PRIDE AND STRIFE

263

As soon as James Buchanan was

sworn in as president on March 4,

1857, senators and congressmen

returned to their farms and offices, leaving the capital city to the small band of clerks and shop keepers who called it home. Captain Meigs had a

foolproof way of knowing whether Congress was in

town: if the streets were empty except for some

carts and buggies—if there were no fancy carriages

in sight—the lawmakers had left. While the streets

were deserted, it was the busiest time of the year

at the Capitol extension office. Meigs worked away

on thousands of details relating to design, decoration, and construction, while Walter spent long

hours at his drafting table. Their relationship had

so far remained professional and cordial, but that

would soon change. Meigs did not yet know that

Walter was scheming to regain control of the design

department, hoping to pull in the reins on the engineer’s decorating frenzy.

Throughout the 1857 building season, Meigs

drove the workmen to complete the House chamber in time for the opening of the 35th Congress in

December. One of the biggest jobs was decorating

the huge iron ceiling. Measuring 139 feet long by

93 feet wide, the ceiling was laden with decorative

papier mâché moldings and pendants shaped like

huge inverted pineapples. A central skylight was

formed into forty-five panels glazed with colored

glass made by the Gibson Company of Philadelphia. Described as having the appearance of enameled work, the glass included state seals copied by

Johannes Oertel, an artist from New York. Meigs

had difficulty finding accurate representations of

the seals and was obliged to write officials in all the

states and territories asking for authentic copies.

He also borrowed from the House chamber an

engraving of the Declaration of Independence that

had a border made up of the seals from some of

the older states.

Brumidi and a crew of painters began decorating the ceiling over the new House chamber at the

end of 1856. Meigs provided some vague directions

but mainly left the color scheme up to the artist’s

discretion. Strong, positive colors—red, blue, and

yellow—were used with a generous sprinkling of

gold leaf to ornament the intricate moldings with a

degree of minute precision that was unlike anything seen before in American architecture. At

first, Meigs thought the effect might be “too gorgeous,” saying that “nothing so rich has ever been

seen this side of the Atlantic.” 1 He warned Brumidi

not to make “too many little decorations” on the

ceiling, but the result was a strong and varied application of bright colors and gold leaf that excited

considerable comment.2 Obviously impressed, The

Crayon attempted to give its readers an idea of

the ceiling’s “surpassing gorgeousness.” It claimed

that the artistic effect was unequaled on the North

CHAPTER EIGHT

Section Through Dome of U. S. Capitol (Detail)

by Thomas U. Walter, 1859
Plan of Ceiling 

of House of Representatives

by Thomas U. Walter, 1856

The iron and glass ceiling over the House chamber was its most elaborate

feature. Artists highlighted the papier mâché pendants, moldings, modillions,

and other ornaments

using bright colors and

gold leaf in a decorative

treatment that excited

considerable comment.

264 History of the United States Capitol

John B. Floyd

Daguerreotype by Mathew Brady 

ca. 1858

Library of Congress

In 1857 President Buchanan appointed Floyd (1806–1863) secretary of war. A former governor of Virginia, Floyd’s principal qualification for the cabinet post was being

from the south. He was a fierce Democratic stalwart who used his power to award the

party’s faithful and punish its enemies. He routinely used his position over the Capitol

extension office to steer contracts and jobs to friends of the administration. For his

unabashed corruption and partisanship, Floyd is remembered as one of the most

incompetent cabinet officers in American history. His later career as a Confederate

general was hardly better. His inept command of Fort Donelson contributed to its 

capture by Federal troops in 1862.
Pride and Strife 265

American continent and hardly matched anywhere

in the world.3

Of course, not everyone approved of the color

scheme. Senator Jacob Collamer of Vermont took

exception to the use of so many bright colors and

expressed his hope that the new Senate chamber

would be spared a similar treatment:

I think the architectural character of the Representative Hall, as now finished, is entirely

over burdened and disguised and thrown out

of sight by the great variety of colors put in. I

think it sort of Joseph’s coat: and I desire very

much that kind of thing may be kept out of the

new Senate Chamber; and I believe that a large

portion of the Senators entertain the same

taste and feelings. If anything can be done by

way of securing a little more chastity in it, I

should desire it.4

Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, defended

the polychromatic color scheme, claiming no special expertise in the matter but expressing complete faith in Brumidi’s skill:

Rub off the gilding and paint out the colors;

make them all one, if the Senator from Vermont desire not to have many colors. . . . But

there is not an artist who would attempt to

ornament a building by painting with one

color. His skill is shown in the harmony of the

colors, blending them so that no one rests on

the eye and commands its single attention. I

would be surprised at the American Congress

if it were to wipe out these great efforts of art

and introduce as a substitute the crude notion

of single color.5

In March 1857, the Capitol’s gardener granted

permission to Meigs’ chief bronze caster, Federico

Casali, to pick all the flowers, leaves, and twigs

needed to make metal ornaments to decorate the

gallery doors in the House chamber. Twenty-four

doors (seven of which were dummies) were made

of baywood mahogany veneered with bird’s-eye

maple. Casali’s small foundry produced figural and

floral decorations that were used profusely on the

gallery doors: cherubs, rosettes, acanthus,

grapevines, rinceaux, masks, lizards, flies, beetles,

and snakes. When the doors were opened, they

recessed into the paneled jambs. Hung on the corridor side of the openings were double-leaf “fly

doors” (swinging doors) that were made of red

cedar covered with dark green baize held by silver

plated tacks. Oval glass panels in each leaf were

held by brass moldings. Fly doors were provided

to allow access to the galleries without the noise

and effort required to open and close the monumental mahogany, maple, and bronze doors. Below,

fifteen doors gave access to the floor of the House.

Each was closed by a pair of fly doors covered with

red morocco with oval lights. The cast-iron frames

were arched with clear glass transoms above the

doors. Bronze sconces that were hung just below

the spring line of the arch completed the rich decorative effect. These gas fixtures were formed into

female figures with one arm outstretched, holding

the burner, collar, and globe.

At the end of May 1857, Walter completed

designs for members’ chairs and desks. Meigs sent

Doors in Gallery Fronts

by Thomas U. Walter, 1856

Sculpted female heads were intended to decorate 

the keystones above all fifteen doors leading into the

House chamber. Only one, however, was fabricated 

and installed.
266 History of the United States Capitol

a photograph of the desk design to Boston, where

the Doe Hazelton Company was paid ninety dollars

to make each of the 262 carved oak desks for the

new chamber. The firm was too busy to make the

matching chairs, so Meigs ordered half of them

from Bembe and Kimbel of New York (at seventy

dollars apiece) and the other half from the Hammitt Desk Company of Philadelphia (at seventyfive dollars apiece). The oak chairs, upholstered

with red morocco matching the leather on the fly

doors, had removable cushions to permit the cane

seats to be used during the summer months. Meigs

admonished the furniture makers to have the desks

and chairs delivered to the Capitol by December 1

at the latest.

Seating in the galleries was constructed by

carpenters working under their foreman, Pringle

Slight. Before work began, Meigs needed to know

the style of accommodations expected by the

officers of the House. He wrote the clerk of the

House, William Cullon, asking for guidance and

offering his advice. He suggested that the gallery

seats be cushioned in a red material. Spring seats

were best because people would show respect and

conduct themselves properly; wooden benches, on

the other hand, would be “trodden” and “defaced”

when the galleries were crowded.6 Despite Meigs’

counsel, the clerk did not wish to provide guests

of the House with comfortable upholstered seats.

The gallery benches were made of wood with the

back rails and arms grained in imitation of

mahogany while the seats and backs were simply

painted and varnished.

Scaffolds in the House chamber were dismantled in mid-June while workmen were plastering

the cloakrooms under the galleries. On June 21,

the works were damaged by a violent hailstorm

that broke thirty-five large sheets of glass in the

skylight over the new chamber, while twenty-two

sheets of glass broke over the Senate chamber.

This thick glass had withstood the weight of workmen but shattered under the force of hailstones

the size of eggs. Provost & Winter’s marble cutting

sheds lost 8,000 panes of glass while Meigs’ shops

lost 2,300 panes. The commissioner of public buildings reported that every skylight in the old Capitol

was broken and the copper roof was damaged as

well. Astonished by the severity of the storm, Meigs

recorded that “chickens exposed were killed immediately. Cows and cattle ran about as if mad.” 7

Details of 

Fly Doors in

Gallery Fronts

by Thomas U. Walter

1857

The swinging doors

were covered with red

morocco to match the

leather seats on the 

members’ chairs.

Design for Chairs of Halls of Congress

by Thomas U. Walter, 1857

New desks and chairs were made for the 

House of Representatives just before its hall opened 

in December 1857.
Pride and Strife 267

Carpenters began laying the wooden floor in

the House chamber on August 20, 1857. Their

progress was interrupted when workmen ran out

of materials, and Meigs went to the Campbell &

Coyle sawmill to urge speedier delivery of lumber.

By the end of the month, he was happy to report

that work in the hall of the House was proceeding

“bravely.” 8 The floor was finished during the first

week in September and awaited $1,800 worth of

wall-to-wall carpet that Meigs had ordered from

Clinton, Massachusetts. The clerk of the House

felt that he should have been involved in the selection of carpeting, but since it had already been

ordered he settled for selecting small accessories,

such as spittoons.

From time to time Walter made inquiries about

payments due the marble contractor, which Meigs

thought was none of his business. The engineer

warned him to stay clear of such matters, yet Walter secretly kept John Rice informed about every

aspect of his business interests at the Capitol. On

another subject, the marble contractors claimed

they could not supply any of the exterior column

shafts in a single piece. Their quarry could not fill

the order as they once thought. Rice & Baird

wanted to supply the shafts in four-foot drums, as

allowed by their original contract, but Meigs

insisted that the amended contract gave him the

right to demand most—if not all—of the shafts in

one piece. If they could not fulfill the contract,

they would forfeit a 10 percent reserve withheld as

a performance guarantee. Rice & Baird stood to

lose $15,000.

In November 1857, Rice & Baird quoted the

price of monolithic shafts at $1,700 each, $300 more

than their contract allowed. (They would be obliged

to purchase the stones from another quarry.) Meigs

thought about sidestepping the firm altogether,

ordering the shafts directly from Italy, and went to

see the new secretary of war to discuss the matter.

Floyd asked if it would be possible to substitute

granite for marble shafts, an idea Meigs considered

perfectly absurd. He reminded the secretary that

the wings were faced with white marble, which

would make granite columns look “rather dirty.”

Floyd then asked why the marble could not be

removed and the wings refaced with granite, preferably granite from Virginia. Meigs said that Congress

would never allow it because it would add five or

six years to the project and cost an additional two

million dollars. The foolish proposition was made,

Meigs concluded, “only to get the money to go to

Richmond.” 9 Meigs’ meeting left him thunderstruck.

The secretary’s proposal would not go far, but it

spoke volumes about his motives and priorities. 

