James McHenry was the son of Daniel and Agnes McHenry. He was born on November 16, 1753 in Ballymena, County Antrim, Ireland. In 1771, he joined the immigrant crowds who left Ulster for Philadelphia; and on his insistence, the remainder of the family emigrated the following year. His father and his brother John established a profitable importing business in Baltimore and built up a considerable estate, to which ultimately (in 1790) James fell heir.
McHenry received his classical education in Dublin. He attended the Newark Academy, Delaware (1772), where he displayed a weakness for poetry, and then studied medicine in Philadelphia under Dr. Benjamin Rush.
An ardent patriot because of his pronounced hostility to England, McHenry hurried to Cambridge in 1775 to volunteer for military service. In January 1776, he was assigned to the medical staff of the military hospital in Cambridge, where he won recognition from the Continental Congress and assurance of advancement. On August 10, he was named surgeon of Col. Robert Magaw's 5th Pennsylvania Battalion. Captured at the fall of Fort Washington in November, he was paroled January 27, 1777, and remained in Philadelphia and Baltimore until a complete exchange was arranged, March 5, 1778. For a short time, apparently, he acted as "Senior Surgeon of the Flying Hospital, Valley Forge, " and on May 15 was appointed secretary to Washington. With this appointment, according to one of his biographers, he abandoned the practice of medicine for the rest of his life. Winning the confidence of Washington for ability and prudence, McHenry was transferred to Lafayette's staff in August 1780. Ever afterward he gloried in his association with Lafayette, and some years later contributed an account of the French general's services to Dr. William Gordon, for use in his History of the Rise, Progress and Establishment of the Independence of the United States of America (1788). With characteristic loyalty he urged Washington to aid Lafayette when the latter was a prisoner at Olmütz. Commissioned a major, May 30, 1781, McHenry continued in active service until he was elected to the Maryland Senate (September 1781), where he sat for five years. In May 1783, he was appointed to Congress and through later elections and reelections served until 1786. During this period he wrote (1784) three articles, published five years later under the general title, "Observations Relative to a Commercial Treaty with Great Britain, " in Mathew Carey's American Museum. A Maryland delegate to the Convention of 1787, which drafted the federal Constitution, he attended from May 28 to June 1, when the illness of his brother recalled him to Baltimore, and was again in attendance from August 6 until the convention adjourned. He was a conscientious worker, but for one of such varied training and experience added little to the debates. He kept a private record of the proceedings of the Convention, however, which is one of the valuable sources for its history.
Subsequently, in a warm contest, he defeated Samuel Chase for a seat in the Assembly, in which he sat until 1791, when he entered the state Senate for a period of five years. As an intimate associate of the President-Elect, he was named to the Maryland commission which formally welcomed Washington on his journey to New York for the inauguration in April 1789. In January 1796, fourth choice for the post, he was offered the secretaryship of war, to succeed Timothy Pickering, who had become secretary of state. As a member of the cabinet, he won the President's esteem and apparently considerable influence in the distribution of patronage. He retained his portfolio into Adams' administration. Like his colleague Pickering, he regarded Hamilton as his political leader and on all major matters of policy reflected Hamilton's opinions. Consequently, with the increasing difficulty of the question of war with France, his relations with President Adams became more and more strained. When Hamilton, Pinckney, and Knox were appointed generals, under Washington, to provide for the event of war, Adams suspected McHenry of machinations in Hamilton's favor; later he believed McHenry guilty of intriguing against his reelection, but this McHenry denied. In May 1800, on Adams' demand, he resigned from the cabinet. His troubles were not over, however, for the Republicans violently assailed his administration of the department of war. Yet a congressional committee, reported against undertaking an investigation of his expenditure of funds. Keenly sensitive to criticism, McHenry prepared an elaborate defense which was read from the floor of the House on December 28, 1802, and privately printed under the title, A Letter to the Honorable Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States, early in 1803. Thereafter, he lived in retirement on his pleasant estate at Fayetteville, near Baltimore. He died in his sixty-third year.
McHenry served as president of the first Bible society founded in Baltimore (1813), and published a Baltimore directory (1807). A brochure, The Three Patriots (1811), dealing with Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, has been attributed to him, though not conclusively. Without marked ability as an orator, a legislator, a surgeon, or a soldier, he was a high-minded gentleman, a conservative politician, and an associate of great men in stirring days. McHenry is memorialized at Independence Hall and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland was named after him. A battle there during the War of 1812 inspired Francis Scott Key to write what became the national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner". Henry Street in Madison, Wisconsin is named in his honor. McHenry, Maryland in Garrett County, Maryland was named after him.
A stout Federalist, he campaigned for state adoption of the Constitution and served as a member of Maryland's ratifying convention. As a Federalist, he was opposed to the War of 1812; though his son John volunteered in the defense of Fort McHenry (named for McHenry during his secretaryship) and of Baltimore.
Elected member of the American Philosophical Society (1786), a member of the American Antiquarian Society (1815)
James McHenry was married to Margaret Allison Caldwell on January 8, 1784. Of his children, only two, a son and a daughter, survived him.
