which he walked yet again, migrating south to become the second president of the new University of Georgia in the town of Athens by the Oconee River, not far from the Meigs-friendly Cherokee.
So there were now Meigses north and Meigses south, and in the way of following the destiny of the nation this generous geographic distribution would lay up trouble for the future peace of the clan. Josiahâs son, Charles, our Montgomeryâs father, was born in Bermuda during his fatherâs misplaced advocacy of the maritime desperadoes, but he was educated like a good Jeffersonian democrat in Athens. Schooled in medicine at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, Charles Meigs then moved back south to Augusta, Georgia, to establish a practice in obstetrics, not a conventional course for a young physician but one in which he evidently found his vocation, for between anatomizing the uterus he wrote several volumes of practical midwifery. Whatever use to the public Charlesâs work might have been, it must have done no harm to his own family for ten Meigs children were born, and it may be that Charles stood midwife to the birth of his own son Montgomery in 1816. Unfortunately the doctorâs own constitution was prone to suffer from âbilious fever,â which aggravated a predisposition to romantic melancholy.
But there was a southern malady that Charlesâs wife, Mary Montgomery, could not herself abide: slavery. In deference to his wifeâs strong opinions, the obstetrician and his wife moved their family back north to Philadelphia, where Monty was raised in alearned but rambunctious family home on Chestnut Street. Of the eight boys and two girls in the family, it was Monty who in every way seemed to displace more than his own weight. Large, ungainly, obstinate, he was said (by his own parents) to be âtyrannical to his brothers, very persevering in pursuit of anything he wishes, very soon tires of his playthings, destroying them appears to afford him as much pleasure as his first possession; is not vexed with himself for having broken themâ¦very inquisitive about the use of everything, delighted to see different machines at work, appears to understand their different operations when explained to him and does not forget them.â In short, as Lee would later indicate, Monty Meigs was, from the start, a regular handful and for all his curiosity into things mechanical, ânot very fond of learning.â Neither the Franklin School nor a brief spell at the University of Pennsylvania managed to rein in the persnickety temper. As an old man Meigs claimed not to see in this description anything he recognized of himself. He was wrong. What Montgomery needed, so his desperate mother and father thought, was an institution that would convert all that uncoordinated energy into patriotic usefulness. Which sounded very much like the United States Military Academy at West Point. For there was nowhere quite like it for harnessing the fidgeting of the young to the solid work of building continental America.
When Montgomery Meigs arrived in 1832, West Point, sitting 200 feet up on the west bank of the Hudson Highlands, was a scattered collection of brick two-story barracks, their conventional roof pediments the only concession to classical ornament; plus a few separate houses for the instructors. There was a small parade ground and at the edge of the cliff a gun emplacement where light cannon pointed toward the river. It was that position that had determined West Pointâs location and its significance. Fifty miles upstream from Manhattan, it was sited at the point where the river narrows and makes a sharp bend. The place was, and despite the nuclear reactor visible downstream at Indian Point, still is, pretty enough to get painters out of bed early on spring mornings as the pearly valley light comes up. Americaâs first recognizable âschoolâ of radiance-drunk artists adopted it as their
So there were now Meigses north and Meigses south, and in the way of following the destiny of the nation this generous geographic distribution would lay up trouble for the future peace of the clan. Josiahâs son, Charles, our Montgomeryâs father, was born in Bermuda during his fatherâs misplaced advocacy of the maritime desperadoes, but he was educated like a good Jeffersonian democrat in Athens. Schooled in medicine at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, Charles Meigs then moved back south to Augusta, Georgia, to establish a practice in obstetrics, not a conventional course for a young physician but one in which he evidently found his vocation, for between anatomizing the uterus he wrote several volumes of practical midwifery. Whatever use to the public Charlesâs work might have been, it must have done no harm to his own family for ten Meigs children were born, and it may be that Charles stood midwife to the birth of his own son Montgomery in 1816. Unfortunately the doctorâs own constitution was prone to suffer from âbilious fever,â which aggravated a predisposition to romantic melancholy.
But there was a southern malady that Charlesâs wife, Mary Montgomery, could not herself abide: slavery. In deference to his wifeâs strong opinions, the obstetrician and his wife moved their family back north to Philadelphia, where Monty was raised in alearned but rambunctious family home on Chestnut Street. Of the eight boys and two girls in the family, it was Monty who in every way seemed to displace more than his own weight. Large, ungainly, obstinate, he was said (by his own parents) to be âtyrannical to his brothers, very persevering in pursuit of anything he wishes, very soon tires of his playthings, destroying them appears to afford him as much pleasure as his first possession; is not vexed with himself for having broken themâ¦very inquisitive about the use of everything, delighted to see different machines at work, appears to understand their different operations when explained to him and does not forget them.â In short, as Lee would later indicate, Monty Meigs was, from the start, a regular handful and for all his curiosity into things mechanical, ânot very fond of learning.â Neither the Franklin School nor a brief spell at the University of Pennsylvania managed to rein in the persnickety temper. As an old man Meigs claimed not to see in this description anything he recognized of himself. He was wrong. What Montgomery needed, so his desperate mother and father thought, was an institution that would convert all that uncoordinated energy into patriotic usefulness. Which sounded very much like the United States Military Academy at West Point. For there was nowhere quite like it for harnessing the fidgeting of the young to the solid work of building continental America.
When Montgomery Meigs arrived in 1832, West Point, sitting 200 feet up on the west bank of the Hudson Highlands, was a scattered collection of brick two-story barracks, their conventional roof pediments the only concession to classical ornament; plus a few separate houses for the instructors. There was a small parade ground and at the edge of the cliff a gun emplacement where light cannon pointed toward the river. It was that position that had determined West Pointâs location and its significance. Fifty miles upstream from Manhattan, it was sited at the point where the river narrows and makes a sharp bend. The place was, and despite the nuclear reactor visible downstream at Indian Point, still is, pretty enough to get painters out of bed early on spring mornings as the pearly valley light comes up. Americaâs first recognizable âschoolâ of radiance-drunk artists adopted it as their
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