The Pension Building was big, brash, and controversial. Some people loved it. Others derided it. Still others joked, calling it Meigs’s “Old Red Barn.” Sherman or Sheridan is said to have cracked that the building was fine but for one thing. “Too bad the damn thing is fireproof.” Tastes change, and by 1985, the great brick pile was so admired that it was transformed into the home of the National Building Museum. The New York Times architecture critic was awed when he visited, calling it “one of Washington’s greatest (and least known) pieces of monumental architecture . . . [It] will stand as a potent reminder of the ability of architecture to transcend the mundane and create truly powerful drama.”
* * *
Meigs continued to crackle with energy and verve. While working on the Pension Building, he served as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, as “a citizen of Washington.” In 1885, he became a member of the executive board, “always present, painstaking, and eminently judicious.” Inevitably, though, his pace slowed, and in his last few years, he embraced a peaceful routine. He had his books, a workshop, and children and grandchildren to keep him busy. He thought often about the dome and the aqueduct. He reflected on the war, his memories fresh, vivid, inescapable. In late 1887 or early 1888, a publisher invited him to write about the relationship between Lincoln and Stanton. The request came in response to allegations from McClellan, who claimed that Stanton, Chase, and others had schemed against him to take advantage of Lincoln’s “complete ignorance of war.” He said Lincoln lost faith in him before the Peninsula Campaign, undermining his chances.
Meigs did not want to take on the project, in part because he did not consider himself a good writer. An agent eventually convinced him that he “had special opportunities to know the truth” because of his close proximity to the president and war secretary throughout the war. Besides, McClellan’s claims irritated him. In his essay, published after his death in the American Historical Review, Meigs related new details about the Fort Pickens adventure and the momentous war councils in early 1862, when Lincoln and his advisors sorted out what to do with McClellan. He remained an admirer of Stanton despite criticism of him from some quarters after the war. “Many military names from this War will live in History but Lincoln’s and Stanton’s will outlast all but Grant’s,” he wrote. “Between Lincoln, Stanton, and Grant, I believe there was never a dispute.”
Meigs did not get out much anymore, in part because one of his legs was bent with rheumatism. He remained sharp, and habitually wore crisp white shirts and ties as he sat in a favorite armchair, his legs up, “and read and read and read.” In a habit begun decades earlier, he filled scrapbooks with letters, photographs, engineering papers, and newspaper stories, some about him. Now and then a veteran would stop at the house, and Meigs, still sharp and interested, was able to recall details about the man’s regiment and its war record. One day, a scruffy looking man appeared at the front door, claiming to be a veteran. He was ushered in.
“Well, what is your service?” the general asked the visitor.
The man did not answer.
“Where did you serve?” Meigs asked.
The man remained silent.
“What action were you in?” Meigs said.
Finally, the visitor answered, “Well, fact is, General, I never did no fighting. I just followed the races.”
Meigs, still gruff and prone to irritability, took the answer as an insult. He rose from his chair, grabbed the man’s neck and trousers, and pushed him down the hall and out of the door. “The idea of that fellow coming to see me,” he said to his granddaughter, who watched the episode unfold.
Early on January 2, 1892, Meigs died of influenza after a short illness. He was seventy-five. His body lay in the library of his home, a tattered old flag at the base of his casket. Honorary pall bearers from the army, Smithsonian, and National Academy of Sciences came on January 5 and carried it to St. John’s Church, just across from the White House, where Meigs attended services and served as a lay leader. Two hundred cavalry and artillery soldiers marched with his casket across the Potomac River to Arlington Cemetery, pausing at the old Lee mansion, where they placed the casket in a room and waited as a crowd of onlookers dispersed. Then they toted it to a spot high in the hills, next to where Louisa and John were interred. They put it into a sarcophagus that Meigs had designed. With an inscription carved into its base, Meigs offered the world another reminder of the passions that fueled him and the roles that he had embraced with pride: “Soldier, Engineer, Architect, Scientist, Patriot.”
The army issued general orders to mark his death and honor his service. “The Army has rarely possessed an officer who combined within himself so many and valuable attainments, and who was entrusted by the Government with a greater variety of weighty responsibilities, or who has proved himself more worthy of confidence,” the orders said. “There are few whose characters and careers can be more justly commended, or whose lives are more worthy of respect, admiration, and emulation.”
But the world was already beginning to forget the man who so wanted to be remembered. “M. C. Meigs stands high with those who know him, but his merits have not been, I think, appreciated by the public as they ought to have been,” former Secretary of Treasury Hugh McCulloch, the last man to occupy that post in the Lincoln administration, and a Saturday Club friend of Meigs’s, lamented several years later. “The civil war in the United States could not have been prosecuted by the Government with the smallest hope of success, had not the Union armies been properly provided and cared for by the Quartermaster’s Department. Fortunately for the country, there was at the head of this department M. C. Meigs.”
Montgomery C. Meigs of the Army Corps of Engineers and Louisa Rodgers Meigs, the daughter of Commodore John Rodgers, had been married nearly two decades when they posed for these portraits. M. C. Meigs was called on by Abraham Lincoln to help build and sustain the Union force during the Civil War.