Despite Floyd’s shady dealings and crazy ideas,

however, Walter wished he had more time to

develop the secretary’s friendship because he knew

it would help improve his own situation at the Capitol. His control of the architectural department

was steadily eroded by Meigs and his roster of

artists and decorators, who provided various design

services without the architect’s knowledge. Walter

was routinely left out of decisions that he felt

should be made with his consultation. On May 4,

1857, for instance, he discovered that part of the

architectural embellishments in the coffers over

the ladies’ retiring room in the Senate wing (modern day S–313) had been removed so that Brumidi

could paint fresco pictures in their places. Walter

complained privately that he had been ignored in

the process and that the strength of the vault had

been compromised. Meigs had Brumidi designing

mantels and other conspicuous interior features,

such as bronze railings for the four private staircases. All painted decorations were done without

the knowledge or approval of the architect.

For a long time, Meigs did not sense Walter’s

unhappiness. But throughout 1857, Walter’s private correspondence contained bitter complaints

about Meigs’ rule and his condescending attitude.

He wished to return to the time when all the design

work was generated in his office and the captain of

engineers respected the prerogatives and role of

the architect. Walter had once valued the way the

captain lifted burdens from his shoulders, but he

now grew tired of the autocratic way Meigs

ordered, commanded, and lorded his power. He

was weary of Meigs’ insatiable appetite for fame,

an obsession that gripped him like an addiction. He

grew to detest Meigs’ cravings for credit—credit

for everything done under his rule, no matter

whose intellectual property was stolen in the

process. Walter’s civilian ways were unavoidably at

odds with Meigs’ military disposition. Both were

intelligent and cultured, but they were cut from

very different cloth.

What had started as a cordial collaboration in

1853 degenerated into an icy relationship four years

later. Walter wanted to stay with the extension and
268 History of the United States Capitol

dome until they were finished, but he wondered

how much longer he could stand working under

Meigs’ rule. There were only two alternatives to

resignation: the secretary of war could either muzzle Meigs or remove him. Walter wished to get to

know Floyd better, but he found it unlikely given

the demands of his work. To his most sympathetic

correspondent, John Rice, he wrote:

I have not yet seen the Secy. of War and have

heard nothing fresh in reference to our friend

[Meigs]; he still flourishes in fancied security, and

thinks that he has the confidence and the admiration and the affections of the entire cabinet;...

I wish that I could get time to see the Secy. but

I am driven from morning to night and from

night to morning in keeping up my designs for

15 draughtsmen, and in answering letters, refer

to documents, making calculations, and then

looking personally after every thing, so that it is

next to impossible for me to make myself agreeable to anybody, or to cultivate the friendship

of cabinet officers—My dear Rice I am on a

treadmill, and if I stop one minute I shall get

my shins broke—This is not as it should be—an

artist’s brains should never be cudgeled—he

should be the master of his own time, but under

this reign that can not be—Tyranny and despotism is the order of the day.10

If Walter was unable to influence the secretary

of war directly, he still had friends who had the

leisure and the connections to do the job for him.

William H. Witte, a former Democratic congressman from Philadelphia, was happy to help. Senator

William Bigler, another Democrat from Pennsylvania, would also prove useful. Unfortunately for Walter, Joseph Chandler had lost his reelection bid and

left the House at the end of the 34th Congress.

(Chandler had not, however, lost clout with

Buchanan, who appointed him minister to the Two

Sicilies in 1858.) Walter’s friendships with these

influential politicians from Philadelphia would help

him through the difficult times ahead. For his part,

Meigs could depend on Jefferson Davis for support.

In 1854, while in President Pierce’s cabinet, Davis

advised Meigs to dismiss Walter and claim the architectural honors for himself. At that time, the engineer replied that the architect was too valuable

and said there was plenty of work and credit for

both.11 Soon, Meigs would regret his decision to

keep Walter, but it is doubtful that either Davis or

Meigs could have ordered Walter’s dismissal on his

own authority. He was, after all, appointed by the

president of the United States, who was the only

person who could fire him. Soon caught in the middle of these contentious forces were President

Buchanan and Secretary Floyd, one old and indecisive, the other corrupt and devious.

THE OPENING

SKIRMISH

W orkmen swarmed over the new

House chamber during the final

days of November 1857 preparing

it for the opening of Congress. Some of the ceiling

glass had not yet arrived and Meigs feared that

without it the room’s opening would be delayed.

But he thought everything else was ready. Walter,

on the other hand, did not think the room would

be ready for another six months. The heating

apparatus was not finished, the stairways were

still under construction, and thousands of little

things needed to be done. Despite the “flourish of

Speaker’s Clerk’s

and Reporter’s

Desks. Hall of

Representatives

by Thomas U. Walter

1857

The chamber’s focal

point was the marble 

rostrum positioned in

front of a cast-iron 

frontispiece.
Pride and Strife 269

trumpets of the superintendent,” Walter did not

believe the House would occupy the new chamber

during the upcoming session.12

A former clerk of the House (and former and

future commissioner of public buildings), Benjamin

B. French, did not believe that the House would be

in a hurry to occupy its new chamber, which he

thought not nearly as tasteful as the old hall. He

also felt the decorations of the new room were

totally inappropriate for a legislative chamber:

The new Hall of the House of Representatives

is nearly finished. Capt. Meigs has rushed the

work upon it so as to show it to Congress. It

will not probably be occupied by the House till

May or June. It is a gorgeous affair—too much

so, to my taste, for a business room. The ceiling is magnificent, & perhaps not too elaborately ornamented, but the gilding around the

Speaker’s chair, the doorways and panels looks,

to my eye, tawdry & out of place, worthy only

of a theater, lager beer saloon, or steamboat

cabin! It is in very bad taste.13

On December 7, 1857, Meigs officially reported

to the secretary of war that the new chamber was

finished. Walter wrote Richard Stanton, then

retired in Kentucky, that he considered the room

far from complete. He also complained about Brumidi’s color scheme, which, like every other decoration in the Capitol extension, was planned and

executed without his input:

The Capt. has taken upon himself to have all

the painting and gilding done under his special direction without any consultation with

me and I must say that it is the most vulgar

room I was ever in—I hope Congress will order

it repainted and allow your old friend to have

some say as to how it shall be done—it is susceptible of being made as handsome and

dignified a looking room as any in the world—

Details of South Wing 

by Thomas U. Walter, 1854

Although labeled “Retiring Room,” the center

space was destined to become the Speaker’s office in the

new south wing. The ceiling was the most elaborate

design that Walter created for cast iron—one of his

favorite building materials.
270 History of the United States Capitol

now it is the very worst I ever saw—and so says

everybody.14

Many people who saw the completed room

before it was occupied agreed with Walter’s assessment. Hearing that some of the public’s reaction to

the color scheme was unfavorable, Meigs wrote a

letter to the National Intelligencer in which he

attempted to defuse criticism:

The style is new in this country where our public buildings generally, through the poverty of

the public purse or perhaps the greater poverty

of the architect’s taste, starve in simple whitewash. This, new in this country, rich and

magnificent decoration, naturally, when first

seen, excites surprise. The colors are so rich,

so various, so intricate, so different from anything seen before, that the impression is that it

must be, what? Gaudy? But what is gaudy? Are

the colors of the autumnal forests gaudy? Is

there anything in this Hall more brilliant than

the scarlet leafage of the gum or the maple, or

the yellow of the oak and other trees? . . . This

is a great work. Let not the noisy babble of ignorance forestall public opinion upon its merits.15

The heating system was tried for the first time

on December 7 and seemed to work well. To test

the acoustics, Meigs entered the empty room just

after dark, climbed into the Speaker’s chair, and

began reading from a book; assistant engineers

scattered in the gallery and on the floor listened

and responded. Two days later, similar experiments

were conducted by Meigs in the company of fellow

members of the acoustical committee, Joseph

Henry and Alexander Bache. Louisa Rogers Meigs

sang a song in the chamber that greatly pleased

Sconce in Speaker’s Room

Among the few gas lighting fixtures surviving from

the 1850s are the cherubic sconces located in what was

the Speaker’s office, now part of the members’ retiring

room. (1972 photograph.)

Speaker’s Room

Historical Society of Washington, D. C.

With striped slip covers on the furniture, this photograph shows the Speaker’s

office partially in “summer dress.” Such seasonal housekeeping rituals were common

prior to the advent of air-conditioning. (ca. 1860 photograph.)
Pride and Strife 271

her husband. He wrote: “The effect of her

magnificent and rich voice in this great chamber

was beautiful.” 16 At no time were there echoes,

and the voice could be clearly heard in every part

of the room. Meigs was confident that his scientific

approach to the design of the chambers would

make them the best rooms in the world for speaking and hearing.

A committee of the House was appointed to

determine if the new room was ready for use. It

sent for Meigs and asked him whether the dampness of fresh masonry might make it unwise to

occupy the chamber right away. Using a hygrometer, the engineer proved that the air was dry and

healthy. On December 13, 1857, the reverend Dr.

George Cummins preached before a crowd of 2,000

worshipers in the first public use of the chamber.

Soon thereafter, the committee recommended that

the House convene in the new hall on Wednesday,

December 16, 1857.

Workmen cleared the corridors around the

new chamber, removed scaffolds, cleaned up, and

polished everything to welcome the House of Representatives to its new home. A temporary passage was constructed between the old and new

chambers, and Meigs proudly instructed the

Speaker, the doorkeeper, and the clerk about the

proper operations of the room. At noon on the

appointed day, members of the House assembled

in the room with spectators sitting on the hard

benches in the gallery. Meigs was relieved to hear

so few complaints, especially about the room’s

heating and ventilation. The few grumbles he did

hear were of so little consequence that he paid

them no attention. He noted: “It is no easy thing to

warm 241 gentlemen so that each thinks himself

just right, especially when they have been told

that the Hall is damp and new, etc.” 17

Benjamin B. French, who had not liked the

hall when it was new and empty, did not like it any

better when it was filled with congressmen. He

described the conditions of the windowless room

in a letter to his brother:

I went over today and saw the House of Representatives down in their new cabin—for it

seems as if you were in a monstrous salon—

beneath deck. I don’t like it at all, and in my

opinion the House will adjourn back to the old

Hall before two months! The idea of shutting up

a thousand or two people in a kind of cellar,

where none of God’s direct light or air can come

in to them—where they are breathing artificial

air, and seeing the secondary light, is one that

does not jump with my notions of living. And

then, so far as comfort is concerned, the

arrangement of the Hall is by no means equal to

the old one. It is a piece of gaudy gingerbread

work, that will in the end, do no credit to anyone who has had anything to do with it.18

In light of all the bad publicity Meigs was getting from early reviews of the chamber decorations, Walter felt it was time to reassert his rights

to control the design of the Capitol extension. He

would try to convince the War Department that

both economy and good taste would be better

served if he were given veto power over Meigs’

expensive and gaudy decorations. He wrote a draft

order on December 4, 1857, and it was delivered

to the secretary of war by former Congressman

Witte. They hoped Floyd would sign it, have it

delivered to Meigs, and, thereby, restore the

House Chamber 

ca. 1865

Flanking the

Speaker’s rostrum are the

portraits of the Marquis

de Lafayette and George

Washington that originally hung in the old

chamber. In the corner is 

Brumidi’s depiction of the

surrender of Cornwallis,

which was intended to be

the first in a series of 

history paintings for the

wall panels.
272 History of the United States Capitol

proper lines of responsibility at the Capitol extension office. The draft read in part:

No contract or order for any work upon the

building under your charge is hereafter to 

be made for any alteration or work upon any

plan differing from the original plan adopted,

nor is any change to be made in the original

plan, except upon a distinct proposition 

for such change of plan, concurred in and

approved of by the architect and authorized by

the Department.19

Day after day Walter waited to see what action

would be taken by the War Department. He heard

occasional rumors that the order had been issued,

but these turned out to be untrue. Week after

week, month after month Walter waited for the

War Department to act: the waiting continued for

two years.

