Montgomery C. Meigs was one of the most influential yet underrated figures of 19th-century America, observes Carolyn Muraskin, founder of DC Design Tours. Renowned in his time for energy, precision, and prickly determination, his legacy is stamped across the nation’s capital.
As quartermaster general of the Union Army, Meigs was indispensable to Abraham Lincoln—supplying and equipping more than 2 million troops and introducing innovations such as standardized clothing sizes. He also proposed transforming the Lee family estate at Arlington into a burial ground for Union soldiers.
Before the Civil War, Meigs served in the Army Corps of Engineers, working with Robert E. Lee on river surveys, fort construction, and Washington’s early infrastructure. He masterminded the city’s aqueduct system, which still supplies water today.
Meigs later oversaw major federal projects, including the U.S. Capitol expansion and its cast-iron dome, as well as the Pension Office (now the National Building Museum). Fittingly, says Muraskin, his final design was his own monumental tomb at Arlington, marked with the epitaph he chose: “Soldier, Engineer, Architect, Scientist, Patriot.”
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