Barent Gardenier (July 28, 1776 – January 10, 1822) was an American lawyer and politician from New York.
Barent Gardenier was born in Kinderhook, New York, on July 28, 1776.
[7] He had a heated controversy with Senator John Armstrong relating to the latter's alleged authorship of the famous Newburgh letters, anonymous circulars in which the author (presumably Armstrong) had attempted unsuccessfully to instigate Continental Army soldiers to act against Congress at the end of the American Revolution in order to secure back pay, pensions and land grants that had been promised but were not immediately forthcoming.
By the early 1800s Armstrong was a Democratic-Republican politician and follower of Thomas Jefferson, which caused the Federalist Gardenier to highlight Armstrong's supposed authorship of the Newburgh letters as a campaign issue.
[8][9][10] In 1808 Gardenier fought a duel with George W. Campbell, a congressman from Tennessee, resulting from Gardenier's opposition to the Jefferson administration's trade embargo with Great Britain and France.