Born in Moscow, he enlisted in the Life Guard Preobrazhensky Regiment in 1774, and began his service several years later in 1781.

[1] In 1786 he entered the regular army as a captain and served with distinction (as an adjudant) under his uncle Suvorov in the Turkish War of 1787–92.

He succeeded Barclay de Tolly as the Minister of War in August 1812, and was promoted to general of the infantry on 11 September 1814.

[2] His brother Andrei Ivanovich Gorchakov (1776–1855) was a general in the Russian army who took a conspicuous part in the final campaigns against Napoleon.

Their cousin Princess Pelageya Nikolayevna Gorchakova (1762–1838) was fictionalized by her grandson Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace.