Quartermaster General of the United States Army

18th Century

The position of Quartermaster General originated in the Continental Army, under order of Congress. On 16 June 1775, 2 days after the birth of the Army, Congress ordered the creation of both a Quartermaster General and a Deputy Quartermaster General. During this period Quartermaster Generals would be act like chiefs of staff for the commanders of the Continental Army, acting as the prime supplier and businessmen for dealing with civilians, operated and repaired supply lines, which included the roads which they traveled upon, was responsible for transporting troops and furnished all the supplies needed to establish camps when the troops got there.

Upon the establishment of the position, Congress authorized George Washington to appoint the first Quartermaster General. He picked a man from amongst his aides-de-camp, Maj. Thomas Mifflin. Mifflin, an experienced merchant from Philadelphia, proved to be a prime choice, being reappointed several times to the position. They eventually promoted Mifflin to a Colonel in order to retain him in his position.

19th Century

Fifteen officers held the office of quartermaster general in the United States Army in the nineteenth century. The first of these officers, John Wilkins, Jr., was a major general. Two colonels, James Mullany and George Gibson, jointly held the office between April 29, 1816 and April 14, 1818. The other twelve quartermasters were brigadier generals. From 1860 to the end of the century, the quartermaster general office was held by officers who were to serve or had served in the American Civil War (Civil War).

Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston held the position from June 28, 1860 until his resignation as quartermaster general and brigadier general, U.S. Army, on April 22, 1861. Johnston was appointed a full general in the Confederate States Army on August 31, 1861. Adhering to the ideology of state's rights, quartermasters of each Confederate state exercised considerable autonomy from their national quartermaster general. Within their jurisdictions, these Confederate officers exercised powers equivalent to the Union quartermaster general. Georgia quartermaster general Ira Roe Foster is, perhaps, the best example of a Confederate quartermaster exercising considerable power over both production and supply within his state. Brigadier General Montgomery C. Meigs succeeded Johnston on May 15, 1861. Meigs was born in Augusta, Georgia but adhered to the Union during the Civil War. Meigs served throughout the Civil War and until 1882. He retired on February 6, 1882. Contemporaries such as U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and historians have given Meigs's work in keeping the Union Army adequately and timely supplied considerable credit for the Union victory.

For a period of ten days between February 13, 1882 and February 23, 1882, another Civil War veteran, Daniel H. Rucker, was quartermaster general. At the end of his brief tenure, Rucker retired from the U.S. Army. Rufus Ingalls, a brevet brigadier general and quartermaster for all Union Army forces during the Siege of Petersburg succeeded Rucker. Ingalls also had a brief tenure in office, serving between February 23, 1883 and July 1, 1883, when he also retired. Another brevet brigadier general of the Union Army, Samuel B. Holabird, who was chief quartermaster of the Union Department of the Gulf during much of the Civil War, succeeded Ingalls. Holabird was quartermaster general between July 1, 1883 and June 16, 1890. Richard Napoleon Batchelder, quartermaster for II Corps of the Union Army and a recipient of the Medal of Honor, succeeded Holabird. He held the office between June 26, 1890 and July 27, 1896.

Another brevet brigadier general who had served as quartermaster for II Corps before Batchelder, as chief quartermaster of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac, as quartermaster during the Red River Campaign and as chief quartermaster for the Military Division of West Mississippi, Charles G. Sawtelle, succeeded Batchelder. He served between August 19, 1896 and February 16, 1897. George H. Weeks, who served as quartermaster with the III Corps of the Union Army and in Albany, New York later in the war, held the office between February 6, 1897 and his retirement on February 3, 1898.

The last quartermaster general of the 19th century was Marshall I. Ludington, who assumed the office on February 3, 1898, three months before the Spanish–American War. Ludington had served as a division quartermaster for the Army of the Potomac. He was criticized for the general unpreparedness of the U.S. Army for the Spanish-American War but he had inherited the general state of unpreparedness of the army, which had been given meager funds and kept small during the long period of peace, except for the small American Indian Wars, after the Civil War. Ludington succeeded in improving the supply situation of the U.S. Army to an adequate state in a matter of months after the start of the war. On April 12, 1903, Ludington was promoted to major general and retired the next day.

20th Century

On July 30, 1999, Major General Hawthorne L. Proctor was named the 46th Quartermaster General. He was the first African-American to hold the position.

21st Century

Colonel Gwen Bingham became the Army's first female Quartermaster General when she assumed command of the Quartermaster Corps from Brigadier General Jesse Cross on November 23, 2010. Bingham was promoted to brigadier general in April 2011.