(ALL PHOTOS PROVIDED COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED.)
Children of then-Lieutenant Montgomery Meigs and Louisa Meigs on a donkey cart in Detroit. The children probably are Mary, Charles, Montgomery, and John.
An Army engineer, Montgomery Meigs also drew and painted with a sure hand. This is a view of a neighborhood in northwest Washington, DC, painted in 1850.
Joseph G. Totten was a soldier, scientist, and engineer who became chief of the Army Corps of Engineers. He saw promise in Montgomery Meigs and assigned him to conduct a water survey for the nation’s capital. The two men became close allies and friends.
Jefferson Davis served as the secretary of war in the 1850s, a time when he showed great faith in Montgomery Meigs and his vision for the Capitol extension, its great dome, and the Washington Aqueduct. Davis boosted Meigs’s career, and the two remained close friends until the Civil War. Then Meigs wanted Davis punished for leaving the Union.
This gorgeous depiction shows the remarkable aqueduct bridge over Cabin John Creek—with the longest masonry arch in the world at the time. It was drawn by Alfred Rives, a talented engineer who helped design the bridge under Meigs’s supervision, and who joined the rebels during the Civil War.
(WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT, US ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS)
In the mid-nineteenth century, Washington was striving to become a true metropolis. The most important and symbolic construction project in the 1850s and early 1860s was the Capitol extension and its great dome. Montgomery Meigs contributed to the designs and supervised the work; he fought with Capitol architect Thomas Ustick Walter over credit for the work and designs.
(UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON ART)
This bridge illustrates Meigs’s quest to innovate. The bridge relies on aqueduct water pipes to serve as structural support.
John B. Floyd followed Jefferson Davis as secretary of war. A proponent of slavery and former governor of Virginia, Floyd was unscrupulous and untrustworthy. He eventually banished Meigs from Washington, not long before joining the Confederacy.
Floyd died in disgrace after fleeing the fight at Fort Donelson.
Abraham Lincoln posed for this portrait during the election of 1860.
Wagons were a key component to the Union logistical machine. Here a wagon train crosses the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg.
Care was mixed for both Union and Confederate soldiers. This is a field hospital for Union soldiers who fought at Savage’s Station in 1862, during the Peninsula Campaign.
John Meigs, the oldest child of Louisa and Montgomery Meigs, got into West Point with help from his father. He could not wait to go to war and volunteer to fight at Bull Run during a break from school.
President Lincoln and General George McClellan confer in a tent on the battlefield of Antietam. Lincoln wanted more aggression from McClellan, who sometimes blamed the Quartermaster Department for failing to deliver enough supplies.
Gas-filled balloons manned by specially trained aeronauts were used during the Civil War for aerial reconnaissance of enemy movements. Montgomery Meigs helped arrange funding for the Union army’s balloon corps.
Edwin Stanton replaced Simon Cameron as secretary of war in early 1862. He was a harsh, driven man who quickly improved the operation of the War Department. He showed great faith in Meigs, who in turn came to admire Stanton.
Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs sat for this photo during the war. On July 5, 1864, he received a brevet promotion to major general.
Secretary of State William Seward, a charming and warmhearted former governor of New York, became a strong supporter of then Captain Montgomery Meigs before the Civil War. Seward introduced Meigs to President Lincoln, urging the president make use of him.
The Union war machine relied heavily on its expanding network of railroads, which proved a decisive logistical weapon. Crucial to the success of the railroads was the military railroad construction corps. Corps workers rebuilt this bridge over Potomac Creek in Virginia in just days.
Carrying food to soldiers was one of the many tasks of the Quartermaster Department. Keeping them fed was essential to victory. This photograph shows Union soldiers of the Sixth New York Artillery in front of a log kitchen cabin at Brandy Station, Virginia, in April 1864.
Montgomery Meigs and his Quartermaster Department struggled for much of the war to keep up with the demand for horses. Part of the challenge was providing enough forage. Some officers wore out the horses through mistreatment. In some cases, as shown in this photograph at Gettysburg, the horses became casualties of the fighting.
When Montgomery Meigs returned to Washington, DC, in January 1864 after an assignment in Chattanooga, he visited the Capitol to see how work on the dome was progressing. He saw this scene, captured by photo shortly after the statue Freedom was installed.
General Robert E. Lee was a West Point graduate and US Army Corps of Engineers officer. After entering the Corps of Engineers himself, Meigs worked with Lee in 1837 to find ways to improve navigation on the Mississippi River near St. Louis. They remained friendly until the Civil War, when Lee joined the Confederacy. Meigs started Arlington National Cemetery on the land previously owned by Lee’s family.
Ulysses S. Grant became lieutenant general of Union forces in 1864. Grant’s Overland Campaign that year relied on the Quartermaster Department. He later wrote: “There never was a corps better organized than was the quartermaster’s corps with the Army of the Potomac in 1864.”
