USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Wilkes-Barre > A history of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania : from its first beginnings to the present time, including chapters of newly-discovered early Wyoming Valley history, together with many biographical sketches and much genealogical material. Volume III > Part 41
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This document was read by the officers with strong manifestations of approval. But Washington met the crisis with firmness, although with a spirit of conciliation, and on the day following dissemination of the address he issued a general order forbidding att assemblage of his officers at the call of the writer of an anonymous circular, and directing the representatives of the officers to assemble on March 15, to deliberate upon what further measures ought to be adopt- ed as most rational and best calculated to obtain the just and important object in view. On the day after this order was issued, a second anonymous address from the same writer appeared. In this paper he affected to consider Wash- ington's order as a sanction of the whole proceeding which he, the anonymous writer, had proposed. But, to learn the truth, the army had to wait only until Saturday the 15th.
On that day the officers assembled in the "temple" at Newburgh, and General Gates was called upon to preside at the meeting. At the appointed hour Washington appeared. "The scene is one of the most dramatic in our his- tory", says A. C. MeLaughlin in his "The Confederation and the Constitution". "As he [Washington] took his place at the desk he drew his written address from his coat pocket, and his spectacles, with his other hand, from his waist-
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coat pocket, and then addressed the officers in the following manner: 'Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for { have not ouly grown gray, but almo_t blind, in the service of my country ' This little address, with the mode and manner of delivering it, drew tears from many of the officers."
The paper which Washington then proceeded to read was a manly, eloquent, telling appeal to the patriotism, judgment and patient generosity of the officers. It was a stinging rebuke for the cowardly conspirators who were plotting to disgrace the army and ruin the country.
"My God!" exclaimed Washington, "what can this writer have in view by recommending such measures? Can he be a friend to the army? Cau he be a friend to this country? Rather, is he not an insidious foe some emmissary, perhaps, from New York-plotting the ruin of both, by sowing the seeds of discord and separation between the civil and military powers of the Continent? And what a compliment does he pay uur understandings, when he recommends measures, in either alternative, impracticable in their nature? * * * Let me conjure you, in the name of our commou country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishe ;. under any specious pretences, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood- gates of civil discord and delnge our rising Empire in blood!"
"Upon the conclusion of the address," says Mclaughlin, "the whole assembly was in tears. Washington with- drew, and resolutions were then adopted expressing unshaken confidence in the justice of Congress and the country, declaring that the officers of the American army received with abhorrence and rejected with disdain the infamous proposals of the anonymous circular, and respectfully requesting Washington to urge upon Congress the prompt atten- tion to their claims. And thus that body of officers, in a moment, damned with infamy two publications which, during the four preceding days, most of them had read with admiration and talked of with rapture."
These two circulars were soon referred to and are still known as the "Newburgh Addresses." McMaster, in his "History of the People of the United States", says: "Who wrote the Newburgh Addresses was long as much in dispute as who wrote the Letters of Junius. Gordon, whose "History of the American Revolution", came out a few months later, says that they were known to be the work of Maj. John Armstrong, Jr. But Johnson, the author of a life of General Greene, many years later attributed them to the last man who would have written them-Gouverneur Morris. This was too much for Armstrong, and, in a review of the book that came out in the United States Magazine for January, 1823, he labored hard to prove a claim to the authorship of the Addresses. He was successful. But he gained small credit. There is now no doubt that Armstrong wrote them, that Gates set him on, and that Barhar. the Assistant Adjutant General, copied and distributed them through the army."
