sentences:  McKnight studied medicine and surgery privately with eminent Philadelphia surgeon William Shippen, but left before he completed his studies and entered the Continental Army in 1775.In late 1775, Benjamin Church, the Director General, assigned McKnight to the Putnam House building, one of six hospitals of the army's Hospital Department in Cambridge, Massachusetts.He remained in that division, which supported Washington's army, until, during a period of great scarcity of medical and surgical supplies for the sick and wounded, McKnight went with other surgeons and physicians to North Castle, New York with Washington's army when the Battle of White Plains began in October 1776.