Henry Knox & The Noble Train of Artillery

Ever since I was a kid, the Fourth of July has always felt like magic. Lots of red, white, and blue decorations, the family gathered for barbecue and outdoor games, and fireworks lighting up the summer night sky. My sons love it too. This year, as Independence Day approached, I found myself reading about some of the

lesser-known heroes of the Revolutionary War…

ordinary people who did extraordinary things. 

After listening to some amazing podcasts and reading 1776 by David Mccullough, the story of the unstoppable Henry Knox jumped right out of history at me!

Knox wasn’t a soldier by training. He was a Boston bookseller who especially loved to read about artillery and military tactics. When war broke out, he crossed paths with George Washington and brought him a daring idea. Boston was surrounded by British troops and her majesty’s navy ships filled the harbor. If the Continental Army could place heavy artillery on the hills of Dorchester Heights overlooking the city and harbor, they could end the siege and force the British out.

But they faced a few daunting problems.  First, the cannons they needed (59 of them weighing around 60 tons — 120,000 pounds in total), were 300 miles away at Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York. Second, it was the dead of winter. The so-called roads were rough trading trails, at best. Rivers and lakes lay frozen or half-frozen in their path. As did the 3,500-foot-high Berkshire mountains.  

And, they had to do it all with makeshift wooden sleds!  

Nobody really thought it could be done.  

Except a bold Boston bookseller.

Knox simply said, “I can do that.  I’ll lead the expedition.”

He gathered a team of men, horses, oxen, more than a half mile of crude ropes, pulleys, and sleds, and they set off. They hauled those massive thumpers through snowdrifts, over mountains, across rivers and frozen lakes. Sometimes the cannons crashed through the ice, nearly drowning the oxen — men had to stand ready with axes to cut the teams free, at a moment’s notice. But after nearly two brutal months, Knox arrived back in Boston with every single cannon intact.

 When those guns were placed on Dorchester Heights, they changed the game. The British saw the high ground somehow suddenly teeming with enemy artillery aimed at their ships and their land positions, and eventually withdrew their forces from Boston. It was one of the first major American victories in the Revolutionary War.

 Knox’s Noble Train of Artillery reminds me that extraordinary things happen when ordinary people are willing to take daring risks for a cause that’s bigger than themselves. Knox had no formal training, just courage, boldness, grit, and willingness to stay the course. He thought creatively and refused to quit

when the road got impossibly hard.

As lions, we live the same way. We fight daily battles for freedom — freedom in our hearts, our minds, and our homes. We do the hard inner work no one else sees. We trust God to help us take the high ground in our lives and defend what He’s given us with all we’ve got.  We riskily share our faith or humble ourselves to lift others up.

 Knox and “Team Canon-Drag” were attempting the seemingly impossible to hold on to the freedom they had experienced in the New World as early Americans.  You and I have a freedom worth fighting to hold onto as well.  Our freedom in Jesus is also worth taking some risks to hold onto.  No matter how many frozen lakes, mountains, and troubles appear in our path.

 This Independence Day let’s remember that Jesus won our ultimate freedom with His radical and loving sacrifice on the cross. Every single day of our lives is a chance to live free — to rise, run, and roar because of, with, and for Him.

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” — Galatians 5:1

 Whatever it takes — keep moving forward. Stay connected to the Vine. Keep your eyes on the kingdom prize. Be willing to haul a brutal load through the winter wilderness if that’s what it takes. Never surrender.  Take some risks, accept every challenge!  Just don’t accept defeat.  Keep fighting.

 Ordinary people who’ve tasted true freedom + outrageous courage

= extraordinary impact and pretty great stories, too.

Happy Independence Day, lions.

Live fully free indeed!