Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/771

 ARMS ARMSTRONG 735 gular skill in its use, and his incessant drilling in athletic exercises of all sorts, gave him im- mense advantage. With the Greeks and Ro- mans infantry was the front and principal fea- ture of their armies. In cavalry they were weak, and in the period of their greatest em- pire archery and slingers were contemptuously disregarded. But with the decline of the Ro- man empires, especially that of the East, a new arm of the service took the lead in the steel-clad cavalry of the middle ages. Infantry, with but two exceptions, the English and the Swiss, were almost powerless against it. The arms of these feudal troops were the lance, the mace, the battle-axe, and the two-handed sword ; but it is to the first that they owed their success. This was a ponderous weapon of 18 feet in length, balanced by the great weight of its butt end, which was often nearly a foot in diameter at 20 inches from the extremity, having a notch cut out to admit the upper arm of the champion, which steadied it as it was laid in rest, supported by a projecting iron catch attached to the right-hand side of the knight's corslet. With this weapon, protrud- ing 10 feet beyond their horse's chest, sheathed in panoply which defied any missiles which in that day could be brought against it, with the sole exception of the English clothyard arrow, infantry could seldom resist their shock. The arms of the infantry of this time were, besides the famous bows of the Englishmen, the bills something similar to a short heavy scythe blade set erect on a shaft four feet long leaden mal- lets, and long knives of the Anglo-Norman archers ; the pikes and halberts of the Swiss, which won them the day of Sempach, and did them good service at Morat, Granson, and Nancy, when the Austrian and Burgundian chivalry had dismounted ; the crossbows of the Genoese; and the spears of the Scottish foot, who fought like the Greeks in phalanx. Such were the distribution and relative importance of different arms during the greater part of the middle ages, and until the battle of Pavia, in 1525. This date marks the division between ancient and modern arms; for although gun- powder had been long before invented, it was at Pavia that the matchlock was first used in such a form as to make it of any practical value. Even then it was a most imperfect and awkward weapon, fired from a rest. From this time firearms were improved, and the an- cient offensive weapons, though they held their own for a considerable period, passed slowly out of use. The range of firearms was still very limited, and the accuracy of aim imper- fect ; and, till the musket was combined with the bayonet, the musketeer had no means of defending himself either against charging horse, or against infantry with long weapons, at close quarters, and he was therefore of necessity protected by pikemen. But at the beginning of the 17th century the bayonet was added to the arquebuse or musket, which had become from a matchlock a firelock, and now united in itself the properties of both pike and gun, and could be used indiscriminately as a missile or a weapon at close quarters. From this time, so rapid was the progress made in fire- arms, and so general their adoption, that the bullet soon became the arbiter of every battle, the combatants seldom coming to sufficiently close quarters to permit the use of weapons of the old form. The American war of indepen- dence and the French wars of the revolution brought the rifle, which was by no means a new weapon for the principle of rifling or screwing barrels, as it was then called, and its effect on the bullet, were known and used even in matchlocks as early as the 16th century into general notice, and the invention of per- cussion doubled even its utility. From this time began that wonderful series of improve- ments in rifled small arms and cannon which has made the military rifle of to-day a most formidable weapon. The invention of the sim- ple modern percussion lock, of the Mini6 rifle bullet, of revolving pistols, and especially of breech-loading firearms of every kind, has enormously increased the means of offensive warfare. (See ARTILLERY, CANNON, GUN, GUN- NERY, GUNPOWDER, MUSKET, PISTOL, RIFLE.) ARMSTRONG, a W. county of Pennsylvania, intersected and partly bounded by Alleghany river; area, 750 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 43,382. The surface is undulating and the soil gener- ally fertile. The Pennsylvania canal passes through its southern extremity. Its most valu- able mineral productions are iron, salt, and coal. In 1870 the county produced 298,194 bushels of wheat, 135,257 of rye, 680,314 of Indian corn, 883,846 of oats, 33,192 tons of hay, 126,068 Ibs. of wool, and 964,020 of but- ter. Capital, Kittanning. ARMSTRONG, John, an American officer in the revolutionary war, born at Carlisle, Pa., in 1758, died at Red Hook, Dutchess county, N. Y., April 1, 1843. At the age of 18 he entered the army as a volunteer, and at the battle of Princeton was one of Gen. Mercer's aids, and bore him in his arms from the field when he had re- ceived his death wound. He afterward became a favorite of Gen. Gates, and served under him, with the rank of major, through the remain- der of the war. During the winter of 1782-'3, while the army was encamped at Newburgh, great anxiety was felt as to the arrearages of pay, and the half pay promised to those officers who should serve through the war. After an unsuccessful application to congress, a meeting of officers was called anonymously for the llth of March, 1783, to discuss their grievances. An anonymous address was issued, in which the writer exhorted his comrades to refuse to perform further military duty during the war, or to lay down their arms on the return of peace, unless their just demands were com- plied with. Washington immediately issued a call for a similar meeting on the 15th, for the discussion of their claims, which was followed by another anonymous address, construing the