There are certain individuals who are born to genius, according to Camden playwright Robert Manns, 78. George Bernard Shaw. Shakespeare. Christopher Fry. Henry Knox.

Yes, that Henry Knox.

Manns loves to write plays about heroes (and geniuses) from his adopted state. Several years ago, he wrote “The Swan that Slept” a play about James Swan, who founded Swans Island. Swan went to France during their revolution and ended up in debtor’s prison over a disputed bill. Instead of paying the bill, the wealthy Scotsman stayed in prison for 22 years.

That play was presented in Rockland and could be staged in Portland in the near future.

Manns, who has penned 32 full-length and one-act plays, wasted no time deciding on his next project, a play about Henry Knox.

Manns has penned “Lincoln in the White House” which was presented off Broadway in New York City, and always harbored a desire to write something on the American Revolution. He just finished “Yorktown,” with Knox as the central figure.

“I never knew enough about that period or how to place it on a single person. There was no central person to ground it on,” he said. Then after coming to Maine, he visited Fort Knox, then the Montpelier replica of Knox’s mansion in Thomaston. Over the years, he read “General Washington’s General,” North Callahan’s biography of Knox, then “1776” by David McCullough, which glorified Knox and his role in the Revolution.

It was the totally untrained Knox who went to war with George Washington and rose to general with an astounding knowledge of artillery, which came strictly from books. His coup of moving artillery 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga to the heights around Boston in 1775 was considered one of the deciding events of the war.

“Washington was lucky to have Knox as well as Nathaniel Greene of Rhode Island. Greene was to the infantry what Knox was to artillery. Both were geniuses who knew instinctively how to convert knowledge into action.

“By the end of the war, Knox’s prowess in artillery was common knowledge in Europe. When Cornwallis returned to England after losing the war, he asked Parliament to insist that artillery officers be forced to apply reading in their training, as much as field practice, like Knox did,” Manns said.

The fact that Knox came to Maine and Thomaston with hundreds of acres of land and managed to lose it all, is not explored in the play, Manns said.

“Yorktown” is a one-set production like the Swan play. “About 95 percent of the play takes place in Knox’s quarters. There is a lull in the furious cannonade. Only later do they realize that the lull means Cornwallis has surrendered,” Mann said.

English actor and writer Paul Hodgson, who appeared in the Swan play, also gets a writing credit. When the Knox play was finished, Manns realized that the brief dialogue between two English soldiers needed a more professional touch. Hodgson said he “massaged” the profane language between the soldiers.

There will be a reading for potential backers on Saturday. Manns would like to see “Yorktown” presented at the Camden Opera House. There has been discussion of a presentation at Montpelier in Thomaston. And any playwright who has tasted the flavor of New York, even off Broadway, wants to return there.

That would be a suitable place to explore the “genius” of Henry Knox, Mann said.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.