The Biographical Dictionary of America/Armstrong, John (1758–1843)

ARMSTRONG, John, soldier, was born at Carlisle, Pa., Nov. 25, 1758; son of John Armstrong, an officer in the Continental army, he attended the College of New Jersey, and in 1775 enlisted in Colonel Potter's Pennsylvania regiment. He served as aide-de-camp to Gen. Hugh Mercer in the battle of Princeton, and afterward to General Gates until the close of the campaign against Burgoyne. He was promoted major on the staff of General Gates and in 1783, while stationed at Newburg, wrote the celebrated "Newburg Letters," which were circulated anonymously among the officers of Gates's command, their object being "to do justice to an ill-used soldiery." He served as secretary and also as adjutant-general of Pennsylvania after the war. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress in 1787, and married, in 1789, Alida, daughter of Robert R. Livingston of Dutchess county, N.Y., and removed to that county. He was elected to the U.S. senate, 1799-1801, and 1803-'4. He was U.S. minister to France, 1804-'10, and also to Spain, 1806-'10.

On July 6, 1812, he was made brigadier-general, and was placed in command of New York city and its defences. At the beginning of Madison's second term, in 1813, he was appointed to his cabinet as secretary of war. Henry Adams said of him, "Whatever were Armstrong's faults, he was the strongest secretary of war the government has yet seen." It has been said that the energy he infused into the regular army lasted for half a century. In 1813 the Canadian expedition failed, and three months later the British fired and sacked Washington city. These two disasters were laid at the door of the secretary of war, and he was censured, chiefly through the instigation of Monroe, who influenced the President to demand Armstrong's resignation, and Monroe succeeded him, taking his portfolio Sept. 27, 1814. Armstrong went to Frederick, Md., and later to his farm at Red Hook, N. Y., where he spent his remaining years in literary work. His publications include: "Letters of Verus, addressed to the Native American" (1797); "A Biographical Sketch of the Late Robert R. Livingston" (1820); "Notices of the War of 1812" (2 vols., 1836), and several reviews and treatises. He also contributed to Jared Sparks's "American Biography" the lives of Anthony Wayne and Richard Montgomery, and had completed a military history of the Revolutionary war, the manuscripts of which were destroyed by fire. He died at Red Hook, N. Y., April 1, 1843.