#5: Montgomery C. Meigs, Part 1 - Father of Arlington National Cemetery

This week's episode is the first of a two-part story about the life of Brevet Major General Montgomery C. Meigs,, covering his birth to just before the outbreak of the Civil War, with a major focus on his two most enduring pre-war engineering projects: The Capitol Expansion and Dome, and the Washington Aqueduct project.

For more information, including links to stream the show and pictures from these two major construction projects, visit the GoA website: https://www.ghostsofarlingtonpodcast.com 

Transcript

Episode 5: Montgomery C. Meigs – Father of Arlington National Cemetery

Welcome and thank you for joining me for Ghosts of Arlington, Episode 5: Montgomery C. Meigs – Father of Arlington National Cemetery. <PLAY THEME>. Up to this point on the podcast, we have been talking about how Arlington National Cemetery came to be, but as we bring the 19th century to a close, I feel it would be impossible to move on without a closer look at the man whose name was synonymous with the cemetery over its first four decades of existence.

In my humble opinion, I consider myself better versed in the American Civil War than the average general history enthusiast and maybe better versed in the conflict than the average Civil War enthusiast. I have undertaken next to no formal study of the subject; my undergraduate career focused more on pre-history and my graduate education focused on South East Asia. However, I have been very interested in the Civil War since the fifth grade and more years than I would like to admit have passed since I was in the fifth grade… in other words, I have been learning about the civil war for a LONG time – or as my wife likes to remind me – I’m old! With that said, I have to admit that prior to researching Arlington, I had never heard of Montgomery Meigs. That might not be too surprising when you consider the fact that Meigs didn’t have a high-profile battlefield command like Grant, Sherman, or Meade, but it is a bit embarrassing that I had never heard of the man whose biography is literally titled The Quartermaster! I entered the Army as a quartermaster officer and he was the most prolific quartermaster general of all time. 

I had never heard of Meigs, but his contemporaries knew exactly who he was and recognized the major role he played in preserving the Union. In June 1861, Abraham Lincoln gushed over his quartermaster in a way that would have made Theodore Roosevelt proud: “I do not know one who combines the qualities of masculine intellect, learning and experience of the right sort, and physical power of labor, and endurance so well has he.” Looking back on the conflict, Secretary of State William Seward praised Meigs, saying, “Without the services of this eminent soldier, the National cause must either have been lost or deeply imperiled.” Modern historians have not forgotten his efforts either. James McPhearson, the author of Battle Cry of Freedom, one of the most revered accountings of the civil war ever, said: “the logistical demands of the Union army were much greater than those of its enemy… Meigs furnished those requirements in a style that made him the unsung hero of Northern victory.” 

Montgomery Cunningham Meigs was born on May 3, 1816, in Augusta Georgia. His father was a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania medical school and had moved to the south with his new bride to start a practice and a family. The Meigs family thought they were heading to a place where they could raise their children in a pious environment, but quickly confronted the ugly realities of slavery and returned to Philadelphia. When he was six years old, Meigs’ mother described her son as very observant and inquisitive, who took great pleasure in taking apart everything he was given. This proved to be a good trait for someone who would go on to be one of the preeminent engineers of his day. Dr. Meigs demanded discipline and excellence from his six sons and two daughters and told them stories laden with moral lessons. Meigs’ ancestors first arrived in America in the 1630s as part of the Puritan migration and had filled such roles in the New World as educators, doctors, engineers, soldiers, and public officials. They were ambitious, patriotic, and pious. Dr. Meigs’ stories underscored the importance of personal honor and told his children it was their duty to protect the family name. Though Meigs would credit his mother’s influence for most of his success, he would never lose sight of the lessons he learned from his father’s stories. 

Meigs dreamed of attending West Point, the only real engineering school in the US at the time, and was accepted to the military academy in 1832 at the age of 16. Studying mathematics, engineering, and building, Meigs excelled at West Point and became well known for his mapmaking skills. While a model student in the classroom, Meigs racked up demerits for going against what he later described as the academy’s “uncompromising devotion to orthodoxy.” He complained that the demerit system impeded enterprising men in favor of “the stolid, the mamby pamby, the men having no distinguishing traits or character.” Meigs graduated in 1836, fifth in his class of 49 and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the artillery; Meigs resigned his commission a year later to accept a brevet second lieutenant position in the Army Corps of Engineers.  

