Quote of the day

John Armstrong, Jr (1840)*

"If this, then, be your treatment, while the swords you wear are necessary for the defense of America, what have you to expect from peace, when your voice shall sink, and your strength dissipate by division? When those very swords, the instruments and companions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no remaining mark of military distinction left but your wants, infirmities and scars? Can you then consent to be the only sufferers by this revolution, and retiring from the field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness and contempt? Can you consent to wade through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life to charity; which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can - GO- and carry with you the jest of Tories and scorn of Whigs - the ridicule and what is worse, the pity of the world. Go, starve, and be forgotten."

Major John Armstrong Jr, Aide-de-Camp of General Gates. Main Composer of letters that incited the officers at Newburgh, NY also known as the Newburgh Conspiracy.

*This is the only photograph of a representative from the Continental Congress. He was also the last surviving representative. He died in 1843.