ARMSTRONG, John (1725-95). An American soldier, born in the north of Ireland. He led a successful expedition in 1756 against the Indians at Kittanning, Pa. He became a brigadier-general in the Continental Army in March, 1776, but resigned in April, 1777, to take the same rank in the Pennsylvania militia, which he commanded at Brandywine (September 11) and at Germantown (October 4), becoming a major-general in January, 1778. He served twice in the Continental Congress (1778-80 and 1787-88). He died at Carlisle, Pa.
ARMSTRONG, John (1758-1843) . An American soldier and diplomat, son of John Armstrong, the soldier (1725-95). While a student at Princeton he enlisted in the army and was soon made aide-de-camp to General Mercer, with
the rank of major, and subsequently general. He wrote and published anonymously the famous Newbourgh Addresses in 1783, and in 1784 conducted a campaign against the Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley. (See Wyoming
Valley.) At the close of the war he served as secretary of state and attorney-general of Pennsylvania, and in 1787 was elected a member of Congress from that State. In 1789 he married the sister of Chancellor Livingston, of New York, and, removing to that State, was in 1800 elected United States Senator, and served in the Senate until 1804. From then until 1810 he was minister to France, being also minister to Spain ( l806-10). He was appointed brigadier-general in July, 1812. In January, 1813, he was made secretary of war, but in consequence of the failure of the Canada expedition and the capture of Washington he became very unpopular, and resigned in September 1814. He published Notices of the War of 1812 (1836); memoirs of Generals Montgomery and Wayne in Sparks's American Biographies; and partially prepared a history of the American Revolution.
ARMSTRONG, John (1784-1829). An English physician and medical writer. He was born at Ayres Quay, near Bishop-Wearmouth. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and in 1811 was chosen physician to the infirmary at Sunderland. In 1816 he published a work on Typhus, which greatly increased his reputation. Two years later he removed to London, where his practice became extensive, and he was elected physician to the Fever Hospital. He was instrumental in establishing two medical schools in London. His lectures were published after
his death. Consult Memoirs of the Life of J. Armstrong, by F. Boott (London, 1834).
ARMSTRONG, Johnnie. The hero of several old Scottish songs and ballads, among which are "Armstrong's Goodnight," and two others, both called after his name. A border freebooter, who lived with his lawless followers in the early part of the Sixteenth Century, he was finally hanged with 36 of his retainers, by James V. in a orest
near Haiek.
ARMSTRONG, Robert (1790-1854). An American soldier, born in Tennessee. In the Creek War of 1813-14 he commanded an artillery company, and was severely wovuided at Talladega, January 24, 1814. He commanded the artillery at the battle of New Orleans (January 8, 1815), and was a brigadier-general of volunteers in the
second Seminole War (1835-37).
ARMSTRONG, Samuel Chapman (1839-
93 ) . An American soldier and educator. He
was born in Hawaii, where his father was a mis-
sionary of the American Board and minister of
public instruction. He began his collegiate
course at Oahu College and completed it in 1802
at Williams. He was for a short time chief
clerk of the Department of Public Instruction in
Hawaii and editor of Hoc Hitiraii. He then
entered the Union Armj', and in 1863-65 was
colonel of the Eighth United States colored regiment. At the close of the war he was brevetted
brigadier-general of volunteers. He was super-
intendent of a district of ten counties in Vir-
ginia in the Freedmen's Bureau, 1866-68. In
the latter year he founded and became princi-
pal of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural
Institute (q.v. ). His constant endeavor was
to show- the best methods of educating the negro
and Indian races in this country, adopting to
that end a system of combined labor and study,
to give them tlie means of self-support, develop
manual skill, and promote manliness and self-
reliance. His work for the neglected races pro-
duced most beneficial results.
ARMSTRONG, William George, Baron
( 1810-1900) . An English engineer, scientist, and
inventor of hydraulic machinery and ordnance.
He was bom at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and re-
ceived his early education at W^iickham and
Bishop Auckland. Yielding to his father's wishes,
he determined to follow the profession of law and
spent several years in a solicitor's office, but was
divei-ted from this calling by a taste for scientific
research and mechanics. His first important dis-
covery was the hydro-electric machine, which con-
sisted of an insulated boiler from which steam at
high pressure, escaping through nozzles of pe-
culiar design, produced frictional electricity. In
recognition of this discovery, Armstrong was
made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1846.
Soon afterwards he invented the hydraulic crane,
and for the construction of hydraulic machinery
he founded the Elswick Engine Works, in the
suburbs of his native town. In 1854, at these
works, were made the jifled cannon with which
his name is associated as inventor. . So successful was he in his construction of ordnance that he was appointed engineer of rifled ordnance at Woolwich, and was knighted in 1859. Some 3500 cannon were constructed under Sir William Armstrong's direction between 1859 and 1863, when he resigned his official position to resume his active connection with the Elswick Works. In 1863 he was president of the British Association, and delivered an address in which he called attention to the decrease in the coal supply of Great Britain and the exhaustion of the deposits. In 1882 he was president of the Institution of Civil Engineers and served in a similar capacity for several terms in the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. A member of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, he received from that organization the Bessemer Medal in 1891, and was honored with the degree of LL.D. from Cambridge in 1862, and that of D.C.L. from Oxford in 1870. In 1887 he was raised to the peerage. The Elsic!< ^'orks, which at first were concerned with the construction of hydraulic cranes, engines, accumulators, and bridges, were greatly expanded and became celebrated for the production of ships of war as well as ordnance and machinery. Lord Armstrong played an important part