These wagons, parked near Brandy Station, Virginia, suggest the enormity of the Union logistical effort in the Eastern theater during the war.
The Overland Campaign in May and June 1864 resulted in appalling numbers of casualties. These men are preparing to bury Union soldiers in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
The landing at Belle Plain, Virginia, was incredibly busy during the last year of the war. It managed incoming supplies and shipped out the wounded to Washington, DC.
Pontoon bridges greatly increased the Union army’s mobility. The pontoons were pulled on wheels until they were needed and then were placed in the river, anchored and covered with timbers. This bridge was on the James River, near Jones’ Landing, Virginia.
This is a commissary depot and supply wagon train at Cedar Level, Virginia, during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia.
Montgomery Meigs was a forceful advocate of employing freed slaves in the fight against the South. These men are working at the Quartermaster’s wharf in Alexandria, Virginia.
Montgomery Meigs respected General William T. Sherman, depicted here, who had great confidence in the quartermaster. It was said that upon receiving one dispatch from Meigs—scratched out in his wretched script—Sherman endorsed it with these words: “The handwriting of this report is that of General Meigs, and I therefore approve of it, but I cannot read it.”
Union soldiers tear up railroad track before leaving Atlanta, Georgia, on Sherman’s great march to the sea.
As bodies stacked up in the spring of 1864, it fell to Montgomery Meigs and the Quartermaster Department to bury them. Meigs led the way in the creation of a national cemetery on the Arlington, Virginia, property of his former colleague, Robert E. Lee.
The troops of William T. Sherman remove ammunition from Fort McAllister near the end of the March to the Sea. Montgomery Meigs considered the Quartermaster refit of the army a short time later at Savannah, Georgia, one of the department’s greatest achievements.
By February 1865, when this portrait was taken, the stresses of the war had taken their toll on President Lincoln.
This print illustrates the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and his army to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865. Lee’s forces, with limited resources to draw on and no room to maneuver, had few alternatives.
On April 14, 1865, Montgomery Meigs wrote in his journal that the nation’s capital could not be happier about the ending of the war. “The country is drunk with joy.” That night, an assassin shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre. The president died the next morning, as Meigs and others looked on.
Montgomery Meigs suggested the army mount a grand review to mark the end of the war. Northerners flooded into Washington to witness the spectacle.
The National Cemetery at Andersonville, Georgia, where thousands of Union prisoners lost their lives.
After the Civil War, Montgomery Meigs designed and built several important structures. Among the most interesting is the building he created to house the growing federal Pension Bureau. Meigs’s design drew on the Farnese and Cancelleria palaces in Rome. It was the world’s largest brick building when it opened. It is now the National Building Museum.
Acknowledgments
Several years ago, I went for a regular Sunday walk with my family on the C&O Canal, to the northwest of Washington, DC. We normally followed a path of crushed stone alongside the water, not far from Great Falls. But on this day we went another way, walking on what seemed to be a two-track road through the woods.
I was poking along, giving my son Cormac a chance to keep up, when I noticed a railing off to the side. It seemed out of place in the forest. When I looked more closely, I saw that the rail guarded an open well. There was enough light down below my feet to illuminate words carved into a stone: “Capt. M.C. Meigs” and “Chief Engineer” and “Anno Domini 1857.” It didn’t make sense to me. I recalled Meigs vaguely, from a college history course, as a general in the Civil War. Why would a stone memorial refer to him as captain? Why in a well? And why there? I lingered over the matter for a moment and then tucked it away in my mind for another day. Such questions often come and go. But not this time. More than a year later, I began searching for answers. What I found has delighted me ever since—and shaped the book you hold in your hands.
My effort to write the story about M. C. Meigs would not have gone far without the generosity of a great number of researchers, historians, curators, colleagues, friends, and other sharp readers, who tolerated my questions, guided me to documents, and offered uncounted suggestions for improving my manuscript. I can only hope they
know how much I appeciate their efforts.
Among others, I am indebted to Barbara Wolanin, Stephen Berry, Mark Wilson, Peter Cozzens, Douglas L. Wilson, Robert M. Poole, Amy Elizabeth Burton, Elizabeth Terry Rose, Mary A. Giunta, Thomas Jacobus, Eric Hintz, Guy Gugliotta, David Voreacos, Craig Tracy, Ken Webb, and (Ret.) Gen. Montgomery Meigs, a descendent of M. C. Meigs and a senior lecturer at the University of Texas. I owe special thanks to Michelle Krowl, a historian and researcher at the Library of Congress who guided me through the Meigs family files and offered valuable ideas, and to Bill Dickinson, whose enthusiasm about Meigs is infectious and whose suggestions sent me in many interesting directions. David Thomson, a PhD candidate in history at the University of Georgia, read the manuscript behind me for historical accuracy. Louisa Watrous—another descendent of M. C. Meigs—was unstinting with encouragement, assistance, and family documents. Thanks also to Daniel Holt, John Lonnquest, Matthew Pearcy, and James Garber for their suggestions.
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