After transferring to the engineers, one of Second Lieutenant Meigs’ first assignments was to spend the summer of 1837 finding ways to improve navigation on the Mississippi River along with a West Point graduate from the class of 1829, fellow engineer First Lieutenant Robert E. Lee. Yes, that Robert E. Lee. The two set up headquarters on a partially submerged steamboat about 150 miles north of St. Louis and spent the summer surveying and mapping the river. Meigs loved the assignment and greatly admired his superior officer. He admired Lee’s strength, noble and commanding presence, and admirable, graceful, and athletic figure. Meigs described Lee as one who was <quote> Kind and generous to his subordinates, admired by all women, and respected by all men. He was the model of a soldier and the beau ideal of a Christian man. <end quote> As the summer gave way to colder weather, the two men went their separate way – Meigs went back to Philadelphia, and Lee returned to Arlington. They would remain fond of each other until the coming national crisis found them at odds and Meigs never forgave him throwing in with the rebellious South.

Meigs spent the next several years as a journeyman engineer, learning the trade; making the mistakes that often accompany the inexperience of a green lieutenant; and forming a personal vision for himself – an American patriot and public servant. “I am a citizen of the United States,” he wrote to his father, “not of Connecticut where my grandfather lived or of Georgia where I was born or of Pennsylvania.” 

In 1839, Meigs joined the Board of Engineers for Atlantic Coastal Defense in Washington, DC. The posting in the capital gave the young lieutenant face time with many influential senior officials and exposed him to the city’s ruthless politics. Washington suited Meigs and he quickly struck up a relationship with a member of a prominent Washington family. Luisa Rodgers was the daughter of the late Commodore John Rodgers – a naval hero of the War of 1812. After a steady courtship, the couple married on May 2, 1841 – the day before Meigs’ 25th birthday. This marriage would ground and comfort Meigs in the years to come, while also providing political and social ties, ties that would be needed in the struggles and controversies to come (and that, my friends, is what we in the business call foreshadowing). The newlyweds claimed Washington as their home but did not remain long. Meigs received orders to design and build fortifications to defend against a feared, though unlikely, British invasion from the north. One of these fortifications – Fort Wayne – still stands today in Detroit Michigan, about a mile from the US – Canadian border.  

The congressional funding that Meigs relied on to complete his projects along the border was dependent on the whims of Congress and therefore ebbed and flowed. In other words, sometimes Meigs was extremely busy and at other times, he had next to no official duties. He did manage to find something to do in his downtime – Meigs and Louisa had four children in the first five years of their marriage: John Rodgers, Mary Montgomery, Charles Delucena, and Montgomery, Jr. The family relished the frontier spirit that lingered over Detroit; much like Meigs had done with his siblings, his own children loved exploring the nearby woods and fishing in the nearby lakes and rivers. Though Meigs was very content with his family life, he felt distant from the core of the Army in the 1840s: Mexico, Texas, and the far West. Soon after his election in 1844, President James Polk effectively ended any threat of northern invasion by settling the border dispute in Oregon at the 49th parallel. Then, in a series of provocations, Polk pushed Mexico into a war that began in 1846 on extremely sketchy claims that Mexicans had killed American citizens along the disputed southern border in the newly annexed Texas. Meigs followed the far-off fighting through newspaper accounts: the Battles of Buena Vista and Vera Cruz, the capture of Mexico City, and the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which gave control of California and the entire Southwest to the United States. Many of his Army colleagues gained national prominence and earned promotions during the conflict. Among them, Ambrose Burnside, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, and Thomas Jackson, who would later become known as Stonewall. Even his good friend Robert E. Lee got in on the action. Meigs was unsettled that so many of his Army colleagues had risked their lives or even died for their country while he had lived safely and comfortably in the northern woods. He hoped to redeem himself one day, perhaps by providing something so beneficial to the country to be remembered forever. 