On December 19, 1857, Meigs and Walter

attended a meeting of the House Committee on

Rules and Accommodations to discuss the ventilation system in the new chamber. The question of

downward versus upward ventilation had been

debated among Meigs and the assistant engineers

and consultants for years, and Meigs was more convinced than ever that the downward flow of air was

best. He was afraid that forcing air up from the

floor would stir choking storms of dust and release

the stench of tobacco odors from the carpet. He

was quite satisfied with the effects of downward

ventilation that had been demonstrated in the

House chamber over the past three days. When

asked for his opinion, Walter stated his objections

to forcing hot air downward because it went against

the laws of nature. He thought it was better to

introduce warmed air from registers in the floor

and to exhaust it through grills in the ceiling. This

public disagreement with Meigs was most unwelcome and prompted a swift reaction. In front of a

room filled with congressmen Meigs announced

that the architect’s opinions were of no consequence because he had nothing to do with the ventilation of the hall—he was not a “scientific man.”

Joseph Nason of Nason & Dodge, the heating and

ventilation consultants, was also in attendance.

Nason testified about improvements made by his

firm to the Utica fan, which he claimed contributed

to the success of the ventilation system. Meigs disagreed, claiming the improvements were his idea.

All of the ventilating experiments were devised

and paid for by Meigs and many of the ideas were

Meigs’ or came from men on his payroll. “It is a

well-established principle that the engineer who

takes the responsibility of ordering a particular

work,” he wrote soon after the meeting was over,

“though he may not work out with his own hands

its details, is entitled to the credit.” 20

The meeting was the opening volley in the public feud between the architect and the engineer.

Walter dared to disagree openly with Meigs, who

considered it nothing less than an act of insubordination. In response to the outrage, Meigs publicly

insulted Walter, declaring him unfit to comment on

scientific subjects. Considering his extensive experience, which included several large engineering

commissions, Walter was deeply offended by the

condescending, rude, and inappropriate behavior.

Two days after the encounter, Walter received

a letter from the War Department asking him to

suggest ways to economize at the Capitol.21 It came

with copies of two letters written by Meigs, in which

he claimed to be the designer of the Capitol extension. Meigs did not say that he was the architect in

so many words, but he asserted that the original

designs were his and that they had been approved

by President Pierce in 1853. Covering twenty-one

pages, Walter’s reply complained that Meigs’

Design for Clock

for Hall of

Representatives

by Thomas U. Walter

1858

To display a fine pair

of bronze figures by

William Rinehart, Walter

designed a clock case that

was then made in New

York City by the Bembe 

& Kimbel furniture company. The crowning eagle

was modeled at the Capitol by Guido Butti and

cast in Philadelphia by

Archer, Warner & Miskey.

The clock was given the

place of honor over the

north door and thus occupied the same relative

position as Franzoni’s Car

of History in the old hall.
Pride and Strife 273

extraordinary statements were “unjust to me, prejudicial to the interests of government, and in opposition to the tasteful and philosophical development

of the arts of peace, in public structures.” While

freely admitting that the original plans were altered

at Meigs’ suggestion, he maintained that they were

his nonetheless. Walter wrote that Meigs

has not designed the Capitol extension, nor any

other work on which I have been engaged with

him; —he is not an Architect, —his calling is

that of a Military Engineer, in which profession,

I have no reason to doubt that he is eminent,

and it is highly proper that he should wear the

honors of that Profession; —but to assume that

he designed the Capitol extension, and that I

have been ‘assisting’ him, is nothing less than

to assume to practice in a profession for which

he has never been educated, and about which

he knows no more than the generality of well

educated men.

In the second letter, Meigs claimed that his

design for the House chamber was based on scientific studies, particularly the science of acoustics,

and that he deserved credit for its success. He

implied that Walter’s original design for the chamber would have been a failure, but the architect

vehemently disagreed. Walter pointed to the fact

that both rooms were nearly the same size and

both were covered by a flat iron ceiling thirty-five

feet above the floor. The ceiling designs, with elaborate moldings, pendants, and ornamental glass,

were virtually identical in both cases and were of

the same style and character as the ceiling over

the Library of Congress. With the exception of windows, Walter said that what was “descriptive of my

original plan of this room, is descriptive, in all

essential particulars, of the present room.”

While he awaited a reply to his long letter, Walter avoided seeing Meigs, who discovered that the

architect was in “secret communication” with

Floyd.22 Even if the climate had been more hospitable, the engineer was too busy with members of

Extension and Dome Construction 

1857

This photograph was taken about the time the

House of Representatives moved into its new chamber.

Senate Chamber Under Construction

ca. 1857
274 History of the United States Capitol

Congress to spare much time for the architect. Walter reported to Rice that “things have got so hot

that I don’t go near the fountain head anymore—M.

is busy all the time, with members explaining his

greatness and the unimportance of somebody else—

he is vain to an extent amounting to insanity, bitter

and vindictive.” 23 A few days later Walter returned

to his office after a brief absence and saw Meigs

walk by with a “trail of senators after him headed by

Jef. Davis.” They did not stop, scarcely spoke, and

seemed preoccupied with other business. He knew

that Meigs was highly effective in bringing legislators to his point of view, and unless Witte could convince the secretary of war to act soon, Meigs would

surely prevail. “Nothing can exceed M.’s industry,

perseverance, sweet oil and soft solder,” Walter

wrote; “today [he] showed a deep seeded enmity on

his part that can not be got over—this is the first

time he ever looked belligerent.”

In the war that was beginning over control of

the architectural department, Meigs claimed the

credit for the “original” design of the Capitol extension. Like everything else in this contest, there

were two sides to the argument. By his commission from President Fillmore in 1851, Walter certainly had claim to the original design of the Capitol

extension—outside and inside. Subsequent alterations to one aspect of the design—the floor

plans—were suggested by Meigs, but they were

worked out by the architect who had to solve many

design problems to transform the suggestion into a

workable plan. For his part, Meigs claimed credit

for the wings as they were then being built. He

reasoned that the changes to the floor plans

resulted in an entirely new design for which he

could rightly claim credit. He already claimed

credit in letters to the War Department, which

drew an angry reply from Walter. But Meigs came

up with another strategy to bolster his claim. He

sent for the revised plans bearing the signatures of

Franklin Pierce and Jefferson Davis, and added

the following title: “ORIGINAL REVISED PLAN—BY

CAPT. M. C. MEIGS U. S. ENGINEER—ADOPTED

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE U. S. 27 JUNE 1853.”

The drawings were sent to the photographer’s 

studio with an order to make copies. The photographer was also instructed to destroy the negatives of the drawings taken prior to the application

of the new title. When Walter discovered this, 

he wrote Meigs a letter describing his astonishment at the methods used to establish his claim

and asked him to “stop all further proceeding in

Details of Roof of

North Wing 

by Thomas U. Walter

and Montgomery C.

Meigs, 1857

This drawing for a

roof truss included

details of its multiple

connections as well as

elevations of the web

members cast with Meigs’

name as the “inventor.”

The name of the fabricator, Newsham & Company

of Baltimore, was also

cast into the ironwork.
Pride and Strife 275

reference to photography of these drawings and

return them to my office, that I may restore them

to the condition they were when approved by the

President.” 24 The drawings were returned only after

Floyd issued an order to do so. Walter erased all or

part of the new title from most of the drawings.

Meigs stayed home all day on January 21, 1858,

writing a response to Walter’s latest letter. In his

view, it contained a “preposterous claim to the

design for the alterations I made in his plans for

the extension of the Capitol.” He also wrote Senator Davis, enclosing a copy of his letter to the architect along with photographs showing the drawings

in their altered and original states. Davis could be

counted on to take the case to the War Department

and the president. Meanwhile, the engineer

confided to his journal that Walter had done nothing more than make the “drawings under my direction, in obedience to my orders, in accordance with

principles which I first announced, and which he

did not and does not yet understand.” 25 Meigs

wanted to place the contest before the War Department, the chief executive, the press, and the world,

to force the administration to choose between him

and the architect. Walter wanted the same thing.

To Meigs, the credit for the Capitol extension was

all he expected in return for five years of intense

labor on the job. Earning only $1,800 a year as a

captain in the U. S. Army, his financial rewards

were meager, but the honor of building the extension made it all worthwhile. Take the credit away,

and he would be left with nothing to show for a

great deal of trouble.26

“LOOKING OUT 

FOR SQUALLS”

T he contest between Walter and Meigs

was played out in the shadow of the

Kansas debate. Troubles in the Capitol extension office hardly compared to the troubles in Congress over the admission of Kansas as a

slave state under its dubious Lecompton constitution. Led by territorial governor Robert J. Walker, a

native of Mississippi, the constitutional convention

held in the capital city of Lecompton had been boycotted by anti-slavery Kansans and, thus, drafted a

document wholly along pro-slavery lines. The

Kansas electorate was then allowed to vote on the

constitution’s article; with free-state forces again

boycotting, the article passed easily despite its failure to reflect the will of the territory’s majority.

President Buchanan nevertheless supported the

admission of Kansas as a slave state, but he was

opposed in the Senate by Stephen Douglas, who

noted that the Lecompton constitution was never

ratified by a popular vote. Fueling the debate was

the infamous Dred Scott decision handed down 

by the Supreme Court at the beginning of

Buchanan’s term. It ruled that Congress could not

North Corridor in Front of the House Gallery

ca. 1860

Bronze chandeliers suspended from saucer domes and sconces fixed to the iron

window casings contributed to the corridor’s sculptural effect.
276 History of the United States Capitol

outlaw slavery in the territories and declared that

neither slave nor free blacks were citizens of the

United States. Abolitionists were enraged, slave

holders were emboldened, and Kansas was their

battleground. There can be little wonder that such

trifling matters as the differences between an architect and an army engineer failed to attract the

attention that Walter and Meigs thought they

deserved. While Congress and the administration

did not ignore the Capitol completely, the nation

was splitting apart and a resolution of the personnel problems at the extension office would have to

wait—and wait.