At Salem, Massachusetts, under the date of May 6, 1823 (see the "Pickering Papers", XV: 303, mentioned on page 29, Vol. I. of this work), Col. Timothy Pickering, who was Quartermaster General of the American army in 1783. and was present in the "temple" at Newburgh on March 15, wrote to Gen. John Brooks, Governor of Massachusetts, as follows: "You will have seen that Judge Johnson, in his 'Life of General Greene,' has ascribed the Newburgh an- ouymous letters to Gouverneur Morris as the author. His reasoning on the subject is absurd in the extreme. A review of his work has appeared in the United States Magasine (New York) for January last; of which review General Arm- strong is the reputed, and doubtless the real, author. The review pronounces that those letters were written by Arm- strong. I had never a doubt of it; nor do I suppose that a single officer in the army ever doubted it. About a month ago, in transferring some pamphlets and papers from a trunk to a closet, I met with the manuscript copy of the letters taken at the time by one of my clerks from the copies circulating among the officers. On the cover of my copies it is noted, in my own hand, that the letters were 'written by John Armstrong, Jr.' But the reviewer, at his 43d and 44th pages, gives a letter from General Washington, dated at Philadelphia, February 23, 1793, in which Washington states that, at the time of writing his address [of March 15, 1783], he "did not regard Armstrong as the author of the letters."
The letter written by Washington to Armstrong, as stated above, contained, among other matters, the following (see the "Pickering Papers", XLI : 318): "I do hereby declare that I did not, at the time of writing my address, regard you as the author of said letters. * * * I have since had sufficient reason for believing that the object of the author was just, honorable and friendly to the country, though the means suggested by him were certainly liable to much misunderstanding and abuse."
Upon reading the foregoing extract it is easy to conclude that Washington did not, in 1793, know who had written the "Newburgh Addresses"; and as he died nearly seven years later it is quite probable that he never learned the name of the author.
"O Jove, why hast thou given us certain proof To know adulterate guld, but stamp'd no mark- Where it is needed most-ou man's base metal?"
-Euripides, "Medea", 553.
In his "Autobiography", written some sixteen or seventeen years before his death, in 1821. the Hon Charles Biddle (mentioned ou page 1384, and in a biographical note in the ensuing chapter), makes the following reference to Johu Armstrong. Jr., whom he succeeded as Secretary of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania in 1787. "Arm- strong wrote the anonymous letters addressed to the officers and soldiers at the conclusion of the war. He showed me others he had written, which were not published. Armstrong has very superior talents, but they are almost useless, he is so extremely indolent."
The ink was not much more than dry on the Newburgh Addresses when the Supreme Executive Council of Penn- sylvania took up the application of Major Armstrong for the office of Secretary of the Council, and on March 25, 1783. elected him to the office. It must have been about that time that he began the study of law under the direction of the Hon. John Dickinson (as mentioned un page 1320); later in the same year he became a member of the Pennsylvania branch of the Society of the Cincinnati; about that same time the brevet rank of Lieutenant Colonel was conferred upon him by Congress, and, as noted on page 1441, he was appointed (in October, 1784) a Brigadier General of the Pennsylvania militia. General Armstrong served continuously as Secretary of the Council until 1787, when, being elected by the Pennsylvania Legislature on March 24th a Delegate to the Continental Congress (then meeting in the city of New York), he, on April 10th, prayed the Council tu "grant him such occasional leaves uf absence from the Board as might be proper and necessary to the discharge of his new trust." The Council granted the requisite per- mission, but on October 23, 1787, elected the Hon. Charles Biddle, previously mentioned herein, Secretary in the place and stead of Armstrong.
In the latter part of 1787 Armstrong was appointed by Congress one of the Judges for the Northwestern Terri- tory, but he declined the office. He served in Congress as a Delegate from Pennsylvania until the Old, or Continental. Congress held its last meeting in October, 1788. The Federal Constitution having been ratified by the several States of the Union, Washington was inaugurated as the First President of the United States. at the City of New York on April 30, 1789, the oath of office being administered by Robert R. Livingston, Chancellor of the State of New York. Near that date, General Armstrong was married to Alida Livingston, youngest sister of the Chancellor, and soon there- after he purchased a farm in the northwestern corner of Dutchess County, New York, a short distance below Barry- town, on the Hudson, and near what is now Red Hook, within the precincts of the old Livingstou Manor. He called his place "Rokeby", and there he established his home, devoting himself to agriculture.