The Detroit assignment – nine years at the same duty location – provided the Meigs family with a sense of stability, but the next few years would be anything but. In the winter of 1849, nearly a full year after the end of the Mexican-American War, Lieutenant Meigs was recalled to Washington to serve on the staff of the new chief engineer of the Army, Brigadier General Joseph G. Totten who had won fame, glory, and promotion – everything Meigs regretted missing – during the Mexican-American War. Totten, a pillar in the national scientific community, was not only the army’s chief engineer but also served as a founding regent of the new national museum known as the Smithsonian Institution. Totten welcomed Meigs into his scientific circle. It was during this return to DC that Meigs began making regular visits to the US Patent Office to study new inventions and engineering techniques, and bought himself a microscope. Just as he and Luisa were settling in, Meigs was ordered to report to Fort Montgomery on the north end of Lake Champlain in upstate New York. While there, the Meigs family welcomed its newest member, their fifth child, Vincent Trowbridge. While his work in New York was interesting, he still felt that there was a greater calling for him, some greater life’s work that would grant him some semblance of immortality in the national conscience. Little did he know, his time was at hand.

After a series of events back in Washington, including the second major fire in the library of congress in 40 years, congress allocated a large sum of money to search for a solution for the growing capital’s water demands and Meigs returned to Washington to oversee this all-important task. Though completely surprised by the appointment, Meigs was optimistic about this assignment because his simple orders gave him great latitude to do great things – at least that’s how he saw it. He was ordered to conduct a survey and find <quote> an unfailing and abundant supply of good and wholesome water <end quote> for the national capital and neighboring Georgetown. From the time he arrived back in the District in November 1852, Meigs tirelessly threw himself into the work of surveying water sites around the city and figuring out the best way to bring in water from those sites. 

Three months after arriving back in Washington, Meigs delivered a 48-page report that surprised everyone who saw it. With clarity and precision, Meigs confronted a problem that had languished for years – a problem much larger than anyone realized – and he proposed a solution intended to last for generations to come. Meigs’ proposal called for a nearly endless supply of water that not only took into account future growth in the District but would also allow people to live cleaner, healthier lives. He claimed his system would allow Washingtonians to open fire hydrants to cleanse the filth from the streets, removing the sight and smell of the waste that introduced disease and death into their city. His lobbying skills proved particularly effective with politicians when he claimed his plan would provide the elegance needed for Washington to become one of the world’s great capital cities. Meigs estimated that the minimum cost for his project would be $1.9 million – a monumental sum at the time and equivalent to nearly $60 million today. In March 1853, the first $100,000 for the project was appropriated. New US president Franklin Pierce supported the project, but it was Secretary of War Jefferson Davis – yes, that Jefferson Davis – who really latched on to the project. Another hero of the Mexican-American War, Davis held a great deal of influence in the capital and successfully pressed President Pierce to transfer control of the aqueduct project from the newly formed Department of the Interior to his own Department of War. Then, to the surprise of everyone, Davis handed total control of the project to a relatively unknown junior officer who had just been promoted to captain. You guessed it, our good friend Montgomery Meigs. What’s more, Davis also gave Meigs the responsibility of enlarging the US Capital Building – two unthinkable turn of events for someone who feared their career was destined for obscurity. This would not be the last time that a powerful man, impressed by Meigs’ intellect and energy, would help advance the engineer’s career. 

Meigs took over the work on the Capitol Building and wasted no time forming an elite team of scientists, architects, and artists. At the same time, he acquired laborers and began stockpiling material for the water works project. In October 1853, ground was broken on the canal – a project he believed was destined to bring clean water to the national capital for the next thousand years or more.  As this project began to erase his regrets of missing the Mexican-American War, personal tragedy struck the family: two of his boys, Charles (age 8) and shortly afterward Vincent (age 2) died of ailments described as bilious fever, a combination of high temperature, severe headaches, and vomiting. Though medical knowledge of the day limited the exact cause of death, it is likely that the boys died from drinking bad water, a sadly commonplace problem their father was even then trying to fix. Though overcome with grief, Meigs had no time to mourn. In December 1853, some in Congress began questing his management skills and criticizing the Army Corps of Engineers’ hand in any public works project. Meigs wasn’t the real target in these attacks though, Jefferson Davis had made many enemies when he outmaneuvered Congress to gain control of these projects, depriving many Senators and Congressmen of patronage and power. Despite this opposition, and with the support of Davis and others, Megis continued with his projects. 

