I was lucky enough to be able to visit the old Pension Office on my last trip to Washington. It now housing an Engineering museum, but I got to sneak in quickly during setup for an event and take a few pictures of the massive columns inside. This blogger has taken far more – and far better – photos than I managed, and provides some excellent history on the construction and architecture of the building, which was all done under the eye of former Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs. It’s a magnificent building, and well worth a visit if you’re in the DC area.

Meigs insisted that the mule driver be an African American; he wrote to Buberl, “Most of the drivers of Baggage Wagons were freedmen Blacks….By all means make the driver a Negro full blooded….I leave all the clothes to your taste, but he must be a Negro, a plantation slave, freed by the war.” (See Testaments to Union.)

Source: Landmarks: Meigs’s Red Barn