But he felt compelled. The pitch for the aqueduct had been so successful that Meigs’s boss and soon-to-be friend and mentor — Secretary of War Jefferson Davis — added on … I look upon it with constant pleasure for it seems to spring rejoicing in the air & proclaiming its arrival for free use of the sick & well, rich & poor, gentle & simple, old & young for generation after generation which will have come to rise up & call me blessed.”. His traveling companion—and assistant for this engineering project—was Second Lieutenant Montgomery C. Meigs, but one year out of West Point. The alleged object was to give them, as being specially zealous in their loyalty, the necessary authority to insure the protection of the Government from the traitorous designs for its overthrow then being prosecuted at the capital. I then asked if he knew the young men. Secretary of State William Seward wanted Meigs to discuss the situation at Forts Sumter and Pickens. William H. Seward “My heart grows sick as I think of this prospect, and yet I believe that even in the greatest political trouble there is peace & happiness for those & those only who each hour & minute endeavor to do their duty & I hope to be able to do mine.”. More important, Mr. Lincoln came to rely on Meigs’ judgement. “General M. C. Meigs on the Conduct of the Civil War”. Plaques and inscriptions on the bridges and along the conduits still bear the words “Capt. '” To accomplish their mission required subterfuge because Porter did not trust the Confederate sympathies of some employees of the Navy Department . In a letter to his father, he wrote: “I wish you could see my jet d’eau in the Capitol Park. He added a derrick made of massive timbers that stretched 160 feet across and had the whole thing anchored fast with custom-made wire rope. The result was big, brash and controversial, an expensive structure made with more than 15 million red bricks that mixed the classical with the modern. Union Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs detested Robert E. Lee, who had once been his friend and mentor, even his idol. He attracted much affection, but he demanded much of other people. Upon receiving one report from Meigs, whose script was notoriously illegible, an admiring Sherman said: “The handwriting of this report is that of General Meigs, and I therefore approve of it, but I cannot read it.”. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Outside, down the hill in the direction of the White House, sat a new fountain. He demanded excellence from subordinates and expected everyone to abide by the same ethical standards he lived by. A regular painter got $1, and Meigs, who was running more than … It had triggered the arrival of Meigs, who was asked to conduct the survey. Due to the high colonial mortality rate, of his two wives … On Jan. 10, 1862, Lincoln walked into Quartermaster General Meigs’s office and sat down on a chair in front of an open fire. These papers he had signed, many of them without reading,- for he had not time, and if he could not trust the Secretary of State, he knew not whom he could trust. In 1836, he graduated fifth in his class, part of an elite group of aspiring scientists and engineers. In a letter to her mother that spring, his wife, Louisa, wrote: “His soul seems on fire with indignation at the treason of those wicked men who have laid the deep plot to overthrow our government and destroy the most noble fabric of freedom the world has ever seen.”. When we arrived at the White House, Mr. Lincoln – who seemed to be aware of our errand ? Another factor that weighs in is that Meig’s son, John Rodgers Meigs, had died the same year from Confederates; Montgomery Meigs held Robert E. Lee personally responsible for his son’s death. Three weeks after Lincoln’s speech, Meigs found himself at the White House, standing before the president he had doubted. He said one was Captain Meigs, another was a naval officer named Porter.3, Montgomery Meigs eagerly sought promotion in these early days of the Lincoln Administration . But the money held a far greater significance for Washington. But his mind was on bigger things. Meigs routinely declined Floyd’s requests, delayed or complained to Congress. Some contractors, railroads and speculators continued to take advantage of the military’s rapid growth. opened the conversation. Meigs would have none of him, arid in his diary he wrote bitterly: “I for one have no pleasure in association with such as he. Transcribed and Annotated by the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Meigs, who so wanted to be remembered, would be proud. Even his loving mom described him as “high-tempered, unyielding, tyrannical.” And that was when he was just 6 years old. Now, Lincoln was looking for advice, according to a Meigs report. It’s the National Building Museum. The day before, Meigs had opened the valves on the unfinished aqueduct that allowed the Potomac’s water to flow into the city. So complete was the Union stockpile — at a time when many hungry Confederate soldiers went barefoot and wore rags — it might as well have been heralded by a choir of Northern angels. Simon Cameron (Mr. Lincoln’s White House) “God for