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After Lexington and Concord, Knox and his wife snuck out of Boston in disguise. Knox had been a bookseller before the outbreak of war, and his bookshop was known as “a fashionable morning lounge” that counted John Adams among its regular patrons. Most officers thought that moving the guns all the way from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston was impossible, but Henry Knox thought otherwise. With this act of “burglarious enterprise,” as one British writer described it, the rebels took possession of two hundred cannons. In May of 1775, Ethan Allen led a militia made up of settlers from present-day Vermont, called the Green Mountain Boys, in a surprise attack that captured Fort Ticonderoga and its small British garrison without firing a shot. Nearly three hundred miles away, on the shore of Lake Champlain, was a treasure trove of artillery.

General George Washington wrote that “in a little time we shall work up these raw materials into very good stuff.” Farmers and artisans could be made into soldiers, but the colonists had very little artillery and cannons could not be summoned out of thin air. British General John Burgoyne disparaged the colonists as “a preposterous parade” and “a rabble in arms,” but the new commander of this Continental Army saw potential. There they found themselves surrounded and besieged by an army of armed colonists. Saved Land Browse Interactive Map View active campaignsīeginning with the reign King Louis XIV, cannons produced for the French army had a Latin motto engraved on their barrels: “Ultima Ratio Regum,” or “The Last Argument of Kings.” In the American Revolutionary War, the rebellious American colonists turned these symbols of royal power into a critical weapon in their struggle for independence.Īfter the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the British had retreated back to the city of Boston.Protect Virginia Battlefields from Massive Data Centers.New Battlefield State Park Coming to Virginia.Speak Out to Protect Wyse Fork Battlefield.Fight Against Development Threats in Culpeper County.Save 45 Historic Acres at the Battle of Chancellorsville.Help Restore Three Sites to Their Wartime Appearance.Save 170 Threatened Acres at Lookout Mountain, Mill Springs and Fort DeRussy.Help Save 52 Hallowed Acres at Three Virginia Battlefields.