Thread by @pptsapper

It's a pho and gin night

AWWWWW SHEEEEIIIT

ya know what happened today in 17fucking76?

Harry "YEAH, I've got GIRTH, Biznatch" Knox arrives in Cambridge Mass outside Boston with his NOBLE ASS TRAIN OF ARTILLLLERYYYYYYYY

Oh yessss

The siege of Boston bout to get LIT yalllllllllll

This goes out to all my Massholes out there - much love, ya wicked fuckahs

Now. Let's set the mood. It's 1776. A WHOLE BRAND NEW YEAR TO KICK BRIT ASS, IS WHAT

And GW is sitting outside Boston moping because while he's got the Brits trapped, he can't reach out & touch them

He's Got this whole-ass army sitting at Boston but they don't have the BOOM BOOM to counter that damn Royal Navy

GW, he likes big guns

And he cannot lie

You otha brothas can't deny, that when a gun rolls in with nice big waist and a round breech in yo face you get SPRUNG

But the Patriots ain't got any

BUT . Harry Knox, Washington's ol buddy ol pal and chief of the BOOM BOOM knows where to get some

They is a problem tho. They're in gorram NY. And that's like... To the Moon are some shit

To make it worse, they're in the hands of TWO EGOMANIACS

Ok so rewiiiiiind a sec

Back in May of 1775 when shit was just off the rails crazy and no one had any idea what the fuck was going on, crazy ass land pirate and theologian Ethan Allen and his family army decided to seize fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain whijc has like 8 dudes

So Allen musters his cousins and brothers and whatever and is about to attack from Vermont when HEY PRESTO Benny arnolnd shoes up with a commission from Massachusetts & tries to pull rank in Allen, who isn't having it, cause he's a fuckin land pirate etc etc etc

So Arnold, a Connecticut merchant turned soldier, and Allen, a Connecticut crazy person turned crazy person, argue about who's in charge but then agree to joint command and row across the lake in the middle of the night, surprise the Brits, take the fort

Coool cool cool cool

Ok so NOW the cannon need to go to Boston where the dudebros from Lexington and Concord have formed an Army of New England & are laying siege to the Brits but yeah they need guns

So Arnold & Allen set aside their differences and work it ouutttt hahahahahha no they do nooooootttt

They LITERALLY ARGUE ALL SUMMER

like

This is peak Connecticut

FINALLY by November of 75 Washington is getting desperate and sends Knox's well-girthed posterior off to Lake Champlain to see what he can do

Henry Knox's military experience is basically nil, he lost 2 fingers to an ND ffs

He ran a bookshop

Not even shitting you

However, he gets there in December of 75 and presumably locks Allen and Arnold into a room where they can slap fight each other in a Connecticut manner or some shit

He takes stock and holy fuck, what a lotta guns. Now

A word

About artillery in this uh... What century is it

18TH!!! YES

that one

So. It's not light. Or mobile. It's heavy as fuuuuckalllllll and it's DECEMBER in upper NY/VT tho it's not VT it's claimed by nh and ny but what ever

It's COLD is what I'm saying and Knox gotta get the heavy metal to Boston

So, Knox, firs thing he does. Boats. He uses boats. Because water. That's where you use boats. Stands to reason and shit. He floats the guns from Lake Champlain to Lake George. All cool so far. But now he's gotta get them from here to Albany and he needs.... COWSSSS
oxen really

So he is running around like "yo you got cows? You got oxen? Yeah? Phil Schuyler, can I get some bovine motion up in here" and Schuyler in NY is all about it until he realizes he doesn't have any & Knox is gonna have to use horses with sleighs because OH YEA IT SNOWED

Knox heads from Albany into the Berkshire mountains singing about oh what fun it is to haul a gun with a sleigh

But, the thing about the Berkshires is they're MOUNTAINS

I-90 AINT A THING YET childrens. It just isnt. No rest stops either. Which was a bitchhhhhhhh

So he's got sleighs and horses and they tryna haul these heavy ass pieces OVAH MOUNTAINS, BUB, A WICKED PISSAH

Guns fall through the ice but dudes recover them and haul the. Out. They somehow get them over the friggin mountains, which is a ballbuster

Early Jan, the train gets to Westfield where Knox fires a cannon to let everyone know they work which was probably a nice moment but it was also the time all the dudes from NY were like "it's 1776, I don't know where I live anymore, can we go home?" so Knox gets MA crews

These dudes haul these bigass things from Springfield to Framingham, where the crews are like "fuckit, dude, this is far as we get"

Around, like, today, Knox gets to Cambridge & tells Washington "hey, wicked bub, we got these friggin cannons ya wanted"

GW is pleased as Fuck all and waits for the snow to melt in Boston but since the snow never fuckin melts because it's fuckin Boston, he moves the guns into place in March and the Brits are like "o fuck what is this new shit that ye rebels have done"

And then on March 4, GW posts cannon on Dorchestah Heights, and the Brits is all "o shit,ye demmed rebels, this fuckery we cannot stand" and they peace out for Nova Scotia on March 17 aka Evacuation Day aka Another Reason for Massholes to Get Drunk Day

Wicked

The lesson is: if your enemy is fuckin crazy enough to haul heavy ass cannon over mountains in the winter without the proper transportation, MAYBE TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY

also don't piss off Massholes

Also also Henry Knox turned into a giant git post-war & defrauded vets of land

But, uh, yah. That's how that basically went down.

Yessah

So this has been #drunjhistory

Tip your friggin bartenders or whatever