A great overview of H. Knox and all his achievements and work to build this country. The book shines a light on all the work Knox did while serving with General George Washington. The public eye and narrative of the revolution strongly tends towards George Washington, the father of our country. Henry Knox was a principle figure in the formation of the US Navy, training a Corp of officers which would eventually become West Point, amongst many other things. A great man who truly put his country above all else. ( )

Nice, succinct book about an amazing man most Americans know little to nothing about. When I first got into the American Revolution, the Constitution, and our Founding Fathers, Henry Knox was one of the first people who blew my mind. Reading David McCullough's "1776" introduced me to Knox and how he transported tons of cannon 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. Had he been a military expert? An engineer? Nope. He was a bookseller.

Mark Puls' book does a great job covering the life of this extraordinary man. It's written in an unassuming, engaging style, free of the academic, thesaurus-inspired vocabulary common in biographies. Highly recommend! ( )

Great read! In the narrative vein of 1776 by McCullough. Sheds light on this extraordinary General. He's mentioned liberally in almost all the histories but reading this makes you wonder why he isn't highlighted in those stories even more.

He was at the Boston Massacre, Battle of Bunker Hill, Siege of Yorktown up into and beyond Shays Rebellion. Washington had the highest praises for him and this book shows why.

I could go on and on, pick it up, this is a must read for any fan of American history. ( )

After reading Jeff Shaara's The Glorious Cause and David McCullough's 1776, I had developed an affection for Henry Knox. I hadn't known much about him before I read those two books, even though my home town is named after him. I wanted to read more about Knox, and I was glad to find this biography in the library.

Knox was an amazing man. Before the American Revolution, he was a Boston bookseller. His profession allowed him to read widely about military art and science. Knox's reading prepared him to oversee heavy artillery for Washington's Continental Army, even with no prior military experience. Against expectations, Knox was able to move artillery across country from Fort Ticonderoga to the outskirts of Boston, helping to force the British to evacuate the city. It was Knox who orchestrated the Christmas crossing of the Delaware River, leading to a key victory for the Continental Army. When Washington returned to private life at the end of the Revolutionary War, he turned command of the army over to Knox. Knox served as war secretary in the government formed under the Articles of Confederation, and held the same position in George Washington's administration in the new United States government.

Knox advocated the establishment of a military academy. His dream eventually became reality at West Point. Knox's plan influenced military training programs well into the 20th century. Puls writes of Knox:

He did not view himself exclusively as a military leader but as a builder of the republic, willing to play the role of architect in creating institutional pillars of American society. He was not content to borrow foreign patterns in formulating the design for the U.S. military; rather he looked at the problem from the vantage point of a statesman and political theorist. For Knox, the American military needed to embody distinctly American ideals.

Puls contrasts Knox's national perspective as a Federalist with the regional interests of many in Congress. Knox, Washington, and other military leaders were often frustrated during the War by politicians in Congress whose chief worry was the cost of the proposals and whose chief aim was to satisfy the demands of their constituents rather than to do what was best for the national interest. The same arguments are still going on in Washington today.

Although this biography covers Knox's entire life, Knox's contributions to the Revolutionary War take up the most page space. Puls was a little vague about some of the details of Knox's personal life. Knox and his wife, Lucy, didn't have many children who survived past childhood. Puls would mention a child's death, but a few pages later he would mention an event that occurred when that child was living. It was hard to tell when the author was back-tracking and when the “resurrection” was due to a later child having the same name as a deceased sibling. A chronology of significant events in Knox's life, both public and personal, would have helped.

Recommended for readers with an interest in the American Revolution and in U.S. military history. ( )

This is an excellent biography of very “famous” person very few of us know very much about – except for Fort Knox, named for him, of course. He was a young Boston bookseller, self-taught in artillery and military tactics from reading books, who was at the side of General George Washington from the opening of the Revolutionary War in Boston to the final battle in Yorktown – actively participating in each. He was responsible to plan and execute the crossing of the Delaware for the successful Battle of Trenton. After the war, he served as Secretary of War under the Articles of Confederation – all the while working for a new Constitution. He was the first Secretary of War under the new Constitution in President Washington’s cabinet along with Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and Edmond Randolph. He began the formation of the U.S. Navy which was completed under President John Adams. Knox proposed the creation of the United States Military Academy at West Point… which occurred a few years later, essentially following his plan. He died prematurely in his mid-fifties, accidentally. If you find this biography as interesting as I did, you might also like the biography of Nathanael Greene, another of the young men in General Washington’s inner circle throughout the Revolutionary War (who also died far too young, after the war!): [Washington’s General: Nathanael Greene and the Triumph of the American Revolution] by [[Terry Golway]]. ( )