Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (; May 3, 1816 – January 2, 1892) was a career United States Army officer and military and civil engineer, who served as Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army during and after the American Civil War. Although a Southerner from Georgia, Meigs strongly opposed secession and supported the Union. His record as Quartermaster General was regarded as outstanding, both in effectiveness and in ethical probity, and Secretary of State William H. Seward viewed Meigs' leadership and contributions as key factors in the Union victory in the war.
Meigs was one of the principal architects of Arlington National Cemetery. Meigs's decision to locate the cemetery on Robert E. Lee's family estate, Arlington House, was partly a gesture to humiliate Lee for siding with the Confederacy.
Early life and education
Meigs was born in Augusta, Georgia, in May 1816. He was the son of Dr. Charles Delucena Meigs and Mary Montgomery Meigs.Hannan, p. 140. His father was a nationally known obstetrician and professor of obstetrics at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.Ferguson, p. 52."General Montgomery Cunningham Meigs." Scientific American. January 30, 1892, p. 71. Accessed 2012-12-15. His grandfather, Josiah Meigs, graduated from Yale University, where he was a classmate of future dictionary creator Noah Webster and American Revolutionary War general and politician Oliver Wolcott, and later was president of the University of Georgia. Montgomery Meigs' mother, Mary, was the granddaughter of a Scottish family from Brigend with somewhat distant claims to a baronetcy, which emigrated to America in 1701.Browning, p. 239-240. Accessed 2012-12-15.
Meigs' father apprenticed as a physician in Philadelphia until 1812, at which time he moved to Athens, Georgia. He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia three years later, in 1815, the same year he began to practice medicine in Georgia. Charles Meigs received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1817, and that summer he moved his family, which then included a one-year-old Montgomery, to Philadelphia and established a practice there.Morton, p. 508. Accessed 2012-12-15. The Meigs family was wealthy and well-connected, and Charles Meigs was a strong supporter of the Democratic Party.Wilson, p. 42. Meigs had an extremely good memory,Field, p. 73. and his father instilled in him a sense of duty and a desire to pursue honorable causes. Young Montgomery received schooling at the Franklin Institute"Obituary: Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs." Public Opinion. January 9, 1892, p. 321. Accessed 2012-12-15. and then a preparatory school for the University of Pennsylvania. Meigs learned French, German, and Latin, and studied art, literature, and poetry.Field, p. 74. He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania when he was only 15 years old.Miller, p. 6. A hard worker, he was one of the top students at the university.
The Meigs family had extensive ties to the military and to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York. Montgomery Meigs wished to serve in the United States Army.Weigley, p. 23. West Point was the only well established engineering school in the United States at the time.Herrin, p. 4. Through family connections,Wilson p. 41-42. Meigs won an appointment to West Point, entering in 1832. He excelled academically at West Point, although he said he spent too much time with athletics and outdoor activities. He was among the top three students in French and mathematics, and did well in history. He graduated fifth out of a class of 49 in 1836, and he had more good conduct merits that ranked in the top third his class.
He received a commission as a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery, but most of his army service was with the Corps of Engineers, in which he worked on important engineering projects.
In his early assignments, Meigs helped build Fort Mifflin and Fort Delaware, both on the Delaware River, and Fort Wayne on the Detroit River. He also served under the command of then-Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigational improvements on the Mississippi River.Ulbrich, p. 1312; Freeman, vol. 1, pp. 140-47. Beginning in 1844, Meigs also was involved with the construction of Fort Montgomery on Lake Champlain in upstate New York.
Within a few days of each other, in late March 1853, Meigs became responsible for supervising both the building of the Washington Aqueduct and the enlargement of the United States Capitol. His favorite pre-Civil War engineering project was the Washington Aqueduct, which he supervised from 1852 to 1860. It involved constructing the monumental Union Arch Bridge across Cabin John Creek, designed by Alfred L. Rives, which for 50 years remained the longest single-span masonry arch in the world."Md. bridge history includes breach that couldn't be spanned", Washington Post, John Kelly, Wednesday, April 21, 2010 From 1853 to 1859, he also supervised the building of the wings and dome of the United States Capitol and, from 1855 to 1859, the extension of the General Post Office Building.
In the fall of 1860, as a result of a disagreement over procurement contracts, Meigs incurred the ill will of the Secretary of War, John B. Floyd, and was banished to Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico to construct fortifications there and at Key West, including Fort Jefferson, Florida. Upon the resignation of Floyd a few months later, Meigs was recalled to his work on the aqueduct at Washington.
Civil War
Just before the outbreak of the Civil War, Meigs and Lt. Col. Erasmus D. Keyes were quietly charged by President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward with drawing up a plan for the relief of Fort Pickens in Florida, by means of a secret expedition. In April 1861, together with Lieutenant David D. Porter of the Navy, they carried out the expedition, embarking under orders from the President without the knowledge of either the Secretary of the Navy or the Secretary of War.