The first session of the 35th Congress lasted

more than six months—from December 7, 1857, to

June 14, 1858. The Kansas issue dominated the

session, but a few members also found time to look

into matters relating to the Capitol, a diversion

that was certainly less unnerving. On February 9,

George Taylor, a representative from Brooklyn,

introduced legislation in the House to establish a

commission of outside experts to oversee completion of the Capitol. Since such a commission would

oversee Meigs and curtail his power, the engineer

assumed that Walter was behind it and asked

friends in Congress to recast or kill the legislation.27 Debate in the House did not question the

wisdom of creating such a commission, but there

was some confusion about which committee should

handle the bill. Eventually, the legislation was

referred to the Committee on Public Buildings,

where it died. But the idea of creating a commission to curtail Meigs’ decorations had been established and would resurface in a slightly different

form at the end of the session.

As the session wore on, Walter and Meigs continued on their separate ways. The engineer juggled his jobs building the Capitol extension, dome,

aqueduct, Post Office extension, Patent Office

extension, and Fort Madison while making sure his

political base remained strong and his profile high.

The architect kept working at his board, producing

drawings that he retained in his office for fear of

“mutilation,” his term for changes Meigs was prone

to make. Without drawings, construction slowed to

a crawl, particularly on the new dome. Walter kept

up his extensive correspondence with friends and

business associates, telling them how difficult

things were at the Capitol and what a bad man

Meigs was. Walter had not seen Meigs for about a

month when he wrote John Rice about the logjam

at the office, with unpaid bills stacked up waiting

for the captain’s signature. Provost & Winter had

been waiting for a large payment for two weeks

and “can’t get a cent.” The iron men were in the

same situation and were unhappy. Meigs moved his

office back to the rooms over the Adams Express

office on A Street north and ordered Walter to follow. Seizing the opportunity, Walter asked and

received permission from the secretary of war and

the Speaker to move his draftsmen to an empty

committee room on the third floor of the center

building (probably modern day H–328). There, in a

fireproof office, he could store the drawings safely

and guard them against unauthorized changes.

Meigs viewed the move as a robbery of documents

from the office and Walter as the thief. Unsuccessful attempts were made to take the drawings from

the architect’s control, and the War Department

permitted Meigs only to examine the drawings in

Walter’s office and to take away copies of those

needed. But the engineer would not go there under

any pretense, and he would not acknowledge Walter’s right to control anything as important as the

architectural drawings. Thus, the drawings piled

up in the architect’s office.

Because he had no direct contact with the

engineer or his clerks, Walter gained his knowledge of business matters through spies and

rumors. A typical report that he sent to Rice about

the chaos in Meigs’ office also contained some of

the most vivid language used by this Baptist Sunday school teacher:

P[rovost] says that Denham remarked that

things were in a very bad state, that every thing

in their office was unsettled & in confusion, and

that he couldn’t get the Capt. to attend to anything—I guess he is half right—the Capt. hangs

on in the face of the bitterest opposition of his

chief, with all around him at enmity to him,

nobody caring for him, every body wanting him

away—he is a perfect excrescency—a nightmare on the public works, and still he sticks—

he is the most immodest, indelicate man I ever

heard of—I don’t believe he ever intends to go.

W[itte] was here yesterday, but he had no

news; he said that they were waiting until the

Kansas matter was settled before they made a

move—they are better at waiting than at any

thing else.28

Walter copied relevant correspondence and

sent it to the War Department, where it would be
Pride and Strife 277

available in case Senator Bigler needed it for a

speech. Walter would have no objection if Secretary

Floyd took a look at it himself. Meigs learned of this

from Charles Heebner, a partner in the Rice & Baird

marble firm, who told the engineer that Bigler

intended to read some of the letters before the Senate. Meigs, in turn, went to see Alexander Bache of

the Coast Survey, who told him that there was support for his position in Philadelphia and that he

could “get any quantity of help to fight this battle”

by merely making it known that he needed some.29

Senator Davis was sick, and unable to respond to

Bigler in the Senate, so Meigs intended to recruit

James Pearce to man that defensive position.

It was remarkable that so many players, so

many parties, and so many alliances formed around

the two combatants. The idea of tapping into the

political machinery of Philadelphia to help win the

contest over control of the Capitol in Washington

suggests how widely felt the dispute was. It was

not confined to the local press or the gossip of local

drawing rooms. Rather, it was a competition with a

national audience—not as exciting or as important

as slavery in Kansas, of course, but wonderfully

tantalizing nonetheless. Struggles among strong

wills always attract spectators, who usually care

more for the entertainment than for justice. The

case of Walter versus Meigs was a worthy successor to the Latrobe–Thornton battles waged a half

century earlier.

During this period of administrative contention, physical violence was also common in and

around the Capitol. A workman was killed while

crossing the grounds late at night on March 27,

1858, shot dead by an assassin who shouted politically charged epithets at his victim. Two weeks

later, John A. Gilmer, a member from North Carolina, had an encounter with Burton Craig, another

Tar Heel, as the House prepared to adjourn for the

funeral of Thomas Hart Benton. What sparked the

fight is unknown, but it probably had something to

do with Gilmer’s strong anti-slavery views. Craig, a

stout man over six feet tall, lunged at Gilmer, himself a large man weighing more than 200 pounds.

By the time they were separated, and before any

injuries were inflicted, Craig was discovered to be

armed with a revolver and a Bowie knife. Both men

left the hall unharmed.

Perhaps the chilling memory of the brutal caning of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner by

South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks

helped restore civility between the two representatives. That incident, which took place on May

22, 1856, was one of the most violent ever to take

place inside the Capitol. Sumner delivered an

inflammatory address denouncing the “Crime

Against Kansas,” during which he condemned the

south as the “harlot of slavery.” Soon after the

speech was over, Brooks went to the Senate chamber, found Sumner at his desk, and proceeded to

beat the senator senseless with a cane. Sumner

was unable to resume his seat in the Senate for

three years. For his defense of the southern cause

Brooks became the darling of the region (hundreds of admirers sent him canes as gifts), while

Sumner rose from relative obscurity to become a

hero of northern abolitionists.

At the end of April 1858, Walter reported that

things around the Capitol were rather dull, the work

virtually stopped. He had not seen Meigs for quite

some time, nor had he seen Witte or the secretary

of war. “Am just holding on from day to day,” he

wrote Rice, “looking out for squalls.” 30 Some of his

leisure time was spent writing about his troubles

and damning the captain of engineers with a warmth

that places him among the greater talents of that

genre. On April 19, 1858, for example, Walter wrote

Dome

Construction

1858

By the time this

photograph was taken on 

May 16, 1858, all of the

columns for the dome’s 

peristyle had been put

into place.
278 History of the United States Capitol

a long overdue letter to a friend who was a Baptist

minister living in Uniontown, Pennsylvania:

I am under, probably, the most tyrannical,

despotic, vain, and unscrupulous man the

world ever saw, viz Capt. M. C. Meigs—he seeks

to rob me of every thing he can to pamper his

own vanity; to check me in all my works

because I will not allow him to have credit for

what he had no more agency in producing than

you had—He is a shallow brained pippenjohn

with epaulets and brass buttons claiming to be

architect, painter, sculptor, philosopher, and a

thousand other things about which he is wholly

ignorant—he insults and vilifies me in every

way he can because I will not concede to him

all knowledge . . . he is so contemptible that I

have refused to speak to him for months past,

and had I not had the promise of those in power

that he should be speedily removed I should

have resigned long ago—I am daily looking for

his removal, and if it don’t come soon, I shall

go myself, so you see I have been in no humor

to write.31

On April 17, 1858, Meigs authorized Randolph

Rogers to have his Columbus doors cast in Munich.

One week later he went to the Senate wing to

supervise the installation of the first of four bronze

railings cast by Archer, Warner & Miskey of

Philadelphia. The general outline of the railings

was drawn by Brumidi in 1857, but the models

for the various components were sculpted by

Edmond Baudin. Earlier that year Meigs had visited the foundry, seen the sculptor at work, and

been glad he was working from good natural models. One reluctant model was a buck that had

been boxed up and transported to the fourth

story of the building where Baudin had his studio. The animal stayed three weeks and gave his

handlers quite a fight both coming and going.

Other models included snakes borrowed from the

Academy of Science.32

Bronze Eagle

Edmond Baudin, a French sculptor working in

Philadelphia, modeled this fierce looking eagle for the

bronze stair railings about 1857. Deer, birds, snakes, and

cherubs were also incorporated into the design. 

(1977 photograph.)

Private Stairway,

North Wing

Two private stairs in

each wing offer the most

direct route to the chambers from the first floor.

When they were new, the

railings were admired as

unsurpassed works of art.

(1996 photograph.)
Pride and Strife 279

THE POLITICS 

OF PAINT

As the congressional session wore

on, time did little to mute criticism

of the color scheme in the House

chamber. Meigs usually dismissed such reviews as

signs of ignorance, but he could not turn the tide of

public opinion in favor of what many considered

vulgar, tawdry, and gaudy colors. On May 19, 1858,

a petition from 127 American artists was presented

to the House. Signed by such well-known painters

as Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Sully, and Albert Bierstadt, it was aimed at placing control of the Capitol’s decorations in the hands of an art commission.

On the day the petition was presented, Owen Lovejoy, an abolitionist Republican from Illinois, and

Humphrey Marshall, a West Point graduate and a

member from Kentucky, attacked Meigs’ handling

of the interior decorations. Lovejoy sarcastically

evoked Christopher Wren’s famous epitaph at St.

Paul’s Cathedral—“Si monumentum requiris,

circumspice” (If you seek his monument, look

around)—when asking his colleagues if they

wanted to see a monument to military architecture. “Look at the meretricious and garish gilding

of these walls,” Lovejoy declared, “and the splendid specimens of fresco painting in these panels.

And then go down into the Agriculture Committee

room—at one end is a representation of Old Put

leaving the plow; and at the other is Cincinnatus,

also leaving his plow.” 33 He thought that the decorations of the Agriculture Committee room should

illustrate the current state of agriculture in America. In the ceiling he saw Brumidi’s cupids, cherubs,

and other images from “heathen mythology” and

regretted that valuable breeds of cattle, sheep,

and horses had not been painted instead. Lovejoy

thought the worst part of the room’s decoration

was the lack of anything to do with corn. The

absence of this American staple in the committee

room was a great shame:

A panel ought to have been given to this single

production. It should have been represented

in the different stages; as it emerges, weak

and diminutive, from the ground; as it sways

in its dark luxuriance in June and July; and

then as it waves its tasseled crest, like the

plumes of an armed host; and last, in its rich

golden maturity.34

His poetic side soon gave way to a cynical suggestion that the picture of Israel Putnam would

better suit the Committee on Revolutionary

Claims. Its place in the Agriculture Committee

room should be taken by a “picture of a western

plow, with its polished steel moldboard, with a

hardy yeoman.” This image of free labor should be

made to contrast with an ugly view of slave labor

and thus show “the two systems of labor now struggling for the ascendency.”

