author
William H. Armstrong
1824–1919
A Pennsylvania lawyer, Civil War veteran, and former congressman, he wrote from firsthand experience about army life and military bureaucracy. His best-known book offers a vivid, ground-level look at the Army of the Potomac.
1 Audiobook
Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac
by Henry Morford, William H. Armstrong, Jacob G. Frick
About the author
Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 1824, William Hepburn Armstrong studied at Princeton, read law, and built his career as an attorney. He also served in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives before moving onto the national stage.
During the Civil War, Armstrong served in the Union Army with the rank of major. That experience shaped the writing most closely associated with him today, Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals, a sharply observed account of campaigning in the Army of the Potomac that draws on the frustrations and realities of soldiers in the field.
Armstrong later represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican, serving from 1869 to 1871. He lived a long life that stretched from the early republic into the twentieth century, dying in 1919.