by Mark Puls
The political controversies between England and the colonists also provided Henry with opportunities to learn the craft of being a soldier. In August 1768, two ships sailed out of Boston Harbor bound for Nova Scotia. The governor of the province, Francis Bernard, let it be known that their mission was to transport troops of Irish regiments to Boston to occupy the town and quell agitation and resistance over Parliament's tax measures. On September 28, the ships sailed back into the harbor. On the first day of October, two regiments landed. Knox could watch the soldiers disembark and march in an impressive military parade along the length of Long Wharf, which led into town, with beating drums and glistening bayonets. Each man carried a cartridge box of sixteen balls, the allotment usually packed when entering enemy territory. The British battleship Hussar provided protective cover from the landing with seamen ready to open fire on any resistance from the townspeople, who could do nothing but watch in apprehensive silence.
The regiments took up quarters in unoccupied houses and public buildings in town. Knox watched the soldiers drill on Boston Common and Brattle Square to the sounds of an ear-piercing fife and the pounding of drums. The townspeople were incensed by the sight of the armed men. In the evenings, the Sons of Liberty, a secret Whig society that undermined British tax measures, played soothing and patriotic melodies on violins and flutes to calm residents.
Boston became an armed camp, and spectacles such as the public flogging of military deserters became frequent at the Common. The British commanders ordered that a cannon be placed directly in front of the Massachusetts Provincial House, which had been converted into a barracks. Knox watched the professional artillerists practice their maneuvers and carefully studied their movements. Like many in town, he seethed at this threat to his freedom.
As he entered adulthood, Knox was uncertain what his future held. He made tentative plans to open his own bookstore, but he placed this dream on hold until the boycott of English goods ended. Foremost on his mind was the support of his aging mother and younger brother, who by then was entering his teen years. Knox remained in the employment of Nicholas Bowes and supported the boycott, which caused deep tension and financial hardship in Boston. Henry was friends with several of the Sons of Liberty, including Benjamin Edes and Jonathan Gill, publishers of the Boston Gazette, and Paul Revere, the silversmith and sometime dentist.
On a cold winter Monday, March 5, 1770, Knox crossed the Charles River to visit friends in Charlestown. Returning home that evening, he walked through Cornhill along Boston's crooked and icy streets and was only a short distance from home at around 9 P.M. A fresh coat of snow had fallen, and the night was clear. Boston was without street lanterns; the only light came from a half-crescent moon and the glow from windows. Rumors had circulated for the past two days that residents should avoid walking the streets because soldiers had vowed to avenge a beating of several of their comrades by the workers at Gray's Rope manufacturing factory the previous Friday. Knox ignored such warnings. More than six feet in height and an able fighter, he had little to fear.
Only minutes before Knox was to pass by the customhouse and town hall, a British officer crossed King Street. A boy who served as a barber's assistant yelled at the redcoat, "There goes that mean fellow who had not paid my master for dressing his hair!“4
A sentry by the name of Hugh White, who had been involved in the fight at the rope plant, was stationed in front of the customhouse. He walked up to the boy who had insulted the officer and said, "Show me your face.“5
"I am not ashamed to show my face to any man," the boy said defiantly.
The sentry struck him in the head with the butt of his musket, and the boy fell to the ground stunned before staggering off, yelling that he thought he would die from the blow.
A witness rang a fire alarm for the townspeople to run to the rescue. Knox, hearing the clanging bells, began to pick up his pace. A group of soldiers also rushed up Exchange Street. Seeing that there was no fire, the soldiers began to clear the streets, before gathering at their station near the town house. Officers ordered the men to their barracks at the main guard not far from the customhouse.
The injured boy returned with friends to taunt White and throw snowballs and ice. "There is the soldier who knocked me down!" he yelled, pointing to the sentry. The soldier felt threatened and outnumbered. As objects were hurled at him, he quickly loaded and primed his musket.
"The lobster is going to fire!" yelled one boy.