Lovejoy’s speech was followed by extensive

remarks from Congressman Marshall about an

appropriation for the extension and the wisdom of

forbidding Meigs to use any of the money to pay

for decorations. He offered an amendment to prohibit any part of the appropriation from being

spent on painting or sculpture unless the design

were approved by a committee of American artists

appointed by the president.35

Marshall’s amendment grew out of the earlier

proposal to establish a commission of outside

experts to oversee completion of the Capitol extension. But the current legislation was limited to an

art commission to oversee decorations. In his

remarks, Marshall pointed to the empty niches in

the gallery walls and warned that unless steps were

taken they would soon be filled with statues commissioned by Meigs without anyone in Congress

knowing anything about whom or what the statues

would represent. He then pointed to the lone fresco

in a corner panel that Brumidi had quickly painted

just before the hall opened, a disappointing work

entitled Cornwallis Sues for Cessation of Hostilities Under the Flag of Truce, and promised that

additional “daubs like that” would be precluded by

an art commission.36 Meigs had not been pleased

with the picture either, and he claimed it was only

an example of the kind of art he wanted to see

placed in the chamber. But Marshall took Brumidi’s

work as an ominous sign of things to come, as a

threat of bad and distracting pictures placed in the

chamber against the will of Congress.

The amendment creating an art commission

failed on the first try but was successfully resurrected a few days later. Working on behalf of the

commission were several artists who had tried and

failed to land contracts with Captain Meigs. Horatio

Stone and Henry Kirke Brown were two sculptors

whose friends in Congress were behind the scheme

to take control of the decorations away from Meigs.
280 History of the United States Capitol

Their motives were partly revengeful, partly pecuniary, and partly a disagreement over such matters

as good taste and what constitutes American art.

In the Senate, Meigs’ faithful ally from Mississippi

sought to replace the art commission with a generous appropriation to acquire works of art through

the Joint Committee on the Library. Davis was

against forming an art commission because it was

an insult to Meigs, who was faithfully implementing

the style of finish adopted by the Pierce administration. He recalled the days when, as secretary of

war, he encouraged the highly decorated interiors,

made the decision to cover the walls with fresco

painting, and endorsed paving the floors with

encaustic tiles. No formal vote was taken in Congress to officially approve such a course, but Davis

said he received every indication that he and Meigs

were on the right course:

An opinion was sought from Congress. It was

not given by any vote, but it came to me in

every other form that they wanted the building

finished in the very highest order of modern

art. One expression I recollect distinctly,

because it was very striking, that Brother

Jonathan was entitled to as good a house as

any prince or potentate on earth, and generally

that they wanted the best materials and the

best style of workmanship and the highest

order of art introduced into the Capitol of the

United States.37

Sam Houston of Texas took the floor in opposition and entertained the Senate with his homespun views about the sculpture destined for the

pediment, which he mistakenly assumed was the

work of a foreign artist. It was a long, extemporaneous talk frequently interrupted by hearty laughter from everyone but Davis. Houston 

had particularly harsh words for Crawford’s personification of America, whose painful attitude

seemed to indicate that she suffered from a boil

under her arm. Then there were her shoes, “a very

formidable pair of russet brogans, that would suit

very well for laborers in the swamps of the South.”

He was taken aback by an Indian child whose neck

was not big enough to hold its head. The child’s

head reminded him of a terrapin or an apple on a

stick. Houston thought that works of art should

“inspire cheerfulness and pleasure. Instead of that,

a contemplation of this figure will inflict agony on

every human being of sensibility.” 38 And so it went

until every figure in Progress of Civilization—and

some miscellaneous others—was lampooned with

Houston’s amusing brand of criticism.

In the House, debate often centered upon the

issue of decorations and ways to stop Captain Meigs’

artistic pursuits. The idea of an art commission

appealed to some members, while others simply

wanted a blanket prohibition against any more art.

Representative Taylor of New York, who had originated the notion of a commission at the beginning

of the session, now wanted to cut off funding altogether, saying the two wings were so far advanced

that any more money would be used only for decorations. The less money available to Meigs, he

declared, “the better for us, the better for the Treasury, the better for the artistic taste of the country.” 39 He called the decorations “contemptible”

Plaster Models for Progress of Civilization 

by Thomas Crawford

The first models of Progress of Civilization were shipped from Rome at the beginning of 1855 and carved by Italian sculptors working in the Capitol’s marble yard. Eight

years later the figures were installed in the Senate pediment. Seen here are the figures

of the schoolmaster and child, two youths, the merchant, and the soldier. The models

were put on display in the old House chamber in June 1859. (ca. 1859 photograph.)
Pride and Strife 281

and “disgraceful to the age and to the taste of the

country.” Taylor insisted that if his colleagues did

not believe him, they should inspect the extension

themselves:

Go through this Capitol and see the

insignificant tinsel work that has been prepared here to stand for ages as a representation of the taste and skill of the age. Have we

no artist to illustrate the history of our country? Can we not write some portion of our

country’s history on these walls that will perpetuate the character of the present generation? Have we no commerce to illustrate—no

history to perpetuate? Have we made no

mechanical, no scientific discoveries worthy of

record here, that we are compelled to employ

the poorest Italian painters to collect scraps

from antiquity to place upon these walls, as a

lasting disgrace to the age—mere tinsel, a libel

upon the taste and intelligence of the people.40

Muscoe Garnett of Virginia thought that Meigs

himself was at the heart of the issue, and rightly

so. He had not been a member of the House for

long, but he had served in the new chamber long

enough to call it a “sarcophagus for the living.” He

observed that members were 

inclosed in a vault, breathing a poisonous

atmosphere, and suffering the close heat of an

oven.... Again, what is the style of the adornment of this Hall? It is gingerbread and tinsel

work. The attempt to defend it by talking of

the harmony of colors and the polychromic

style, is absurd. It is unjust to that style, which

it does not illustrate, but caricatures.41

While many House members considered the

appropriation and the various amendments as a

referendum on Meigs’ success at architectural decorating, few attacked him personally. Most recognized that he was a faithful public servant but felt

he was engaged in a field for which he was not well

suited. Humphrey Marshall of Kentucky, for

instance, said: “I do not desire, sir, to attack the

engineer who has charge of this work. Although I

do not consider him a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo,

I do not want to attack him. But I do not want to

see the work of embellishment progress as it has

gone on.” 42 On June 7, 1858, the House agreed to

prohibit any part of the appropriation from being

spent on works of art unless approved by an art

commission composed of three members

appointed by the president. In the Senate, Davis

inserted a clause to allow sculpture by Crawford

(being sent from Italy by his widow) and Rogers to

proceed unaffected by the new provision. President Buchanan signed the bill into law on June 12.

During the debate Meigs had not sat idly by.

His defense was played out in the newspapers

that printed anonymous articles written by the

engineer, who signed himself “M” or “A Private

Amateur.” To answer charges that foreign artists

were giving the Capitol a foreign look, he told the

reader that “the encouragement of art by works

of the Capitol has been the care of the superintendent from the beginning.... All these are due

to the foresight and careful provision of Capt.

Meigs and of him alone.” 43 In other words, the

fact that there was fine art in the Capitol extension at all was thanks to Meigs. And he did not

care where an artist was born as long as his talent justified employment:

The point that is made of neglect in employing

American artists is unfounded and unjust. He

[Meigs] has a national pride, and is gratified

when he can assist native talent, and is not

likely to overlook it when the public interest

will be benefitted. It matters not where an

artist is born: that is beyond his control. At an

age of maturity, if he seeks our nation and

becomes one of us, and desires that his talent

shall be exerted in decorating our edifices,

that his works may remain in the country

where his children reside and will deposit his

bones, he should be encouraged. Our artists

will readily perceive that advantage of employing the best talent, and they will improve by

the lesson thus inculcated.44

Pleading the case of the American melting pot

and suggesting that American artists stop complaining and start learning from foreign artists

were hardly effective arguments. These newspaper articles and the backing of Senator Davis were

not enough to stop Congress from putting an end

to Meigs’ grand plans for interior embellishments.

If Meigs felt the sting of a congressional rebuke, he

suffered in silence.

Walter, too, had closely monitored the actions

in Congress. Since the War Department had not

acted, he was pleased that Congress did. He read

Meigs’ newspaper articles with a tinge of disbelief.

While these pieces were naturally self-serving, the

vanity of Meigs’ writings prompted Walter to remark:

Meigs is out in the Intelligencer in an article in

which he proves to the satisfaction of himself

that he is the greatest man that ever lived—the

inventor of every thing good that ever has been

invented, the designer of the pivots upon which
282 History of the United States Capitol

the world revolves—I wonder that he don’t

order old Vulcan to stamp his name on the thunderbolts—the wheelbarrow man affects to

believe it to be satire—but it is not satire—it is

the candid opinion of a man about himself.45

After Congress created the art commission,

Meigs’ freewheeling days as a decorator were over.

Nonetheless, Walter continued to press for his

removal. The conflict between the two ran far

deeper than brushes and paint. Too many insults

had been hurled, too much pride had been

wounded, and too many feelings hurt to ever hope

for reconciliation. With so much work to do at the

aqueduct, troubles at the Capitol barely affected

Meigs’ daily routine. But every day Walter hoped

the War Department would remove Meigs and assign

someone else who would not meddle in design matters at the Capitol. He held on by the promise that a

resolution was forthcoming. His frustration is evident in a letter he wrote to John Rice soon after the

city emptied at the close of Congress:

I am out of all patience with the delay, the procrastination—the “next week” talk—B[igler]

ought not to have left Washington until he saw

the matter through,—if he had gone to the

Prest. explained the matter to him, and based

the continuation of his support of the administration on the removal of M. it would have been

done—I think now it is too late—They seem to

be waiting until all the cabinet leaves the city,

when to a certainty the Prest. won’t act—

already [Postmaster General] Brown, my best

friend, has left—every day is an irrecoverable

loss—every day I am expecting to hear of the

resignation of Floyd, which would settle the

matter—every day the Prest. is growing weaker

and more childish and we may soon have an

entire new cabinet, and still we hear continually of ‘next week’ ‘very soon’ ‘before long’—46

Rumors of Meigs’ removal sent Walter flying to

the War Department for verification. The captain

of engineers, in turn, heard tales of the architect’s

pending resignation, and each man seemed poised

to declare victory over the other. But they were

mere dupes in the administration’s absurd strategy

to keep peace with Jefferson Davis and William

Bigler simultaneously. Meanwhile, Walter and his

draftsmen worked on details for the dome, Senate

chamber, staircases, skylights, and porticoes, but

the drawings stayed in the drafting room. For his

part, Meigs continued negotiations with Rice &

Baird over column shafts without reaching an

agreement. In the summer of 1858, workmen were

building the arcade of the Senate’s east portico

and would soon need column shafts to continue

work. Meigs visited the masons armed with a stack

of copper plates inscribed:

CAPT. MONTGOMERY C. MEIGS. U. S. ENGINEERS

IN CHARGE OF

U. S. CAPITOL EXTENSION

EXTENSION OF GENERAL POST OFFICE

NEW DOME OF THE CAPITOL AND

WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT

A. D. 1858

He slipped one of the plates under a marble

block just as workmen lowered it into place. He

Senate Committee on Military Affairs Room 

ca. 1900

In 1856 Brumidi began decorating this room with scenes from the Revolutionary

War. Only two lunettes and some wall panels were completed before work stopped 

in 1858. In 1871 Chairman Henry Wilson of Massachusetts had the decorations 

completed. Brumidi returned to paint three more scenes, including Storming of Stony

Point, 1779, and Washington at Valley Forge, 1778, which are visible in this view. The

room is currently occupied by the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
Pride and Strife 283

hoped the inscription would be legible for centuries to come, and perhaps be of interest to some

future archaeologist. Meigs also sprinkled his name

all over the Washington Aqueduct and Post Office

extension in an effort to keep history informed of

his deeds and whereabouts. In one particularly

clever instance at the aqueduct, he had the risers

of an iron staircase composed of the letters

M–C–M–E–I–G–S.

