474 
MONTGOMERY CUNNINGHAM MEIGS. 
or manifestly imprudent demands, but against specious ones, 
urged with the full pressure that “influence” of every degree 
could bring. He never yielded. Amid the convulsions of 
the world around him, he was immovable and inflexible as 
was the just man of Horace, and to those who know what 
it costs to be so in such circumstances, this is perhaps the 
most honorable part of the record of an honorable public life. 
He must have been respected by his subordinates as by 
all who knew him ; but if it be said that this inflexibility, 
which was the right and necessary quality in his place and 
at that trying time, was not calculated of itself to engage 
affection, I do not mean that he was one who could not be 
loved, but that it is part of the hardships of such an admin¬ 
istrative position as his, and part of the temptation to soften 
inflexible justice to a man at heart as kindly as General 
Meigs, that he often cannot at the time be understood by those 
with whom he comes into brief, hard contact, though these 
may be his nearest official associates. 
General Meigs would hardly have become what he did 
become, without a love of the Union which at one time made 
him an enemy of her enemies, not only in the field, but in 
word and act; but I should be forgetful, in speaking of his 
attitude to others and the qualities of his affections, if I did 
not add that I have personally experienced his essential 
kindliness at a time when its manifestation was very grate¬ 
ful to me. 
In 1861 this till then obscure captain of engineers was 
brought to the notice of no poor or common judge of men— 
I mean Abraham Lincoln. I have spoken of the person¬ 
ally favorable impression that General Meigs then generally 
made, and this he made on the President, who, after a brief 
interview, decided to trust him with great powers. Let me 
here quote a few words from Hay’s Life of Lincoln. It re¬ 
fers to this first interview with the President, momentous in 
all its consequences: 
“The President talked freely with Captain Meigs and, 
after some inquiries about Sumter, asked him whether he 
could go down there again and take general command of 