In 1799, General Armstrong was elected to the United States Senate from New York. as successor to John Laurance, who had resigned. Armstrong held this office until 1801, when he resigned and was succeeded by De Witt Clinton, some years later. Governor of New York. Clinton resigned in 1803, and Armstrong again took the senatorial seat, only to give it up the next year in order to succeed his brother-in-law Robert R. Livingstou (the former Chancellor) as Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to France, his appointment being made by President Jefferson, June 30, 1804. Soun thereafter, accompanied by his secretary, Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia. General Armstrong sailed for France. At the cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris, December 2, 1804. Armstrong and his secretary were present (officially representing the United States), to see Napoleon Bonaparte crown himself and his wife, Josephine, "Emperor and Empress of the French."
General Armstrong held the office of Minister for six years, and from 1806 to 1810 he also acted as United States Minister to Spain. Returning to this country in 1810. or early in 1811. he was, on July 6, 1812, appointed by President Madison a Brigadier General in the United States Army. He accepted the appointment nine days later, received his
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commission and was placed in command of the forces defending the city of New York. Four days later war was de- clared by the United States against Great Britain.
About the time of the return of Armstrong to the United States, the following item was printed in The Gleaner (Wilkes-Barre, July 5, 1811), written by its editor, the Hon. Charles Miner. "General Armstrong, the reputed author of the incendiary address to the army-so justly celebrated for its manner, and so righteously execrated for its matter - shrunk from the patriotic eye of Washington and remained in the shade until the terror of that great man ceased to awe him to silence. In the twilight that succeeded, he came forth. * * An embassy to France rewarded his early defection from the principles of our Chief. Like Roderick Dhu, some vigorous and noble traits of character have shot forth amid the wild luxuriance of his vices. His restless spirit will never be still We claim no merit for the pre- diction, but mark it: We have only introduced the prelude to the history of the revolution of his [Armstrong's] ortunes!"
Armstrong served as Brigadier General-acceptably, so far as we can now learo-until January 13, 1813, when he was appointed Secretary of War hy President Madison, who, less than two months later, was to enter on his second term as President. "Hardly had Armstrong entered the Cabinet", state Wiley and Rines in their history of the United States, V: 385, "when he set the members of the Administration at odds, * * * and the President found the task of maintaining discipline in the Cabinet as great as it was in the army. Armstrong quarreled with Monroe [then Secretary of State and later Madison's successor in the Presidency] regarding the appointment of the latter to the chief command of the army [as Secretary of War], to which Monroe thought himself entitled. Armstrong then offended [Albert] Gallatin [of Pennsylvania, Secretary of the Treasury], who of all men was the most important to the Admin- istration in this crisis. Armstrong represented everything antagonistic to Gallatin. His methods were arbitrary and underhanded; he was needlessly lavish in his expenditures, and used his patronage for only one possible purpose ."
Dr. K. C. Babcock, in his "The Rise of American Nationality", says, referring to the appointment of Armstrong as Secretary of War: "Monroe desired the War port-folio, since the State Department did not furnish sufficient scope for his talents while the most active field of diplomacy was closed by the war. Although for political reasons Madison did not comply, jealousy and suspicion between Monroe and Armstrong had a detrimental effect upon the military service." Madison knew Armstrong well; his record and personality were not closed books. He admitted that he hoped for, rather than expected, satisfactory results from the appointment. From the start however, he gave him neither respect nor confidence.
Within two months after Armstrong became Secretary, Brig. Gen. James Wilkinson (mentioned in the (ยง) note on page 1440) was promoted Major General, and a few months later he succeeded Maj. Gen. Henry Dearborn in command of the United States forces in northern and western New York. Dr. Babcock, in his book hereinbefore referred to, says that "Wilkinson, who was about all that an officer should not be, was perhaps the scurviest knave who ever wore the straps of a General in the United States Army; a man of low morality and shady reputation, con- ceited, insubordinate and untrustworthy, who happened to have been friendly with Armstrong in the Revolutionary army. Gen. Winfield Scott in later years referred to him as an 'unprincipled imbecile.' "
Wilkinson established his headquarters at Sackett's Harbor, on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario, but early in September, he went to Fort Niagara, mentioned on page 298, Vol. I. On his return from there, a month later he found that Secretary Armstrong had arrived at Sackett's Harbor on September 5th, and established a war department on the frontier. This aroused the jealous rage of Wilkinson, and soon the trouble between the two men became serious. Neither believed that Montreal could be taken, and each attempted to shift on the other the responsibility for the future. "Whatever Armstrong suggested, Wilkinson opposed." On December 18, 1813, the British captured Fort Niagara (which they held until the end of the war), and, having increased their force and let loose their auxiliary Indians on Lewiston and the adjacent country, they laid waste the Niagara frontier with fire and sword. Other disasters and defeats which followed, soon weakened the numbers as well as the spirit of the American forces. Wilkinson considered Armstrong responsible for the failure of the campaign, and believed that the Secretary had secretly attempted to ruin him. Determined to fasten the guilt upon the Secretary in the most public manner, he wrote a letter at Plattsburg, New York, and, with great effrontery, demanded a trial by court-martial. On March 24, 1814, orders were received by Wilkinson relieving him from duty under the form of granting his request for a count of inquiry.