By then Knox had arrived at the scene and recognized a potential disaster. He ordered the boys to stop harassing White. A Tory who stood nearby thought that Knox did "everything in his power to prevent mischief on this occasion.“6 Knox then turned to the sentry, warning, "If you fire, you must die for it." Under British law, any soldier who fired on residents without orders from the civil authorities was subject to capital punishment.
"I don't care!" White yelled to Knox. "If they touch me, I'll fire."
The boys continued to threaten and taunt the soldier. "Fire!" shouted one.
"Stand off!" the sentry ordered, and he retreated to the door of custom-house. Pounding on the door, he shouted: "Turn out, main guard!“7
A servant rushed from the customhouse up to the main guard and screamed to the soldiers, "They are killing the sentinel!"
The captain of the day, Thomas Preston, ordered a dozen men out. As Preston made his way toward the customhouse, townspeople lining the streets yelled insults and profanities. The soldiers fell out with bayonets fixed, knocking townspeople out of the way to get to the scene.
The sentinel was surrounded by at least ten townspeople as the soldiers arrived in front of the customhouse, and in minutes another fifty followed them up King Street. The servicemen pushed their way through the crowd, using bayonets and the butts of their muskets to clear a wedge, before lining shoulder to shoulder in a semicircle to protect the sentry. Knox raced to Preston and pulled on his coat to get his attention, pleading with him not to ignite the situation.
"Take your men back again," Knox demanded. "If they fire, your life must answer for the consequences."
"I know what I am about!" the captain shouted.
The soldiers began to load their muskets, and Knox saw some of the soldiers attack the townspeople with bayonets. He estimated that the crowd had grown to about eighty people. A group of about a dozen agitators began to taunt the men. "You are cowardly rascals," one resident sneered, "for bringing arms against naked men."
"Lay aside your guns, and we are ready for you," shouted another. "Come on, you rascals, you bloody backs, you lobster scoundrels, fire, if you dare. We know you dare not.“8
As Knox was warning Preston to calm down, a British private named Hugh Montgomery was hit by a stick, which clanged against his musket and caused him to lose his footing. Rising, Montgomery yelled for his comrades to fire. Shots erupted in a flash against the darkness. Preston, standing near Knox, asked Montgomery why he had fired without orders. Before Preston received an answer, he was struck by a club and knocked down, submerged in the chaos of the panicked crowd.
Knox, at the foot of the town house, turned to see townspeople fall. A second round of shots discharged, then the frantic mob fled screaming in terror. Knox heard the people cry "fire, damn your blood," and could see the body of Crispus Attucks, a fifty-year-old black man, who had been struck in the chest by two balls and killed instantly. He saw John Gray, an owner of the rope factory, who had been hit with a fatal shot to the head. James Caldwell was hit twice in the back and died on the spot. Eight others were wounded, two mortally.
Of the eleven victims, only one had played a part in the clash with the soldiers. Knox was stunned. He had desperately tried to prevent the bloodshed. He had thrown himself in the midst of the conflict, risking his own life. As he stood looking at the crimson stains in the fleece-white snow, he heard church bells begin to ring. People poured out into the streets. Regiment drums sounded men to arms.
After the initial flight from the sce
ne, townspeople dragged the wounded away as the infuriated British reloaded their muskets and lowered their sights. Preston stopped them from firing by striking their flintlocks with his hand.
"This is our time," one of his men exclaimed angrily.
Many of the residents were unaware that shots had been fired. Soon news of the shooting spread, and residents raced to the corner of King and Exchange streets, where they were horrified at the sight of blood and bodies.
"To arms! To arms!" Knox heard them cry. Many townspeople were ready to form battle ranks and drive the troops into the harbor.
