate an attack with General Benjamin Lincoln against British forces occupying the city. Washington told Knox on November 12 to end any preparations for a joint campaign with the French fleet, and the army began to pack its bags to return to winter quarters in Morristown.

The trial of Benedict Arnold resumed at Morristown two days before Christmas, and Knox returned to his judicial seat. The court-martial was delayed again as Arnold asked for officers to testify on his behalf who could not leave their posts. Like everybody else in the army, Knox had no inkling of Arnold's duplicity and remained sympathetic, believing the accusations would prove baseless. After several days of testimony, Knox and the board acquitted Arnold of the charge that he ordered Philadelphia stores shuttered while he
made personal purchases and had slighted Pennsylvanians in appointing officers within the army, disregarding the authority of civilian leaders. But Knox and the board found him guilty of allowing a ship from a British port to dock in the United States and that Arnold used army wagons for personal business. Washington issued him a mild, halfhearted rebuke, calling his actions "peculiarly reprehensible." No other penalty was given.
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Despite the leniency, Arnold would later say that he was embittered by the proceedings and the reprimand and thus felt fully justified to betray his colleagues as he felt betrayed by them.

The winter of 1780 proved to be the most severe that anyone could remember, and was said to be the coldest of the eighteenth century. A three-day blizzard in January buried the Morristown camp under snow that piled six feet high. Henry's men had to dig the heavy iron guns out of the snow to prevent ice from corrupting the barrels. As many as twenty-eight snowstorms blanketed the camp that season. The previous winter at Valley Forge had been nearly unendurable, but this year proved to be even worse. Few supplies trickled in, and provisions became bogged down en route by impassable roads. A forty-head herd of cattle was driven through the drifts to reach camp in early January to save the men from starvation.

Needing a victory to inspire more support, Washington planned a surprise attack of Staten Island in New York. Knox allotted the number of cannons needed for the mission, in which troops were ordered to drive 500 sleighs through deep snow in an attempt to take the British by surprise. Knox's provisions for the planned assault drew criticism from Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, who did not hesitate to question the estimates of a superior. To Washington, Hamilton wrote on Friday, January 14, 1780: "It appears to me the quantity of ammunition proposed by General Knox for the artillery is inefficient. A larger consumption may be necessary—the stone house in which the enemy may attempt to defend themselves may be obstinate, and we should have it in our power by the severity and duration of our fire, to bring them to reason.“
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Hamilton's reference to the "stone house" was a clear allusion to the Chew House, where, in October 1777, Knox's artillery guns had failed to dislodge 200 British soldiers, causing a costly delay in the advance of Washington's army and contributing to the defeat at Germantown. This would not be the last time Hamilton would question Knox's judgment. Perhaps to be safe, Washington ordered Knox to send more artillery along with the mission, which ended in failure. The British, well entrenched when the Americans arrived and not surprised by troops, easily repulsed the attack.
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American prospects for the war did not brighten with the spring of 1780. On May 12 in Charleston, South Carolina, British general Henry Clinton forced the surrender of General Lincoln, who turned over the American garrison and the city. It was the greatest defeat of the war, costing the United States 5,000 men, along with 400 guns and 6,000 muskets. The British were now un-opposed in South Carolina. Knox sent a consoling letter to his friend Lincoln just as he had sent condolences to Nathanael Greene after his demoralizing defeat at Fort Washington in November 1776. Knox expressed his steadfast faith in Lincoln at a time when his military reputation lay in ruins: "The great defense made by you and your garrison in field fortifications will confer on you and them the esteem and admiration of every sensible military man. I hope and believe that Congress will most unequivocally bestow that applause which you have so richly merited. No event, except the capture of Sir H. Clinton and his army, would give me more pleasure than to see you.“
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Lincoln seemed deeply moved by Knox's abiding confidence. At a later period, he wrote to Henry in terms of overflowing affection: "The first moment I had the happiness of being acquainted with you I conceived a high degree of friendship, which uniformly has increased as I became more intimate, until the present period. I consider the confidential manner in which we have indulged as one of the happy circumstances of my life, and in all events of grief or joy there is no man from whose friendship I should more readily expect the most cordial balsam, or whose bosom would more cheerfully expand in a participation of my happiness.“
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On Tuesday, May 23, 1780, Knox began to voice doubts over the prospect of success against the British in New York City. To lay siege to the town, he believed the Continental army needed 28,000 men to overtake the 14,000 redcoats nestled behind defensive fortifications. He provided Washington with a detailed if somewhat cautious plan for a coordinated Franco-American assault that expressed his concerns. Because the value of the American dollar had depreciated so much, many merchants and farmers were unwilling to sell goods to the army. Knox explained that any summer military campaign would be doomed if the army's quartermaster and commissary departments were not put on solid financial footing by Congress: "Those are the main springs of an army, and unless they are in perfect order, every movement depending on them must be wrong and will in the end, produce destruction.“
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Many of the troops that Knox saw at Morristown were gaunt and emaciated from months of malnourishment. Most went several days without meat, and officers such as Knox subsisted on bread and water to set an example. Despite the strict diet, however, Henry remained a heavy man. But the troops continued to die from disease or illness at an alarming rate, and Congress was unable to raise money for the army to relieve the suffering.