As he found himself juggling the ever-growing demands for his time during this period of his life, Meigs tried to make time for his family, which he considered the most important part of his life. After the loss of two young sons, Luisa had another child, a daughter named Loulie. As work on the Capitol and aqueduct continued, Meigs was further tasked with expanding the Post Office Building, a testament to his demonstrated engineering and managerial skills. 

With three ongoing and separate projects, a handful of politicians and journalists called his project management into question, mostly because they could not believe that a single person could be running projects this large without the corruption and graft that had become a staple of doing business in the city. Fortunately for Meigs, he had become a meticulous records keeper and silenced his critics when he opened his books for all to see. Meigs had accounted for every last penny of the federal funds allocated for the projects and any concerns about mismanagement were quickly assuaged. 

Meigs kept these detailed records while the country around him was figuratively on fire and spiraling towards a seemingly inevitable civil war as the divide between the North and the South grew greater and greater. After the hard-fought presidential election of 1856 saw democratic candidate James Buchanan sworn into office, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis – Meigs’ staunchest political supporter and by now good friend – gave up his cabinet post and returned to Congress as a senator from Mississippi where his defense of Meigs and his projects continued. Meigs also gained another powerful and influential ally, New York Senator William Seward. While Seward was a gregarious proponent of the abolition movement and Davis was an ardent supporter of slavery, the two men agreed that Meigs was the best man to lead Washington’s improvement and expansion projects. On March 4, 1857, one of the most hapless men in American history was inaugurated president and brought with him a new Secretary of War, the corrupt former governor of Virginia, John B. Floyd. Floyd was of a mind that political office was not worth having if you could not line your own pockets and the pockets of your patrons. He tried to wrest primary control of the Capitol and aqueduct projects from Meigs when he saw how much was being allocated to them and insinuated that Meigs would be well compensated if he relinquished control willingly. For his part, Meigs was disgusted at the mere thought that he would be willing to sell his integrity but was completely ignored by the new president when he reported Floyd’s intentions.

Despite the now near-constant spats with Floyd, Meigs’ two crowning achievements came to a head when, on January 4, 1859, the Senate chamber portion of the renovated Capitol was dedicated and clean water began flowing into city fountains and homes. Throughout the aqueduct, in innocuous places such as under a cornerstone or below the waterline, Meigs had placed two dozen shiny copper plaques he had commissioned himself, which read:

WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT

A.D. 1858

CAPT. M. C. MEIGS

CHIEF ENGINEER

Part of the aqueduct, the 220-foot long Cabin John Bridge, known today as the Union Arch Bridge, which Meigs himself designed, was the longest single-arch bridge in the world until 1903. Though various stages of construction would continue until 1865, the aqueduct began bringing clean water into the District in 1859. Meigs also put his personal touch on myriad details for the Capitol building. He altered and enlarged architect Thomas U. Walter’s original design for the capitol dome, personally decorated both the House and Senate chambers, and even commissioned two snake sculptures that are still used as door handles in the House chamber today. As with the aqueduct, the final pieces of the Capital renovation weren’t completed until after the Civil War, but in both cases, the structures still stand as a testament to the engineering skill of Montgomery Meigs, just as he hoped they would. The official website of the Architect of the Capitol lists the Capitol Dome as arguably the most famous man-made landmark in America.  

Around the time of these two personal triumphs, Meigs decided that he could no longer look past Floyd’s schemes to line his own pockets with public funds and directly asked Floyd’s chief clerk if the Secretary was corrupt; the consequences of such a straightforward question hit hard and fast. Meigs was relieved as the engineer in charge of both the Capitol and Post Office projects. Meigs recorded in his journal that after putting up with Floyd for two years, he was relieved to no longer have to deal with the man. 

