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Armstrong the Traitor On August 29, 1814 Secretary of War John Armstrong visited the American army camp at Windmill Point causing troops to display a fair amount of incivility. Charles Carroll refused to shake his offered hand. Officers threw down their swords; regular soldiers threw down shovels they were using to dig ditches. Reports appeared in the newspapers saying that American troops had hung him in Frederick. He was hung in effigy in the capital with a sign reading "Armstrong the Traitor." All in all the American public began to blame him for the burning of Washington rather than Madison or Winder. Armstrong seemed unmoved by the disaster . . . which probably added to the anger transferred in his direction. He commented publicly that: "the city would make as good a sheep walk as before, as it was never fit for anything else." Armstrong was one of the few cabinet members that Madison ever lost his temper with.
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