A townsman told Preston that as many as 5,000 people were gathering at an adjacent street, inflamed by cries to kill the soldiers. Battle drums beat to produce a madding, thunderous chorus, and Knox could see residents crowd between the customhouse and the town house. The lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, rushed to the scene and appeared on a balcony overlooking the crowd at about 10 P.M. He urged townspeople not to give in to angry passions and to trust that justice would prevail through legal means. He asked the British officers to send their troops back to the barracks. "The law," he pleaded, "should have its course." He said that he "would live and die by the law."
Magistrates then arrived, looking for witnesses to the shooting. Knox told them that he had seen the tragedy unfold. He gave an affidavit in which he stated that he had warned both White and Preston against firing and that by the time he arrived, no one was throwing snowballs or anything else at the sentry. Statements were taken until 3 A.M., and Preston and the other soldiers who fired their muskets were later arrested.
Knox was most likely among the 1,200 people who attended a town meeting at Faneuil Hall on Tuesday morning. There townspeople approved a statement demanding the removal of troops from Boston's borders. A committee of fifteen was chosen, led by Samuel Adams, who met with the lieutenant governor and Colonel William Dalrymple. They agreed to remove the Twenty-ninth Regiment, in which the accused soldiers served, but said the other regiment in town, the Fourteenth, would remain.
Knox watched as thousands of residents from the surrounding towns of Roxbury, Charlestown, Braintree, Dorchester, and Cambridge showed up in Boston, muskets in hand, ready to defend the town. The two regiments consisted of a mere 600 soldiers. By nightfall, it was likely that they would be surrounded by 10,000 colonists.
As tensions mounted, an afternoon town meeting was held. To accommodate the overflow crowd, the meeting was moved from Faneuil Hall to the Old South meetinghouse. The townspeople found the solution offered by royal officials of removing one regiment and maintaining another in Boston unacceptable. The cry went up, "Both regiments or none, both regiments or none." Another committee was chosen to issue the demand for the troops to vacate the town before the royally appointed lieutenant governor and Colonel Dalrymple. They agreed to withdraw the troops and station the soldiers in the barracks of Castle William Island in Boston Harbor. The evacuation would take two weeks. Knox took his part in a guard detail to stand watch over the town until the evacuation was complete.
On Thursday, March 8, Knox attended the funeral of four of the slain townsmen. Shops were closed and bells tolled in slow, solemn cadence not only in Boston but in neighboring towns. At 4 P.M., several hearses formed a procession on King Street at the scene of the tragedy. They proceeded up Main Street followed by 15,000 to 20,000 mourners, who marched four and six abreast through the narrow lanes. The Boston Gazette reported, "The distress and sorrow visible on every countenance, together with the peculiar solemnity with which the whole funeral was conducted, surpass description.“9 The bodies were placed in a vault at the Granary Burial Ground, to be held until the spring thaw allowed for burial. Paul Revere was commissioned to produce an engraving showing a line of British soldiers firing on the inhabitants, which was widely distributed.
With the troops confined to Castle William Island, a sense of normalcy returned to Boston. When passions subsided, many residents realized that war had been narrowly averted, and Whigs and Tories tried to ease strained relations.
On April 12 in London, Parliament acknowledged the success of the boycott and repealed all the duties on imports to America except for tea. When news of the repeal reached the colonies, merchants began to relax the prohibition on British goods. By May, the tactic was abandoned in Albany, Providence, and Newport, followed by New York businessmen in July and by Philadelphia importers in September. By October 12, Boston merchants decided that it was futile to persist in barring British goods and agreed to return imports to their shelves. This was the moment that Knox had been waiting for. Finally, he could order books from London. He began his plans to open his own bookstore and leave the employment of Nicholas Bowes.
Two weeks later, on October 25, Knox testified in the trial of Captain Thomas Preston. On the witness stand, he was questioned by prosecutor Robert Treat Paine. Knox reported that he had warned the accused officer not to allow his men to fire, an act that was deemed a capital offense, and that although the sentry was visibly shaken and afraid, he was not in danger. John Adams and Knox's former classmate Josiah Quincy provided legal defense for Preston. Upon cross-examination, Knox said that he heard people in the crowd yell, "Fire, damn your blood.“10 In his closing argument, John Adams said that Preston could not have ordered the men to load because Knox had stopped him as he approached the scene, and by that time the men had already loaded their muskets. Conflicting testimony in the case led the jury to acquit Preston.