On May 14, 1861, Meigs was appointed colonel, 11th U.S. Infantry, and on the following day, promoted to brigadier general and Quartermaster General of the Army. The previous Quartermaster General, Joseph Johnston, had resigned and become a general in the Confederate Army. Meigs established a reputation for being efficient, hard-driving, and scrupulously honest. He molded a large and somewhat diffuse department into a great tool of war. He was one of the first to fully appreciate the importance of logistical preparations in military planning, and under his leadership, supplies moved forward and troops were transported over long distances with ever-greater efficiency.
James G. Blaine, commenting on Meigs' work in the quartermaster's office, said: Montgomery C. Meigs, one of the ablest graduates of the Military Academy, was kept from the command of troops by the inestimably important services he performed as Quartermaster General. Perhaps in the military history of the world there never was so large an amount of money disbursed upon the order of a single man ... The aggregate sum could not have been less during the war than fifteen hundred million dollars, accurately vouched and accounted for to the last cent.
U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward estimated that "without the services of this eminent soldier the national cause must have been lost or deeply imperiled."
While Meigs served as Quartermaster General throughout the war he went on an extensive inspection tour from August 1863 to January 1864. During that time Colonel Charles Thomas acted in his stead back in Washington, D.C.Eicher, p. 60 Meigs' field services during the Civil War included command of Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant's base of supplies at Fredericksburg and Belle Plain, Virginia (1864); command of a division of War Department employees in the defense of Washington at the time of Jubal A. Early's raid (July 11 to 14, 1864); personally supervising the refitting and supplying of Major General William T. Sherman's army at Savannah (January 5 to 29, 1865), Goldsboro, and Raleigh, North Carolina and reopening Sherman's lines of supply (March to April 1865). He was brevetted to major general on July 5, 1864.
A staunch Unionist, Meigs detested the Confederacy. His feelings led directly to the establishment of Arlington National Cemetery. On July 16, 1862, Congress passed legislation authorizing the U.S. federal government to purchase land for national cemeteries for military dead, and put the U.S. Army Quartermaster General in charge of this program. The Soldiers' Home in Washington, D.C., and the Alexandria Cemetery were the primary burying grounds for war dead in the D.C. area, but by late 1863 both cemeteries were full.Cultural Landscape Program, p. 84. Accessed 2012-05-03. In May 1864, Union forces suffered large numbers of dead in the Battle of the Wilderness. Meigs ordered that an examination of eligible sites be made for the establishment for a large new national military cemetery. Within weeks, his staff reported that Arlington Estate was the most suitable property in the area. The property was high and free from floods (which might unearth graves), it had a view of the District of Columbia, and it was aesthetically pleasing. It was also the home of Robert E. Lee, future General-in-Chief of the Confederacy, whom Meigs considered a traitor, and denying Lee use of his home after the war was a valuable political consideration.Cultural Landscape Program, p. 88. Accessed 2012-05-03. Although the first military burial at Arlington had been made on May 13,Cultural Landscape Program, p. 86. Accessed 2012-05-03. Meigs did not authorize establishment of burials until June 15, 1864.Cultural Landscape Program, p. 85. Accessed 2012-05-03. Meigs ordered that the estate be surveyed and that be set aside for use as a cemetery.
The logistics system There was a notable disparity between the Union and Confederate logistical situations. The Confederacy had a longstanding supply deficit, which only intensified as the war dragged on. Union forces, on the other hand, usually had enough food, ammunition, weapons, and other supplies. The Union logistics system, even as it penetrated deeper into the South, maintained its efficiency. Historians credit these achievements to Meigs.Russell Weigley, Quartermaster General of the Union Army: A Biography of M.C. Meigs (1959).David W. Miller, Second Only to Grant: Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs (Shippensburg: White Mane, 2001) Union quartermasters were responsible for most of the $3 billion spent for the war. They operated out of sixteen major depots, which formed the basis of the system of procurement and supply throughout the war. As the war expanded, operation of these depots became much more complex, with an overlapping and interweaving relationship between the army and government operated factories, private factories, and numerous middlemen. The purchase of goods and services through contracts supervised by the quartermasters accounted for most of federal military expenditures, apart from the wages of the soldiers. The quartermasters supervised their own soldiers, and cooperated closely with state officials, manufacturers and wholesalers trying to sell directly to the army; and representatives of civilian workers looking for higher pay at government factories. The complex system was closely monitored by congressmen anxious to ensure that their districts won their share of contracts. The system grew in efficiency to the point Union troops on long marches would simply throw away excess knapsacks, bedrolls, overcoats, and other pieces of clothing and equipment that they felt were weighing them down, fully confident that they would be resupplied at some point in the near future.Mark R. Wilson, The Business of Civil War: Military Mobilization and the State, 1861-1865 (2006)
Wartime deaths