During this period Walter was biding his time,

held on by the encouragement of his friends. His

position was nonetheless mentally and physically

draining. In the latter part of July 1858, he planned

a trip to Atlantic City in the hope of restoring his

health from the effects of “constant and anxious

attention and watching, and waiting, and working,

and fighting.” 47 Gone only a week, he returned

home to find that Meigs had fired one of his best

draftsmen, Philip Schrag. The supervising engineer had ordered Schrag to report to his office

and, when the young man refused, Meigs struck

his name from the payroll and wrote the architect

an “insolent and ungrammatical” letter explaining his action.48 For Meigs, this was another case of

insubordination, while Walter considered the

episode an act of tyranny. The architect immediately rehired Schrag, paying the salary out of his

own pocket until the matter could be settled by

the War Department.

The secretary of war dispatched Meigs to

inspect various quarries capable of suppling monolithic shafts for the outside columns. Floyd would

not hear of using Italian marble (as some suggested) for such a visible part of the extension.

While Meigs was away, Walter happened to see a

design for the vice president’s desk and chair drawn

by Brumidi or someone else on the engineer’s staff.

“It is a hideous affair,” he told Rice, “and would not

be tolerated by the Senate a single day.49 Walter

went to see Floyd, who gave orders to stop fabrication. He returned the drawing to Meigs along with

a Walter design with orders to fabricate it. The

engineer obeyed but replied sarcastically that he

would compensate for its poor design by using

superior materials and craftsmanship.

Walter went to the new Senate chamber on

October 21, 1858, to confer with workmen

installing the vice president’s rostrum. Quite by

accident, he met Senator Davis and was greeted

cordially, believing the senator showed him “a fraternal spirit.” As he returned to the workmen, he

noticed that Meigs had just entered the chamber,

followed by Brumidi and a retinue of assistants.

Walter pretended not to notice, keeping his back

toward Meigs and later describing the maneuver

as “rather laughable.” 50

In his journal, Meigs did not mention seeing

Walter that day, but he complained that the design

of some details for the Senate chamber had not

been received from the drafting room. If the room

was not finished by the opening of Congress in

December, it would be the architect’s fault. He

again tried to regain control of the drawings but

received a clarifying order from the War Department directing him to ask the architect for any

drawings he might need. Seizing the opportunity,

Meigs sent Walter a copy of the order along with a

command to surrender every drawing ever made

at public expense by the architect’s office: all reference drawings; all construction drawings; all

presentation drawings; all drawings for the Capitol

extension; the new dome; the Post Office extension; and miscellaneous projects such as the

marine barracks in Pensacola, Florida. Although

the order was expected (Walter actually wanted it

as a means to get his dome drawings into the hands

Design of the Desk

Fronts for the Vice

President, Clerks,

and Reporters 

by Thomas U. Walter

1858

Meigs was furious

when the secretary of

war preferred this design

to the one he submitted.

He characterized Walter’s

design as “pulpit” furniture, and absolved himself of any criticism the

desk might attract. Just

above his signature the

disgruntled but obedient

engineer wrote: “Let it

be executed.”
284 History of the United States Capitol

of the ironworkers), Meigs’ request for every scrap

of paper in the architect’s office had to be refused

or the architect would be left completely bereft of

the most important part of his professional tools.

He painted a vivid image of his office if Meigs succeeded in stripping it of all the drawings:

You see he asks for every scrap of paper of

every description in my office, thus breaking

me up root and branch—rump and stump; —

were I to comply with this order of Meigs’ you

might imagine me standing in my empty room

with my 10 draughtsmen around me, each with

a pair of hands rammed into a pair of empty

pockets and your old friend, with arms folded,

rolling up the whites of his eyes and exclaiming with poetic pathos “Othello’s occupation’s

gone”—no, no that won’t do; there must be

harder fighting before that comes to pass than

we have ever had yet.51

With the opening of the second session of the

35th Congress fast approaching, Meigs was eager

to seat the Senate in its new chamber as promised.

He complained to Floyd that Walter’s refusal to

hand over drawings was a great impediment to

progress, but this got him nowhere. Floyd

reminded him that he was welcome to visit the

architect’s office to inspect the drawings, but the

engineer absolutely refused to go into enemy territory. In vain, Walter pleaded with Floyd to let him

resign or to reassign Meigs: either course would

suit him equally well. While their offices on Capitol

Hill were close by, all correspondence between the

architect and the engineer was funneled through

the secretary of war’s office next door to the President’s House. The effects of this inefficient situation were well illustrated in the fall of 1858, when

Meigs needed a design for the arms of the gallery

seats in the Senate chamber. Since he would not

deign to ask Walter for a design, he directed Brumidi and other assistants to come up with something. When their design was completed, he sent it

to the War Department for approval. Floyd forwarded the drawing to Walter, who thought it did

not harmonize with the rest of the room.52 The

architect sent a design of his own, which the secretary immediately approved and sent to Meigs.

Work to finish the new Senate chamber was

bogged down by numerous such squabbles. When

senators returned to Washington for the opening of

Congress on December 6, 1858, they gathered in

their old room, where some would have preferred

Portrait of Senator William Seward 

by Emanuel Leutze, ca. 1860

From the collections of the Union League Club of New York. Reproduced by permission

Set in the new Senate chamber, this portrait included a glimpse of the lower 

wall with its cast-iron wainscot, pilasters, and wall panels. Its drab color scheme was

relieved by gold leaf accents and contrasted with the riot of color seen in the 

Brussels carpet.

Seward was depicted seated at his desk surrounded by correspondence and papers

with his hand resting on a book. Until the Senate acquired its first office building in

1891, most senators were obliged to use the chamber as their office.
Pride and Strife 285

to stay. Senator Davis, however, wanted to move

as soon as possible. Meigs promised that the room

would be ready after the Christmas holiday. All

possible speed was urged and Meigs was authorized to attend to the remaining details, including

buying the carpet and selecting the damask upholstery for the cushioned gallery seats. On the

evening of December 22, the room was lighted for

the first time. The painted decorations were not as

vivid and bright as those in the House chamber

and looked good under gas lights. The following

day Meigs moved his desk into the Senate chamber to drive the workmen.53 On Christmas eve, he

met with the Senate Committee on Arrangements

to discuss how the old desks and chairs would be

positioned in the new room. They decided to nearly

duplicate the arrangement in the old room but seat

the senators in three tiers instead of four. On

Christmas day workers laid carpet in the gallery

and lined the gallery seats with cotton flannel

before putting on the damask upholstery.

On the first work day of the new year, January 3, 1859, Meigs went to the Senate chamber to

help arrange the furniture and attend to lastminute details before the room opened for business the next day. While there he received word

that water had been let into the Washington Aqueduct and would reach the Capitol in a few minutes. He sent for Senator Davis and together they

went to the library portico and watched the fountain, or “jet d’eau,” throw water sixty to seventy

feet into the air. The sight of water playing in a

fountain at the foot of Capitol Hill, drawn from

Great Falls more than eighteen miles away, was

wonderfully gratifying to both the engineer and

his patron. Meigs considered the fountain and the

water jet the most beautiful sight in Washington

and proudly wrote: “It signifies so much good, so

much safety, health and purity, that I cannot tire

of looking at it. . .” 54 He wrote his father in

Philadelphia about his latest accomplishment:

I wish you could see my jet d’eau in the Capitol

Park. I look upon it with constant pleasure for

it seems to spring rejoicing in the air & proclaiming its arrival for the 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.55

On the morning of January 4, 1859, Walter

hurriedly wrote his wife with news about the

arrival of Potomac water to the city and a report

on the number of callers he had on New Year’s day,

a social custom that he thought “don’t suit these

times.” (Among other annoyances, a motley and

inebriated band of strangers turned away from

Walter’s door when they discovered he was not

serving food or drink.) Much of his letter was about

the upcoming ceremony in the Capitol accompanying the Senate’s historic move from the old

chamber to its new room:

Every thing is ready for the Senate and I see

Meigs about as busy as a nailer—he has not

been here before since my return; but there is

no doubt that he will flourish today—I am going

to the old hall at 12, and I think I will brave it

out—The Senate will be opened by prayer; the

committee on arrangements will then make

their report, and the Vice Prest. will deliver an

address. They will then move in procession to

the new chamber, take their seats, and the

South Corridor 

in Front of the

Senate Chamber 

ca. 1860

Corridors were

painted in a polychromatic color scheme to

emphasize the elaborate

decoration. French zinc

was a favorite substitute

for white lead paint

because it did not smudge

as readily under gas 

lighting conditions.
286 History of the United States Capitol

chaplain will again pray, after which they will

proceed to business.

At half past one o’clock Walter was back in his

office and was able to write a postscript giving an

eye-witness account of the ceremony:

The ceremony is over, and a most beautiful

and appropriate one it was—not one word

said that was objectionable—I accompanied

the senators to their new room, and the

entrance was very imposing—every seat in

the galleries was filled—they were one vast

mass of humanity—scores of senators congratulated me—some who I did not know.56

Meigs was impressed by Vice President John

C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, who made “the most

eloquent oration I ever heard.... His tribute to the

memory of Calhoun, Webster, and Clay was beautiful and his condemnation of the man who would

strike his sacrilegious hand at our Union was terrible and sublime.” 57 Upon entering the new chamber Meigs noticed that the galleries were filled to

capacity and the air was pure. The temperature

was maintained at seventy degrees—give or take

a degree—all day.

Benjamin B. French attended the historic ceremony and recalled being in the gallery overlooking the new room as the “potent, grave and

reverend seignors” entered for the first time, led

by the sergeant at arms and the vice president.

