By Robert O’Harrow
Jr.
General Montgomery C. Meigs, who built the Union Army, was
judged by Lincoln, Seward, and Stanton to be the indispensable architect of the
Union victory. Civil War historian James McPherson calls Meigs “the unsung hero
of northern victory.”
Born to a well to do, connected family in 1816, Montgomery C. Meigs graduated
from West Point as an engineer. He helped build America’s forts and served
under Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigation improvements on the Mississippi
River. As a young man, he designed the Washington aqueducts in a city where
people were dying from contaminated water. He built the spectacular wings and
the massive dome of the brand new US Capitol.
Introduced to President Lincoln by Secretary of State William Seward, Meigs
became Lincoln’s Quartermaster. It was during the Civil War that Meigs became a
national hero. He commanded Ulysses S. Grant’s base of supplies that made Union
victories, including Gettysburg, possible. He sustained Sherman’s army in
Georgia, and the March to the Sea. After the war, Meigs built Arlington
Cemetery (on land that had been Robert E. Lee’s home).
Robert O’Harrow Jr. brings Meigs alive in the commanding and intensely personal
Quartermaster. We get to know this major military figure that Lincoln
and his Cabinet and Generals called the key to victory and learn how he fed,
clothed, and armed the Union Army using his ingenuity and devotion. O’Harrow
tells the full dramatic story of this fierce, strong, honest, loyal,
forward-thinking, major American figure.
About the Author
Robert O’Harrow Jr. is a reporter at The Washington Post
and an associate of the Center for Investigative Reporting. He was a Pulitzer
Prize finalist for articles on privacy and technology and a recipient of the
2003 Carnegie Mellon Cyber Security Reporting Award. The author of The
Quartermaster, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.
ISBN 978-1451671926, Simon & Schuster, © 2016,
Hardcover, 320 Pages, Photographs & Illustrations, Endnotes & Index.
$28.00. To Purchase the book click HERE.
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