Meigs remained in charge of the aqueduct construction and turned all his attention on completing the Cabin John Bridge. When Meigs replacement on the Capitol project, captain and fellow West Pointer William B. Franklin also found himself at odds with Secretary Floyd, Meigs used some of his newfound free time to encourage his friends in Congress to take a closer look at Floyd and his dealings. With various newspaper accounts of misdeeds also circulating a committee was formed and after compiling hundreds of pages of testimony, much of Buchanan’s administration was implicated in corruption from the start of his campaign to the present time. It remained unclear if Floyd directly benefitted in all this, but his name stood out among the disgraced of the administration. He was not dismissed, however, and it was only a matter of time before he would seek revenge against Meigs for causing so much. On September 20, 1860, after returning to his office from an inspection of the aqueduct, Meigs found new orders waiting for him, relieving him of his aqueduct duties and assigning him to assume command of the construction at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas – 70 nautical miles west of Key West, Florida. The long fight was over and Meigs had been banished. In late October 1860, just prior to Election Day, Meigs closed out his accounts in Washington and departed south for his next assignment. Louisa and the children wanted to accompany him, but Meigs thought it best for them to remain in the capital as a reminder of his unjust exile on what he considered illegal orders. As he traveled south – through Tennessee, Georgia, and the length of the Floridian peninsula – he kept a record of his observations, noting that the forthcoming election seemed likely to bring with it disunion and bloodshed. Lincoln seemed the favorite to win and the southerners Meigs encountered seemed unlikely to accept what they saw as subjugation from an unreasonable northern majority. Arriving at Fort Jefferson two days after the election, it would take a week for the results to reach Dry Tortugas – an area so remote that there were no telegraph lines, and mail was delivered by steamer just twice a month.

Just after Christmas 1860, Meigs was vindicated when his nemesis Secretary Floyd was forced to resign. Several examples of Floyd’s corruption came to light, as did multiple instances of him ordering rifles and cannons transferred to southern armories (some before and some after South Carolina became the first southern state to secede from the union). Shortly after his resignation, he became a brigadier general in the Confederate Army; the former Secretary of War’s military career was short and less than illustrious. Years later in his memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant described Floyd as one unsuited to be a soldier and unfit for command: “As Secretary of War, he had taken a solemn oath to maintain the Constitution of the United States and to uphold the same against all enemies. He betrayed that trust.”

While things were falling apart on the mainland, Meigs loved everything about the climate and locale of Dry Tortugas with natural beauty and aquatic wonder all around him, he tried to take in everything he could, including a trip to Havana, whose own beauty and culture fascinated him. He did not have much leisure time though. After more than a decade of construction, both Fort Jefferson, and the other federal fort in the Keys, Fort Tyler, were ill-prepared for likely assaults from southern forces and Meigs poured all he had into preparing them. When the new Secretary of War sent reinforcements to the Keys, the new garrison commander was more than satisfied with what he found; both Fort Jefferson and Fort Tyler would remain in Union hands throughout the coming conflict. On February 13, 1861 – after four months on station – Meigs’ exile ended when he was abruptly recalled to Washington with orders to reassume control of the aqueduct project. Within two hours, he was on his way home. Shortly after returning to the District, Meigs also regained control of the Capitol renovation and quickly went to work managing both projects. 

This seems like a good place to leave off for now. Yes, I know the subtitle of this episode is Master Builder of the Union and we didn’t actually talk about the Union army. To be perfectly honest, when I first began thinking about this Megis episode, I figured it would be just that, a single episode; but the more I read, I more realized that he wasn’t just some guy that I – and I imagine most of you – had never heard of, but someone who played a major role in shaping the future of the country and someone who should be remembered. 

If you anyone is interested, I have posted a few pictures I was able to dig up of the Capitol renovation and the aqueduct project on the website: www.ghostsofarlingtonpodcast.com I would also love to hear any thoughts you might have. And as always: “Fear not death for the sooner we die, the longer we shall be immortal.” <PLAY THEME>