Meet Montgomery Meigs

Captain Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (May 3, 1816 – January 2, 1892) was a career United States Army officer, civil engineer, construction engineer, and Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army during and after the American Civil War.

Possibly the most influential DC resident no one has heard of.

Meigs was an 1836 graduate of the United States Military Academy.   Most of his service was with the Corps of Engineers, in which he worked on important engineering projects. In one of his early career assignments, Meigs served under the command of then-Lt. Robert E. Lee to make navigational improvements on the Mississippi River.

Building the Capitol Dome

While the dome and Capitol extension were designed by architect Thomas U. Walter, the construction, funding and logistical challenges were Meigs’ responsibility. One significant engineering feat he accomplished was how to raise the cast iron to build the dome.

In order to build the dome, Meigs designed a scaffold that rose from within the center of the Capitol Rotunda with a triangular footprint to stand clear of the floor’s unsupported center. He added two eighty-foot long “sticks” to the top of the scaffold to function as a mast and boom to lift the ironwork into place. A steam engine housed in a shack on the roof provided power to capable of lifting 20,000 pounds of material. To fuel the steam engine he first used the wood from the old smaller dome that was removed.