our sins leads us to [victory] through seas of blood,” he once wrote to his son, John. When General John C. Frémont caused political problems by issuing his own emancipation proclamation in September 1861, Meigs was sent with Postmaster General Montgomery Blair to Missouri to deal with the problem. The President asked whether I could not go down there again and take a general command of these three great fortresses [Pickens at the western end of Santa Rosa Island, off Pensacola; Taylor at Key West; and Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas] and keep them safe. He was an elder brother of John Forsyth Meigs. A natural destination for him was West Point,the country’s first engineering school, where he was admitted in 1832. But in a letter to Gen. Winfield Scott urging for the promotion, Lincoln expressed unalloyed admiration for him. (A native of Georgia, Meigs later served as quartermaster general of the Federal Army during the Civil War.) He became the Quartermaster General of the Union Army during the entire Civil War, but he also had an illustrious career both before and after the war. Meigs listened carefully as Lincoln framed his intent. Only when Montgomery was born, around 40 years later, did his father decide to return north. “I feel as though I was a plug which filthy rats & mice were gnawing at all the time in order to increase the flow from the Treasury — Contractors architects & Secretaries all against me,” Meigs wrote in a letter. A tinkerer, he conducted his own scientific experiments, invented mechanical devices and painted watercolors. The water coursed through a 9-foot-wide conduit made of millions of bricks, over precisely designed culverts and through bridges that together descended an average 9.5 inches each mile. The city’s population had soared in a half-century from 3,000 to 58,000. In 1881, Congress directed him to build a new home for the Pension Bureau, the agency responsible for assisting disabled veterans and the families of those who had died. When Floyd took office in 1857, he began tossing off patronage as though he owned the government. Gideon Welles (Mr. Lincoln’s White House) Mr. Welles is surrounded by officers and clerks, some of whom are disloyal at heart, and if the orders for this expedition should emanate from the Secretary of the Navy, and pass through all the department red tape, the news would be at once flashed over the wires, and Fort Pickens would be lost for ever. He was engaged in one feud after another, over everything from corruption to artistic taste. One of his favorite tasks was the building of a new dome on the Capitol, where he had his office. Meigs’s irritability, along with his high regard for his own principles, made him a natural foe of many people in Washington who preferred to operate in a loose, genial atmosphere in which favors and cash could flow freely. Meigs saw a chance to make a name for himself, something he could not do during the recent war with Mexico, when he was assigned to build a fort on the other side of the country. Seward cut through the problem, saying that Meigs needed to be promoted. He had his name carved into the side of Cabin John Bridge. But some of the roads were occupied by pigs, cows and chickens, and some were rutted with wheel tracks or filled with mud. “Perhaps you may select the responsible commander for such an event,” he told Lincoln. Over the remainder of the Civil War, Meigs’ honesty served him well in his position which required superintending the purchase and distribution of millions of dollars in supplies. The bottom is out of the tub. But even as he wrestled with corruption and the natural friction that accompanied wartime logistics, Meigs remained determined to crush the South and end slavery. Founded by The Lehrman Institute. Water went to Washington homes about five years later, albeit for limited use – it was turbid and not drinkable until about 1905. The city’s iffy water supply arrived from springs and creeks through leaky cast-iron pipes. All rights reserved. One of his friends from the prewar professional army was Gustavus W. Smith, who became a major general in the Confederate Army. The blustery Meigs seemed almost humbled by his own achievements, particularly the aqueduct. The walls of the corridor glowed with bright Renaissance colors and gilding. As a headquarters general, Meigs had unusual access to the President – on both a military and social basis. In was a tough period. Colonel Sawtelle. Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. I have come to know Col. Meigs quite well for a short acquaintance, and, so far as I am capable of judging 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 as he.”5 On June 5, Scott replied to President Lincoln: Nothing can be more kind than your courtesy to me in a matter so exclusively within your own competency as the appointment of a quarter Master general. It seems that Lt. Meigs had undertaken a crash course in water systems in New York, Boston, Paris and ancient Rome. The people are impatient; Chase has no money and he tells me he can raise no more; the General of the Army has typhoid fever. 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