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.)