During these lean times, Lucy was enduring another pregnancy. She gave birth to a son, Henry Jackson Knox, on Wednesday May 24, 1780. He was named after Henry's colleague and friend, Colonel Henry Jackson, commander of the Sixteenth Massachusetts infantry regiment.

The following day, Knox was forced to be at camp as several soldiers revolted over the dire conditions in the army. The troops had not been paid in five months, and many feared that their depreciating wages would be worthless. Two Connecticut regiments paraded through the Morristown camp the evening of Thursday, May 25, with their arms shouldered and carrying their packs and accoutrements. A regiment of Pennsylvania soldiers appeared to surround the protesters, who chose to return to their barracks.

Once again several members of Congress seemed to be losing faith in Washington and his circle of top advisors, including Knox and Greene. On June 13, delegates unanimously appointed Horatio Gates to head the southern department of the Continental army, adding that he needed to answer only to Congress and not to Washington.
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Knox was frustrated with Congress's wavering faith in Washington and believed that the army lacked provisions rather than leadership. The need for flour to feed the starving soldiers was so great that Knox was sent to Trenton on an emergency mission to speed up the arrival of rations. He left camp on June 21 accompanied by twenty cavalry riders with a request for the head of the Pennsylvania government to supply him with 250 wagons. Within a few days, he had coordinated an express train of wagons carrying 2,213 barrels of flour to troops posted in New Jersey at Morristown, Springfield, and along the Hudson. The mission undoubtedly saved lives.

Knox also tried to address the army's critical needs for weapons, which fell under his litany of responsibilities as the head of ordnance. He drafted an estimate for Congress laying out the military stores needed for America to join in a campaign with the French to liberate New York. The shortfalls were staggering. Just as several states had failed to meet their recruitment quotas,
they had failed to send ordnance. According to Knox's estimates, the army could not join the French in a siege without another 8,649 barrels of powder, 21,182 ten-inch shells, 16,561 eighteen-inch shells, 54,151 eighteen-pound shots, and 59,679 twelve-pound shots.
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Washington placed so much faith in Knox's assessments that he admonished Congress in a letter on Tuesday, July 4, that the army would have to decline the opportunity of French help unless the shortfalls were corrected: "If we aim at an important object, adequate means ought to be employed or it would be unreasonable to undertake it; if the means cannot be furnished we must desist from the undertaking.“
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On July 14, news arrived in camp that 5,100 French infantry troops aboard ten ships of war had recently arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, led by Lieutenant General Jean-Baptiste Donatien Comte de Rochambeau.

Rochambeau disembarked and found, to his surprise, that the Newport streets were completely deserted and no delegation came to welcome him. Residents remained shuttered within their homes, uncertain if the impressive foreign fleet had come to conquer or to befriend them. The American general William Heath soon arrived to greet him.

News of the arrival of French troops sent expectations for an American victory soaring throughout the continent once again. The landing of troops from the famed French army, however, was not the salvation that the Americans had hoped for. Many of the men were sick or injured from a long and unusually difficult voyage and would need weeks to recover. And the British sent troops to prevent Rochambeau from marching to meet Washington.

When English ships of war appeared off the coast of New York City, state leaders became so alarmed that they demanded that Benedict Arnold be placed in the command of West Point. Arnold lobbied for the post as well, claiming that his leg wound from the Battle of Saratoga had left him unable again to take a field command.

Arnold's motive was to use the fort of West Point as a bargaining chip with the British to boost his value. He could not wait long to make the jump to the British; an audit of his command was beginning to uncover evidence of fraud. Knox continued have full faith in Arnold's character, however, believing him to be an exemplary soldier, and fully supported Arnold's appointment to take over the most important post in America.

As the summer wore on, it became more and more evident that not arms, nor powder, nor fresh recruits would arrive from the states in time to launch a siege of New York. Soon the French fleet would be forced to depart for warmer waters.

By August, British expectations for conquering America began to rise. Arnold took over the command at West Point on Thursday, August 3, and continued to provide General Henry Clinton detailed reports of Washing-ton's movements. When the American army crossed the Hudson above New York to help defend the French force against a British attack, Arnold made certain that the patriots' maneuvers did not catch the British off guard. He promised to soon turn over West Point by leading its garrison of 3,000 men away from the fort.