Background
Montgomery Cunningham Meigs was born on May 3, 1816 in Augusta, Georgia. He was the son of Dr. Charles Delucena Meigs and of Mary (Montgomery) Meigs of Philadelphia. He was an elder brother of John Forsyth Meigs.
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Montgomery Cunningham Meigs was born on May 3, 1816 in Augusta, Georgia. He was the son of Dr. Charles Delucena Meigs and of Mary (Montgomery) Meigs of Philadelphia. He was an elder brother of John Forsyth Meigs.
During his childhood the family moved from Georgia to Philadelphia, where Meigs matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania in 1831. He later entered the United States Military Academy, graduating in 1836, fifth in his class.
After temporary assignment to the artillery, Meigs was transferred to the engineer corps of the Army, and thereafter, for a quarter of a century, his conspicuous ability was devoted to many important engineering projects. Of these, his favorite was the Washington Aqueduct, carrying a large part of the water supply from the Great Falls of the Potomac to the city of Washington. This work, of which he was in charge from November 1852 to September 1860, involved not only the devising of ingenious methods of controlling the flow and distribution of the water, but also the design of the monumental bridge across Cabin John Branch which for some fifty years remained unsurpassed as the longest masonry arch in the world. To this task was added from 1853 to 1859 the supervision of the building of the wings and dome of the national Capitol, and from 1855 to 1859, of the extension of the General Post Office building, as well as the direction of many minor works of construction. In the fall of 1860, as a result of a disagreement over certain 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 at that place and at Key West". Upon the resignation of Floyd a few months later, however, he was recalled to his work on the aqueduct at Washington. Here, in the critical days preceding the actual outbreak of the Civil War, Meigs and Lieut. -Col. E. D. Keyes were quietly charged by President Lincoln and Secretary Seward with drawing up a plan for the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida, by means of a secret expedition; and in April 1861, together with Lieut. D. 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 Infantry, and on the following day, promoted to brigadier-general, he became quartermaster-general of the Army, in which capacity he served throughout the war.
His brilliant services during the hostilities included command of Grant's base of supplies at Fredericksburg and Belle Plain in 1864, command of a division of War Department employes in the defenses of Washington at the time of Early's raid from July 11 to 14, 1864, personally supervising the refitting and supplying of Sherman's army at Savannah from January 5 to 29, 1865, and at Goldsboro and Raleigh, North Carolina, reopening Sherman's lines of supply from March to April 1865. He was brevetted major-general July 5, 1864. As quartermaster-general after the Civil War, Meigs supervised plans for the new War Department building from 1866 to 1867, the National Museum in 1876, the extension of the Washington Aqueduct in 1876, and for a hall of records in 1878. In 1867-68, to recuperate from the strain of his war service, he visited Europe, and in 1875-76 made another visit to study the government of European armies. After his retirement on February 6, 1882, he became architect of the Pension Office building. He was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and one of the earliest members of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1888, although he "was not a literary person and had no taste for writing except of official reports of work done, " at the request of the editors of Battles and Leaders of the Civil War he submitted an article on the relations of Lincoln and Seward to the military commanders during the war which was apparently intended as a reply to some of the statements in McClellan's Own Story (1887). It was not printed, however, until long after the author's death, when it appeared as a "document" in the American Historical Review in January 1921. Meigs died on January 4, 1892, in Washington after a short illness and his body was interred with high military honors in the National Cemetery at Arlington.
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(Excerpt from Stamp Duties Sec. 156. And'be it further e...)
Even though Montgomery was a Southerner by birth, he considered the secessionists revolutionaries and the soldiers who fought for the South, traitors.
Meigs was known to have held a rather high opinion of himself and had a very violent, sometimes irrational temper.
Quotes from others about the person
James G. Blaine remarked: "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 was never 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 millions of dollars, accurately vouched and accounted for to the last cent. "
William H. Seward's estimate was "that without the services of this eminent soldier the national cause must have been lost or deeply imperilled".
In 1841 Meigs had marriedLouisa Rodgers, daughter of Commodore John Rodgers, 1773-1838. Four of their seven children lived to maturity, but one of these, John Rodgers Meigs, a lieutenant of engineers, was killed in action during the Civil War.