From that vantage point he formed his first judgment of the new room, which, while not wholly

favorable, was decidedly more positive than his

low opinion of the new House chamber. Comparing it with the beautiful old Senate chamber, however, he thought the new one was like a cellar

ventilated by a furnace blower.58

For those unable to come to Washington to

see the new Senate chamber, the press carried

descriptions that were far more complimentary

than those following the opening of the hall of the

House more than a year earlier. The New York

Herald, for instance, told its readers:

The general aspect of the new hall is light and

graceful. In shape and dimension it is similar to

the new Hall of Representatives, but to the eye

appears more finely proportioned. The style

and character of the decorations are nearly the

same in both Houses, except that in the Senate

the tone of color is more subdued. The area of

the floor is 80 feet by 48 feet, and of the roof

113 by 80 feet, the difference being occupied

by a continuous gallery around four sides of

the apartment capable of seating 1,200 persons. The inner roof or ceiling, of iron, is flat,

with deep panels, twenty-one of which are

fitted with ground glass, having in the center

of each pane a colored medallion representing

the printing press, steam engine, cornucopia,

and other symbols of progress and plenty. The

light is supplied wholly through this window in

the roof. The gas apparatus is placed above the

ceiling. The ceiling is thirty-five feet from the

floor, but presents an appearance of greater

altitude. It is encrusted with floral and other

embellishments in high relief, and all of iron.

The floor of the chamber is covered with 1,700

yards of tapestry carpeting, having a large pattern of flowers on a purple ground.59

Senate Chamber

1867

Lined with Corinthian pilasters grouped in pairs, the lower walls of the Senate

chamber were rich creations in cast iron and plaster. A niche framed the presiding

officer’s chair with the reporters’ gallery above. Senators’ desks and chairs were

reused from the old chamber.
Pride and Strife 287

Meigs’ annual report for 1858 was mainly about

the hall of the House, which had been in use for a

year. He touted its astonishingly successful

acoustical properties, which promoted perfect

hearing and speaking to every corner. Meigs published a letter from Speaker James L. Orr of South

Carolina testifying to the comfort of the new chamber and the parliamentary order fostered by its

acoustics, heating, ventilation, and lighting. Meigs

also claimed that the hall promoted the good

health of members and contributed to their ability

to better conduct the nation’s business. More bills

were passed and more hours were spent in session

than during any other period in history. Despite

the workload, no member of the House had died

during the long and laborious session.60

Reporting on the new dome, Meigs stated that

forty-two and a half feet of ironwork was in place,

including the skeleton of the drum’s first story.

Standing on the cantilever brackets were the thirtysix columns of the peristyle. The decorative skin

that would cover the dome’s lower frame was under

way at the foundry in New York operated by Janes,

Beebe & Company. He wished he were able to report

greater progress on the dome and blamed the delay

on Walter. In his annual message Meigs wrote:

I should be pleased to be able to report a

greater progress in this work, but the want of

cordial co-operation on the part of the architect associated with me has much interfered

with the studies and drawings of the work. As

it appears to me, he has much mistaken his

authority and his duty; and, as it was a matter

which could be settled only by the department,

I have awaited its decision.61

It was unusual to censure a public official such

as Walter in a public document such as the secretary of war’s annual report, but it gave Meigs the

opportunity to record for posterity his troubles

with the architect and perhaps was seen as a way

to nudge the War Department into action. Meigs’

report also showed that he spent $1.13 million

over the course of six months and a few weeks

later would be completely out of funds. These facts

left Walter to wonder “if the money lasted but 7

months under the retarding influences which he

says I have exerted, how long would it have lasted

if it had not been retarded?” 62

The President’s Room

In 1859 Brumidi began decorating the President’s Room with allegorical and 

historical figures on the ceiling while the walls were painted with portraits of George

Washington and members of the first cabinet. The overall composition was derived

from the ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura at the Vatican. Hanging in the center of

the room is an elaborate eighteen-arm bronze chandelier with allegorical statuettes

mingled with figures of Washington and Franklin. It was made by Cornelius & Baker

in 1864 and cost $900. All other gas burning chandeliers were banished from the 

Capitol following the explosion in 1898, but this one survived by being electrified.

(1996 photograph.)
288 History of the United States Capitol

DOME REVISIONS

During the height of his battles with

Meigs, little new work was being

demanded of Walter, who had the time

and leisure to make revisions to old designs. On

Saturday, February 12, 1859, he entered a note in

his diary saying that on that day he “completed

sketches of new design of Dome—changed the

exterior proportions above Peristyle.” 63 The revisions were necessary to accommodate the statue

of Freedom, then on its way to Washington.

After Crawford’s death, his widow made

arrangements to ship the model of Freedom to

Washington. It was a jinxed voyage, marred by

leaking vessels, inadequate repairs, bad weather,

and navigational miscalculations. The model left

Leghorn in the spring of 1858 on a ship that soon

foundered in the Mediterranean but was able to

coast into Gibraltar, where repairs were made.

Setting out again, the ship foundered in the

Atlantic, taking on water, and much of the cargo

was heaved overboard to lighten the load; it was

sheer luck that the six cases containing the statue

were spared a burial at sea. Arriving in Bermuda,

the ship was condemned, and alternate transportation had to be arranged. By the end of December

part of the statue had reached New York, but part

remained in Bermuda. The statue did not arrive in

Washington until the summer of 1859, some

months after Walter completed the revisions necessary to accommodate it.

When Walter’s original dome design was drawn,

the crowning statue was intended to stand about

sixteen and a half feet tall, but Crawford’s third

design for Freedom stood, or so he reported, eighteen feet, nine inches. By the time it was finished,

however, the statue had grown to nineteen and a

half feet. Its conical pedestal had a bottom diameter of fourteen feet, eight and a quarter inches.

Unless adjustments were made, the statue and its

pedestal would not fit on top the new dome. Chief

among the necessary alterations was the proportion and shape of the cupola. Walter lowered the

height of the cupola seventeen feet, thus changing

its profile from ellipsoidal to circular. This increased

the diameter of the platform on top of the cupola

by about five feet. The tholus’ diameter grew by

Revised Dome Design

by Thomas U. Walter, 1859

To accommodate the statue of Freedom, Walter

adjusted the dimensions and proportions of the upper

parts of the dome. The revisions were illustrated in this 

elevation, which is among Walter’s finest drawings. 
Pride and Strife 289

three and a half feet to eighteen feet, three inches.

The changes brought the overall height of the dome

(as measured from the ground) down from 300

feet to 2871

⁄2 feet. At the same time the consoles of

the attic were redesigned, made broader and

enriched with beading, scrolls, and floral ornaments. Windows between the consoles were

replaced with panels. While lower than the earlier

design, Walter’s final dome design was bold and

rich, suffering not at all from its reduced height.

Revisions inside were more dramatic. There,

Walter designed a wholly new inner dome better

scaled for the rotunda. Through the eye of this

inner dome a large painting would be seen, a grand

and dramatic conclusion to the room’s interior

design. Walter had admired a similar scheme at

the Panthéon in Paris during his trip to Europe in

1838, and he was now determined to crown the

rotunda with a heroic painting. It would be the

largest fresco in the building, unrivaled by anything American art had ever witnessed before. It is

not known if Walter discussed the project with

Brumidi at the time the painting was first conceived, but such a conversation was unlikely considering the artist’s close relationship with the

supervising engineer. Walter’s revisions were made

without Meigs’ knowledge and drawn in the one

place he refused to go—the architect’s office in

the Capitol. The engineer probably never saw the

beautiful elevation and the accompanying section,

which are among the greatest architectural renderings produced in nineteenth-century America.

The drawings were finished in February 1859 but

not shown to the supervising engineer until Meigs’

successor took over later that year.

At the end of February 1859, Walter submitted vouchers for the pay of the draftsmen who

assisted him drawing the revised dome design. He

signed the vouchers with his name under the title

“Architect of the New Dome.” If the men had

worked on drawings for the Post Office extension

or the Capitol extension, the architect’s title would

have been changed accordingly. But Meigs took

exception to Walter calling himself “Architect of

the New Dome” and refused to honor the vouchers. He returned them with a command to change

the title. He said he did not know that any such

title had been conferred on Walter and he thought

Section through Dome of U. S. Capitol

by Thomas U. Walter, 1859

Inspired by the Panthéon in Paris, Walter’s 1859

interior revisions introduced a monumental painting

suspended over the oculus of a new inner dome.
290 History of the United States Capitol

it was inconsistent with his own authority.

Although titles do generally mean a great deal to

military men, Meigs was engaged in pure harassment, trying to make life so miserable that Walter

would go away.64

The chief clerk in Meigs’ office looked out his

window above the Adams Express office and saw

Walter’s carriage driving “like mad” up Pennsylvania Avenue soon after he received Meigs’ letter.65

The architect was off to the War Department with

the latest evidence of Meigs’ tyranny. Before going

to see Floyd, Walter replied to Meigs in a long letter containing a simple question: “If I am not the

architect of the New Dome I would like to know

who is.” 66 He later wrote the secretary about the

way he signed the vouchers and then described

Meigs’ “quibble” with it. Walter said the engineer

was motivated by a desire to prevent the young

men from receiving their wages, and he asked the

secretary to interpose on their behalf.67 On March

19, the secretary of war ordered Meigs to pay Walter’s men. Instead of obeying the order right away,

however, the engineer demanded to see the document appointing Walter architect of the new dome.

Walter responded with a lecture about the nature

of a commission in “civil architecture.” Back and

forth it went, long letters from the engineer attacking Walter on numerous points, accusing him of

tricks and duplicity. Walter accused the engineer

of trying to rob his professional reputation in order

to magnify his own “aggrandizement.” 68

The problems at the Capitol festered under the

lame administration of President Buchanan. The

secretary of war’s health became a problem in the

spring of 1859, making it impossible for either Meigs

or Walter to see Floyd to discuss matters that might

have eased the terrible situation. On April 27 Walter informed Rice that the secretary was weak and

“broken down.” 69 He was suffering from a vague

nervous condition that was aggravated by exciting

talk. “As the Capitol & Meigs always excites him,”

Walter wrote, “he avoids all reference to them if he

can with propriety do so.” The architect thought

that only a rest for a few months far from Washington would restore Floyd’s health.

The secretary of war was, however, well

enough to order Meigs back to the marble quarries

in Massachusetts to see about getting column

shafts. If prospects remained unfavorable, he was

to return by way of John F. Connolly’s quarry in

Texas, Maryland (near Baltimore), which was said

to be capable of fulfilling an order for monolithic

shafts. On April 28 Meigs was in Lee and found the

quarry in worse shape than he expected. He did

not believe it could even supply the shafts in two

pieces and thought the vast amount of marble

needed for the cornices and architraves would

prohibit anything else—especially column shafts—

from being extracted without years of effort and

boundless good luck. On May 5, Meigs was in Maryland, where he found a couple of blocks large

enough for monoliths and thought the rest could

be had with ease.70 Unfortunately, Connolly’s stone

cost more than Italian marble and was inferior to

both Italian and Massachusetts marbles. Upon

returning home, he wrote a report to the War

Department and was instructed to declare that

portion of Rice & Baird’s contract dealing with column shafts null and void. A supplemental contract

would be drawn directly between the government

and Connolly. But before anything was done, the

president stepped in and cautioned against violating Rice & Baird’s contract. Buchanan did not wish

to antagonize John Rice, whose brother was the

editor of The Pennsylvanian, a powerful Democratic mouthpiece in his home state.