At this time the British fleet had been in full command of Chesapeake Bay for nearly a year and a-half, yet there was neither fortification of consequence nor army of appreciable size or efficiency for the protection of Washington, the fourteen-year-old capital-city of the country. Secretary Armstrong seemed to think that since there was no strategy impelling the British to capture Washington, they would not make the attempt. However, aware of a threatened invasion, President Madison began to press Armstrong early in May to take precautionary measures, and the matter was discussed by the Cabinet; neverthless, by the first of July there was not in the whole region thereabout a fort, a breastwork, a trench or a battery, even on paper, save old Fort Washington, some eight or ten miles south of Alex- andria, on the Potomac.
In the New York Evening Post of August 8, 1814, a letter from the city of Washington was printed, in which the following paragraph appeared: "The citizens complain loudly of the defenceless state of the District. Armstrong is suspected and cursed by almost every person here. Deputations have been sent to the President, both from this city and Georgetown. They have declared to the President their total want of confidence in Armstrong, and demanded in strong terms that steps be immediately taken to place the District in a state of defence. Armstrong and some others in power will he well watched. If any disaster befall the District through their neglect or disaffection to the seat of Government, they may not, from the present temper of the people, find it easy to escape."
Eleven days after the publication of these comments on the Secretary of War, a British force of some 4,000 veteran soldiers, under the command of Maj. Gen. Robert Ross, late of the Peninsular army, landed from a fleet of transports at Benedict, Maryland, on the western bank of the Patuxent River. Marching thence to Bladensburg, some five or six miles north-east of Washington, on the East Branch of the Potomac, they encountered an improvised army of Americans, composed of about 1,400 regular soldiers and sailors and 1,200 raw militiamen-"a mass of men suddenly. assembled without organization, discipline or officers of any, the least, knowledge of service." The battle of Bladens- hurg was fought in the afternoon of August 24, and of course the Americans were defeated, and their retreat towards Georgetown and the woods of Virginia across the Potomac was that of "a panic-stricken mob." In the early evening of the same day the enemy encamped just outside the city of Washington, while President Madison and his Cabinet and more than half the inhabitants of the city fled to Virginia. Shortly afterwards a detachment of the enemy, headed by General Ross and Admiral George Cockburn, marched into the city. The Capitol, the White House, the Treasury Building, the Navy Yard buildings and other structures were burned either on that day or the next. In fact, the only public building that escaped the fury of the invaders was the wooden structure used for the Post Office and the Patent Office.
Late in the afternoon of the 25th one of the severest wind storms in the history of Washington broke over the city. Trees were uprooted, roofs were ripped off houses, and other damage was done. After the storm was over Ross and Cockburn decided to depart, and by nightfall were well on their way to Benedict, where they re-embarked on their ships on August 30th Although they had been in Washington less than twenty-four hours they destroyed public prop- erty estimated to have heen worth more than $1,500,000. As they left the city they set fire to the long wooden bridge across the Potomac' at that point
Philip Freneau, the "poet of the Revolution", summed up the Washington campaign in the following verses:
"A veteran host, by veterans led, With Ross and Cockburn at their head They came-they saw-they burned-they fled! They left our Congress naked walls- Farewell to towers and Capitols, To lofty roofs and splendid halls!"
