A Noble Train?

Posted on November 24, 2025

A Noble Train?

Today, we often refer to Henry Knox’s expedition to bring guns from Ticonderoga to Washington’s army in Boston as the “Noble Train.” Nowadays reading the word “train” conjures up images of a locomotive, or at the very least a strung out line of moving vehicles or things. But this is misleading. Isolating the words “noble train” actually breaks up the historic language, and Knox’s intention in using an old and common turn of phrase.

The complete sentence appears in a letter from Knox to George Washington on December 17, 1775. In the letter Knox informs the general of his progress, the various challenges encountered, and anticipating a helpful fall of snow, notes that “if that should be the case I hope in 16 or 17 days to be able to present to your Excellency a Noble train of Artillery, the Inventory of which I’ve inclos’d.”(1)

The operative words are not “Noble train,” but rather “train of Artillery,” a phrase which had a very specific meaning in the 18^th century. The term “train of artillery” appears regularly in dictionaries from the period, such as Samuel Johnson’s, which Knox sold in his bookstore, as well as in military texts. It refers not to a long line of cannon, but to collected artillery of a field army.(2)

Going back at least to the 16^th century there was not an established artillery service and when needed a “train of artillery” was formed to accompany an army into the field (Fig.1). This was often disbanded at the end of the campaign. The term “train of artillery” though became common to refer to the artillery service generally. When Massachusetts established its first artillery regiment, under Knox’s predecessor Richard Gridley, its official title was the “train of artillery.” At many times the entire artillery branch was referred to simply as “the train.”(3)

“Noble” was added by Knox solely as an adjective, meaning great, or magnificent. This was Knox’s attempt to emphasize to Washington the value of the prize. So, the “noble train” was not the act of moving the artillery, not a description of the majesty of the strung out line of guns, sleds, and draft animals, but rather the prize itself, the collected ordnance that together constituted a worthy “train of artillery” for the Continental army.

Our use of “noble train” today has worked because “train” can also be understood as a procession, a definition supported by Johnson and other period dictionaries. But Knox’s use of “train” was not actually about the strung out line of cannon, it was the practical and symbolic power the represented as a collective “train of artillery.”

In fact, Knox was by no means the only one to use even the specific phrase “noble train of artillery.” This construction was well-known in the period. Knox himself may have read William Guthrie’s description of the “noble train of artillery” Archduke Albert brought into the field against King Henry of France in the late 16^th century, which he carried in his New London Book Store in Boston in 1773.(4)

Other period histories described the “noble train of artillery” held by elector Philip in Heidelberg in the early 16^th century. Recently published books on the Seven Years’ War described Frederick the Great’s capture of a “noble train of artillery” from the Russians, and a travelogue from a British traveler in 1749 a described the “noble train of artillery” carried by an earlier Russian army in Latvia.(5) Nor was Knox the only founding father to use the phrase. A year after Knox’s heroic expedition, Philadelphia financier Robert Morris reported that Continental agent to France Silas Deane expected a French alliance to provide “a Noble train of Artillery” that could turn the tide of the war.(6)

Well versed in contemporary literature, and keen to make an impression, Knox no doubt sought to burnish his accomplishment using the language of the day. His description of his prize as a “noble train of artillery” connected his actions to those of history, for which he himself was destined.

1. “Colonel Henry Knox to George Washington, 17 December 1775,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-02-02-0521-0001.
2. Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language (Dublin: 1768).
3. Francis Duncan, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1879), 41-44; The journals of each Provincial congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775, (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1838), 141-142, 212-214;
4. William Guthrie, A General History of the World, from the Creation to the present time, Vol. 11 (London, 1766), 414; A catalogue of books, imported and to be sold by Henry Knox, at the London Book-store, in Cornhill, Boston (Boston: 1773).
5. The Modern Part of an An Universal History, from the Earliest Account of Time, Vol. 29 (London: 1761), 485; The Martial Review, Or, A General History of the Late Wars (London: 1763), 73; John Cook, Voyages and travels through the Russian empire, Tartary, and part of the kingdom of Persia, Vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1770).
6. “Robert Morris to George Washington, 21 December 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-07-02-0316.

Figure 1. A train of artillery from the late 17^th century army advancing towards and enemy fortification. Surirey de St. Remy, “Memoires d’Artillerie” Vol. III (Paris, 1745). Fort Ticonderoga Museum Collection.