Meigs was then ordered to visit every quarry

offering marble for the columns, and on May 21,

1859, he embarked on an extensive journey covering 1,000 miles in twelve days. Another inspection

trip began on June 10 and lasted nine days. In all,

Meigs visited seventeen quarries and found seven

that could furnish monolithic shafts. He considered all of them too expensive and inferior. None

was as good as the Massachusetts marble nor was

any as cheap as Italian marble. On June 29, he recommended that Rice & Heebner be permitted to

supply monoliths from any source and that they

be allowed six months to make arrangements with

some other quarry. Thus Rice’s contract would

remain intact, but another marble would be used

for the shafts. Floyd immediately approved Meigs’

recommendation. When Walter heard of it, he

wrote Rice—in “profound confidence”—to suggest that unless specifically prohibited from doing

so, his firm should import Italian marble.71 If

Buchanan and Floyd maintained their objection to

foreign marble, Walter thought a congressional
Pride and Strife 291

resolution could relieve them of responsibility for

the decision. The problem was not with American

marble but getting the shafts in one piece. Walter

personally did not like monolithic shafts and preferred to use six or eight pieces so as to produce

the same effect as the rest of the building. To give

his position authority from antiquity, Walter

claimed that building up columns with drums “was

the practice when Grecian art was at its zenith,

while monolithic shafts marked the decline of

art—there is no exception in ancient architecture

to this rule.” He was in the minority, however: “I

have made these arguments over and over again,

but nobody cares a fig for them—monoliths they

want and they will have them.” Apparently the old

idea of using granite had resurfaced, with proponents claiming that the darker stone would give a

“fine contrast” to the white marble walls. To avoid

the horror of placing granite shafts on a marble

building, Walter advised Rice to strike a deal with

Meigs as soon as possible.

On doctor’s orders, the secretary of war spent

much of the summer of 1859 convalescing at home,

or “taking the waters” at White Sulfur Springs in

Fan for Committee Rooms

by Thomas U. Walter and Montgomery C. Meigs, 1857

Although the drawing was made in Walter’s 

drafting room, the fan design was dictated by Meigs’ 

consulting engineer, Robert Briggs. Made of wood and

powered by steam, fans such as this forced air over 

hot water coils and then into ducts that snaked 

throughout the wings.

Coil for Senate Chamber 

by Thomas U. Walter and Montgomery C. Meigs

1858

Hot-water pipes warmed the air that ventilated 

the extension.
292 History of the United States Capitol

what later became West Virginia. His absence left

things fairly quiet on Capitol Hill. Building funds

were low and the only work of major consequence

at the Capitol was done in the marble yard. Even

that work stopped when the sawmill was destroyed

by fire in mid-August. No work could proceed on

the dome without the drawings, which Walter

would not surrender and Meigs would not retrieve.

The captain considered the architect and his men

to be in a state of rebellion and awaited the department’s action to correct the situation.

During the summer the last of the bronze railings from Philadelphia were being put up on the

members’ private stairs the south wing. In late

August the commissioner of public buildings

agreed to keep the old hall of the House closed

while workmen unpacked the statue of Freedom

and put it together. The arrival of Crawford’s statue

would normally have excited the engineer, but his

enthusiasm was on the wane. Meigs confided in his

journal that he felt discouraged by his diminished

authority, his lack of respect for the War Department, and the department’s lack of faith in him.

Without support or sufficient authority, he felt

“less interest in it, and I can not drive it while I am

taken up with the correspondence and imputation

of the War Department, which ought to support

me; in fact, is trying to defeat me and embarrass

me all the time.” 72

THE LAST STRAW

Among the many problems Meigs

had with the War Department during this period, heating the Post

Office extension was one of the most contentious

and, as it turned out, the last episode in an extensive battle of wills. For a year and a half, Meigs

tried to convince the department that Nason &

Dodge of New York was the most qualified firm to

undertake the heating work, but Floyd saw the

opportunity to enrich Democratic friends and overruled the engineer. At first Floyd wanted the contract given to Charles Robinson, a dentist from

Virginia, who had arranged to sell the contract to

Henry F. Thomas & Company of Baltimore. By the

summer of 1859, Robinson had disappeared from

the scene, but the Baltimore firm remained Floyd’s

choice for the work. Month after month Meigs and

Floyd argued until the secretary finally ordered

the engineer to enter into a contract with Thomas

& Company. Meigs refused on the grounds that he

was legally bound to advertise the contract for

sixty days. He also had ample evidence that the

firm was not qualified and would probably subcontract with other firms after skimming a hefty profit

for themselves. Another version of the story was

told by the architect:

Meigs boasted to the Secy. of his great skill and

claimed the invention of the heating of the

Capitol as his in toto; the Secy. concluded that

so much good brains ought not to be lost, and

therefore ordered him to contract with Thomas

& Co., instead of his Capitol men Nason & Co.

Steam Engine 

and Fan

ca. 1911

One of the last operating steam-powered fans is

shown here just before it

was decommissioned.
Pride and Strife 293

so as to give him a chance to impart his wisdom to another firm.73

Walter observed the contest between Meigs

and Floyd from a safe distance. He was sure that

Meigs wanted Nason & Dodge to get the contract

because they would do all the work and give him

all the credit.74 He was also convinced that Meigs

was incapable of designing the heating system but

would never think of asking him for help. Meigs

complained that he could not study the problem

without the plans, which were locked up in Walter’s

office. He accused the architect of retarding the

work, and Walter feared another order to surrender the drawings. The department ultimately gave

Meigs no such authority but ordered him to design

the heating and ventilation system using Walter’s

plans, letting Thomas & Company make all the necessary boilers, pipes, and engines. In a letter to

Meigs written on September 8, 1859, Walter indicated his intention to cooperate and offered to forward any drawings Meigs might specify.

Meigs again railed over the fact that Walter

controlled the drawings and that he was placed

in a position of having to ask for documents that

belonged to his office. He could not ask for

specific drawings since he had not seen them in

years, nor did he have a record of those made

more recently. Thus, it was impossible to specify

which drawings to send.75

In communications with the War Department,

Meigs kept up his vigorous protest regarding the

drawings. Meanwhile, instead of contracting with

Thomas & Company as instructed, he wrote

machine shops and foundries asking them to submit bids for various parts of the work. Meigs then

forwarded the information to the War Department,

which had already issued instructions and was now

highly annoyed to find its orders ignored again.

During Floyd’s illnesses and frequent absences

from the office, his chief clerk, William R. Drinkard,

served as the acting secretary of war. Drinkard

wrote Meigs telling him to contract with Thomas &

Company without further delay. In the same letter

he ordered Meigs to pay an outstanding invoice for

granite used on the Post Office. Matthew Emory,

the granite contractor from Richmond, was

unhappy with Meigs and applied pressure on the

War Department for satisfaction. Meigs replied in a

long letter saying he was unable to pay for granite

because he did not know how much was called for

in the architectural drawings. Walter—his rebellious and disobedient assistant—would not hand

them over, and the War Department alone was

responsible for the continuation of the unresolved

problem.76

Drinkard returned Meigs’ letter with a reiteration of the department’s previous orders regarding

the rights of the engineer to examine drawings in

the architect’s office, along with an order to pay

Emory’s bill. The acting secretary claimed that he

was well aware of the facts of both cases and knew

Floyd’s intentions in both regards.

Considering the tone of many letters that had

passed between the War Department and the engineer’s office, Drinkard’s latest note was perfectly

polite. Yet, for some unexplainable reason Meigs

took offense, haughtily replying that he did not

need a clerk to explain written orders to him: “I am

as capable of understanding a written order of the

Secretary of War, as the chief clerk or the acting

secretary . . . my official rights cannot be explained

away by the knowledge Mr. Drinkard may have of

the desires or purposes of the Secretary.”

After so many months doing battle with the

War Department, Meigs had lost his temper.

Despite the justice that he thought his cause represented, his intemperate words smacked of insubordination. Upon returning to the office after an

extensive absence, Floyd was furious at the tone

of Meigs’ retort and wrote:

The conduct of Captain Meigs, in thus interpolating the records in his possession with a

paper manifesting such flagrant insubordination, and containing language both disrespectful and insulting to his superiors, is

reprehensible in the highest degree. The spirit

that dictated it is manifest throughout this correspondence, and shows a continuous insubordination that deserves the strongest censure.77

The captain’s ill-considered and impolite letter

to the acting secretary was the last straw in the

battle of wills waged in the War Department. Floyd

was too tired to argue with Meigs anymore and no

longer cared if Jefferson Davis stayed mad forever.

On October 29, 1859, Floyd sent for Captain

William B. Franklin of the Topographical Engineers, whom he intended to name as Meigs’

replacement. Franklin listened while the secretary

described the state of affairs and said that either

he or Meigs would have to go. The next day
294 History of the United States Capitol

Franklin went to see Meigs to recount his interview with Floyd, who always felt “thwarted” by the

engineer.78 Later that day Meigs heard a rumor

that an order had been issued relieving him of his

command at the Capitol: the rumor was true.

On November 2, 1859, Meigs received notice

of the secretary’s action through the mail. He asked

the principal workmen to gather in the Senate

reception room—the Capitol’s most elaborately

decorated space—where he introduced Franklin

and said goodbye. He wrote a short letter of

farewell that was read by one of the foremen.

“They seem to feel regret at the parting,” Meigs

Senate Reception Room

ca. 1910

For the most elaborate room in the extension, Captain Meigs drew upon the 

talents of a variety of artists and manufacturers to carry out his ambitious decorating

scheme. The ornamental plaster work was overseen by a Frenchman, the scagliola and

frescoes were by Italians, the encaustic tile floor came from England, and the bronze

chandeliers were made in Philadelphia. It was here that Meigs bid farewell to his 

workmen after the secretary of war reassigned him in November 1859.
Pride and Strife 295

recalled that evening, “Many of these strong men

looked upon me with moistened eyes; and for

myself, I could not trust my voice to speak or to

read what I had written.” 79 John C. Harkness

replied for the workmen, concluding: “To whatever field of labor you may hereafter be assigned,

be assured, dear sir, you will bear with you the

unanimous esteem of these my collaborators whom

I represent; and for your present and future welfare they will continue to cherish the most ardent

wishes.” 80 Despite their goodbyes, however, the

workmen and the Capitol had not seen the last of

Montgomery C. Meigs.

Walter greeted the news of Meigs’ departure

with little more than a sigh of relief. He was glad

the episode was finally over and looked forward to

moving ahead. Meigs’ personality, his awkward

position as a military man in charge of civilian projects, his handling of the interior decorations, and

his driving ambition made harmonious relations

unlikely. Yet history would remember Meigs’ high

aspirations for the Capitol, his administrative

prowess, his amazing energy, and his unshakable

honesty in the face of the most corrupt administration yet seen in American history. Also remembered was an unfortunate legacy of windowless

chambers, the subject of endless complaint and

spirited condemnation by countless congressmen

and senators until the 1920s, when air-conditioning cooled them down.