George Augustus Armes, c. 1904
George Augustus Armes in 1917

George Augustus Armes (May 29, 1844 – December 18, 1919) was a United States Army officer on the staff of Winfield Scott Hancock who participated in the Battle of the Saline River.[1] He was court-martialed three times.[2]

Biography

He was born in Fairfax, Virginia, on May 29, 1844, to Josiah Orcutt Armes and Caroline Olive Older.[3]

He fought in the American Civil War on the side of the Union Army. He participated in the Battle of the Saline River on August 2, 1867.[3] He married Lucy Hamilton Kerr (1851–1927), daughter of John Bozman Kerr, on October 14, 1874.[3] They had eight children, among them, the writer Ethel Armes. They eventually divorced.

In later life, he became a real estate broker who gave his name to Armesleigh Park, a residential development in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Tenleytown. He purchased the land that would become the development in 1890 and sold it in 1892.[4]

In 1890, Armes became affiliated with the Chevy Chase Land Company, Francis G. Newlands, and the so-called “California Syndicate” of bankers and politicians from San Francisco. A March 1, 1890, article in the Washington Evening Star, “The Big Real Estate Deal,” said, “The extended real estate purchases [958 acres of land] along the line of Connecticut Avenue extended, which have been made through real estate broker Maj. George A. Armes for the California Syndicate, represent an expenditure of over a million and a half dollars. This immense deal is now being consummated as rapidly as the titles can be searched and the deeds made out”.[4]

In 1900, Armes wrote a memoir, Ups & Downs of an Army Officer.[3] In 1902, he was shot by his former tenant.[2] He married Marie Atkinson on December 24, 1910, in Philadelphia.

He died on December 18, 1919, in Ventnor City, New Jersey.[1]

References

  1. 1 2 "Major Armes Dies. Was Civil War Veteran". Harrisburg Telegraph. December 19, 1919. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  2. 1 2 "Major Geo. A. Armes Shot. Retired Army Officer Injured by a Former Tenant. The Major's Exciting Career" (PDF). New York Times. August 22, 1902. Retrieved 2015-04-12.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Ups & Downs of an Army Officer. 1900.
  4. 1 2 Long, Carolyn Morrow (2020). "The 100th Anniversary of Armesleigh Park: An Early Twentieth-Century Suburb in Tenleytown" (PDF). Tenleytown Historical Society. Retrieved May 23, 2022.
  • Kansas, Texas, & Indian Territory, U.S. War Department, 1867. This map gives names and locations of places Armes recorded his maneuvers in the conflicts of 1867 and 1868 in Ups & Downs of an Army Officer.
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