In the second trial over the massacre, which involved the eight soldiers who fired their muskets, Knox provided the same testimony. In December, six of these men were acquitted, while two were found guilty and given a light sentence. Suffolk County sheriff Stephen Greenleaf branded their right thumbs with a hot iron to denote their conviction. Preston sailed for England and was awarded £200 by the government for his troubles relating to the shooting.
Following the trial, Knox focused more of his attention on his plans for a bookstore. He found a suitable shop opposite William's Court in Boston, and he sent an order of £340 for books to Thomas Longman and Sons of London on April 22, 1771. Within eighteen months, his orders totaled £2,066 in value.
Four days after his twenty-first birthday, his friends, the publishers Edes and Gills, ran an announcement of the opening of Knox's store in the Boston Gazette: "This day is opened a new London Bookstore by Henry Knox, opposite William's Court in Cornhill, Boston, who has just imported in the last ships from London a large and very elegant assortment of the most modern books in all branches of Literature, Arts and Sciences (catalogues of which will be published soon) and to be sold as cheap as can be bought at any place in town. Also a complete assortment of stationery.“11
Knox's shop became a favorite for Boston's fashionable set to lounge in and discuss the latest topics or literary offerings. Knox was young, well liked, and handsome. His genial personality and charm attracted young women, who in turn brought to the shop young men who might not otherwise be disposed to reading. His friend Henry Burbeck said that "Knox's store was a great resort for the British officers and Tory ladies, who were the ton [vogue] at that period.“12
The leading lady in Henry's life, his mother, died that year, eleven days before Christmas, at the age of fifty-three. The cause of her death is unknown. As he laid her to rest, Henry could reflect on the tribulations of her life. She had endured ten pregnancies and watched six infant sons die; she had been abandoned by her husband and left to care for two children. But she had lived to see Henry grow into manhood and open his own business, and for him to gain a measure of respectability in Boston and restore the family's reputation. He could take solace that he had faithfully stood by his mother and saw to her needs in her last years. His only remaining family connection was his fifteen-year-old brother William, whom he put to work helping run the bookstore.
Henry's store quickly outgrew the property at William's Court. He moved to another location near the town house in the center of Bos
ton. He posted notices around town, advertising that he also bound and repaired books, journals, ledgers, and other volumes at short notice and sold books in all languages, arts, and sciences along with a complete line of stationery. He competed with seven other bookstores in Boston and was inventive in advertising books using the novel idea of including blurbs from the literary magazine Critical Review.
When he was not tending his shop, Henry continued his military training. During periods of peace, colonists maintained militia companies ready to protect the frontiers against American Indian attacks and in anticipation of another war with France. In the case that such a war occurred, Henry believed colonists should be prepared. In 1772, he cofounded the Boston Grenadier Corps, an offshoot of Paddock's Train. Knox was second in command. The company designed and ordered tailors to make splendid uniforms, and Knox and orderly sergeant Lemuel Trescott drilled the men in the evenings, choreographing their movements and training them to load and fire cannons and perform battle maneuvers as well as to use a sword, bayonet, and musket. The Grenadier Corps literally stood above the rest; all of its members were taller than five foot ten inches and shorter than six foot two inches, which was Henry's height. By June 8, 1772, the corps was ready to parade its colors before Boston. The men marched before admirers who were impressed by their military bearing. Knox, at the head of the parade, stood tall, broad-shouldered, and dashing.
Knox also kept up his military training through a careful study of books, determined to take an analytical approach in spite of his love for pomp and parade. Not only did he continue to order textbooks on military science, he asked questions of those British officers who frequented his shop.