News of the capture and sacking of Washington did not reach New York City until August 27th, when the event was referred to hy an afternoon paper of that date in these words: "Six months ago no one could have thought such an event could possibly have taken place But this is an age of wonders! Is it possible that, after being two years at war, our capital, the seat of our General Government, should have been left so defenceless? In less than one month
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At Philadelphia, on the same day that the foregoing letter was written, the Pennsylvania Council of Censors* met and issued the following mandate:
"The Council of Censors, in the name and by the authority of the people of Pennsylvania, to the General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania Send Greeting:
"We demand of you that you, without delay or excuse, forthwith send into this Council of Censors the documents and papers hereunder mentioned, now, as it is said, in your keeping. That is to say, the report of the committee appointed the 9th of December last to inquire into
from the sailing of the expedition from Bermuda the British general has fixed his headquarters in the heart of our nation. Where have our men of affairs been all this time?"
During the occupancy of Washington by the enemy, President Madison and his Secretaries had been traveling around hunting for each other and seeking safety. Finally, in the course of a few days, Madison returned to Wash- ington, and, summoning his Secretaries, hegan the work of restoring government. Armstrong had not yet returned. and Monroe was appointed Secretary of War ad interim. About that time the militia held a meeting and declared they would no longer serve under Armstrong. Soon thereafter the latter rode into Washington from Frederick, Mary- land, when Madison proposed, as a compromise, that Armstrong should retire temporarily, until the storm of criticism of the President and his Secretary of War. on account of the mismanagement of the war should blow over. But Arm- strong declined this arrangement, resigned his portfolio on September 27, 1814, and published the reasons for his act in a plain-speaking letter in the Baltimore Patriot.
In April, 1843, the following estimate of General Armstrong was printed in the United States Gazette, apropos of his death. "General Armstrong distinguished himself as Minister at Paris, but he lost nearly all his credit by the loss of Washington City, when he was Secretary of War, where he was charged with total neglect to defend the capital of the nation after he had been earnestly solicited to supply the means. That was the end of Armstrong's public career. He appeared to lose no opportunity to assail, and he was a vigorous writer, evidently more skilled in theory than in the practice of war; understanding better what an officer should do than how to do it himself."
Henry Adams, the historian, wrote of bim a considerable number of years ago: "Whatever were Armstrong's faults, he was the strongest Secretary of War the Government has yet seen"; while in Lamb's "Biographical Diction- ary of the United States" it is stated "that the energy he [Armstrong] infused into the regular army lasted for balf a century."
It is an interesting coincidence that, on the very day that General Armstrong resigned his office of Secretary of War, an American privateer, the brig General Armstrong of New York, in command of Capt. Samuel Chester Reid, after a severe and long-drawn-out battle with three British war-ships, was destroyed in the harbor of Fayal, one of the Azores, on the other side of the Atlantic.
General Armstrong retired to his farm near Red Hook and spent his remaining years in literary work. His pub- lished works include: "Letters of Versus, addressed to a Native American" (1797); "A Biographical Sketch of the late Robert R. Livingston" (1820); "Notices of the War of 1812" (two volumes, 1836): the lives of Geu. Anthony Wayne and Gen. Richard Montgomery (Armstrong's brother-in-law), published in Jared Spark's "Library of American Biog- raphy"; a review of General Wilkinson's "Memoirs"; treatises on agriculture, gardening and other subjects. He bad also completed a military history of the Revolutionary War, when the manuscript was accidentally destroyed by fire.
General Armstrong died at "Rokeby", near Red Hook, April 1, 1843, and his remains lie in the cemetery at Rhine- beck. Dutchess County, marked by a mausoleum erected by two of his grandsoos in 1903.
TJAMES READ was born in Newcastle County, Delaware, in 1743, the third sou of John Read. The latter was boro in Dublin, Ireland, in 1688, the sou of an English gentleman of large fortune. Emigrating to this country he became one of the founders of Charlestown, Cecil County, Maryland, on the headwaters of Chesapeake Bay. This was about twelve years after the settlement at Baltimore had been begun. John Read held various military offices during his life. He died June 17, 1756, on bis plantation in Newcastle County, where he had resided for some years. His eldest sou, George Read, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
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