Mercy Leroux

Henry Knox has a rather unique story. He was only nine when he had leave school and start work after his father abandoned the family. But Henry found work in a bookstore, where he took to reading and taught himself French, math, philosophy, and more.

Before the outbreak of war, he witnessed the Boston Massacre. He even begged Captain Thomas Preston to make sure his men didn’t fire or else they would hang; Preston actually told Knox he was aware of that, but unfortunately things still went south. Though, thankfully Preston and his men didn’t hang. Knox also testified at the trial and got some facts wrong (but so did everyone because eyewitness testimony is very unreliable).

Knox then went on to become a bookseller in Boston before becoming a General in George Washington’s Continental Army. A non-exhaustive list of the battles he took part in includes Bunker Hill (where he directed cannon fire), Long Island, Trenton, Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and the Siege of Yorktown. Given all that, he would have made a perfect candidate to include in almost every book of this series… but he’s not our historical through-line! He is, however, Abijah Dawes’ dearest friend in Stubborn Things.

In 1773, Henry Knox got an intriguing customer at his bookshop: Lucy Flucker, the daughter of a prominent and well-off Loyalist family. Her brother, Thomas, was actually a British army captain. She had an elder sister, Hannah, and a younger sister named Sally, who may have been her illegitimate half-sister (sources aren’t clear). The political and class differences meant that the Fluckers did not want Henry Knox pursuing Lucy. He wasn’t a proper match.

However, Lucy wanted Henry Knox to pursue her. And so they kept in touch and eventually, in 1774, the Fluckers allowed Lucy to marry Henry Knox. She was eighteen and he was twenty-four (at under twenty-one, Lucy needed their permission to wed). The condition of her marrying him? That her family would disown her afterwards, which they did.

When war erupted, Lucy’s family remained in Boston, but Lucy and Henry snuck out of the city. Lucy even sewed Henry’s sword into her coat to smuggle it out.

When the Siege finally ended, Lucy’s family evacuated to Canada and then to Britain alongside other prominent Loyalists. Although Lucy exchanged a few letters with them after the war, her parents and siblings never saw Lucy again. She wrote the following heartbreaking letter to her sister, Hannah, during the conflict, which can be read in full here:

Oh, my sister, how horrid is this war, Brother against Brother and the parent against the child. Who were the first promoters of it, I know not, but god knows and I fear they will feel the weight of his vengeance. Tis pity the little time we have to spend in this world, we cannot enjoy ourselves and our friends, but must be devising means to destroy each other. The art of killing has become a perfect science.

Lucy also exchanged numerous love letters with her husband during the war, when she wasn’t following the army around (at times without his knowledge). They also exchanged arguments via letters, as Lucy wanted Henry to leave the war effort at times. The following excerpt is written to be tongue-in-cheek, not as an argument, but it does convey the sentiments well:

Oh, that you had less of the military man about you, you might then after the war have lived at ease all the days of your life. But now I don’t know what you will do. Your being long acustomed [sic] to command will make you too haughty for mercantile matters, tho I hope you will not consider yourself as commander in chief of your own house. But be convinced . . . that there is such a thing as equal command.

The Knoxes had thirteen children, but tragically only three survived to adulthood. Henry himself went on to become the first Secretary of War in the United States, and, unfortunately, took part in several wars against Native American tribes. Their grandson would go on to be a leading figure in the Union Navy during the Civil War.

Lucy and Henry clearly had a great deal of love for one another, and the story about her family disowning her for political and class reasons reinforces one of the tragedies of the Revolution: that it was, in essence, a civil war itself that broke loved ones apart, sometimes for good. Honestly, this is a poignant perspective that I think often gets lost. No matter how noble the cause, war is always cruel and destructive to everyone who enters its orbit. Even as people celebrate the idea of fighting for freedom, there was a cost that many people, particularly women and children, did not sign up to pay.

Even beyond views on this war, the Fluckers allowed class issues to determine who was worthy of Lucy’s love and their respect, and even allowed it to sever their tie to their own daughter. Henry and Lucy’s romance is a beautiful love story, yet the tragedy of a family’s conditional love remains.

Next week, we’ll again visit the night of the Massacre… and some rumors that sprung up around what a soldier’s wife allegedly said.