Background
The siege of Boston began on April 19, 1775, when, in the aftermath of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Colonial militia surrounded the city of Boston. Benedict Arnold, who arrived with Connecticut militia to support the siege, told the Massachusetts Committee of Safety that cannons and other valuable military stores were stored at the lightly defended Fort Ticonderoga, and proposed its capture. On May 3, the Committee gave Arnold a colonel's commission and authorized him to raise troops and lead a mission to capture the fort. Arnold, in conjunction with Ethan Allen, his Green Mountain Boys, and militia forces from Connecticut and western Massachusetts, captured the fort and all of its armaments on May 10.
After George Washington took command of the army outside Boston in July 1775, the idea of bringing the cannons from Ticonderoga to the siege was raised by Colonel Henry Knox. Knox was eventually given the assignment to transport weapons from Ticonderoga to Cambridge. Knox went to Ticonderoga in November 1775, and, over the course of 3 winter months, moved 60 tons of cannons and other armaments by boat, horse and ox-drawn sledges, and manpower, along poor-quality roads, across two semi-frozen rivers, and through the forests and swamps of the lightly inhabited Berkshires to the Boston area. Historian Victor Brooks has called Knox's feat "one of the most stupendous feats of logistics" of the entire war.
Read more about this topic: Fortification Of Dorchester Heights
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