Two hundred and fifty years ago, George Washington needed artillery—fast. He turned to 26-year-old bookseller Henry Knox to pull off the impossible: travel 300 miles to Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York and lead a grueling expedition back, transporting 56 cannon and barrels of gunpowder in the bitter cold through the wilderness to American forces besieging the British in Boston.
On the 250th anniversary this month, reenactors paid tribute to that historical feat, loading cannon at Ticonderoga and reenacting the start of the journey known as Knox’s “Noble Train.”
American Heritage Editor-in-Chief, Edwin Grosvenor, joined the reenactors, participating in the event while also taking these photographs.