Quartermaster General of the United States Army

Quartermaster General of the United States Army
Incumbent COL Jin H. Pak since June 2, 2023
Formation	June 16, 1775
First holder	MG Thomas Mifflin
Website	Official website

The Quartermaster General of the United States Army is a general officer who is responsible for the Quartermaster Corps, the Quartermaster branch of the U.S. Army. The Quartermaster General does not command Quartermaster units, but is primarily focused on training, doctrine and professional development of Quartermaster soldiers. The Quartermaster General also serves as the Commanding General, U.S. Army Quartermaster Center and School, Fort Lee, Virginia and the traditional Quartermaster Corps.

History

The office of the Quartermaster General was established by resolution of the Continental Congress on 16 June 1775, but the position was not filled until 14 August 1775. Perhaps the most famous Quartermaster General was Nathanael Greene, who was the third Quartermaster General, serving from March 1778 to August 1780. The first Quartermaster General to serve in the U.S. Army was Thomas Mifflin of Pennsylvania.

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 Quartermasters General 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, 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. On May 8, 1818, Thomas Jessup became the Quartermaster General, and he remained in the position until 1860. As a combat veteran, Jessup understood the importance of support to front line soldiers and instituted many enduring practices and policies. Because of his reforms, historians often call Jessup the "father of the Quartermaster Corps". From 1860 to the end of the century, the quartermaster general office was held by officers who served in the American Civil War.

Brigadier General Joseph E. Johnston held the position from June 28, 1860, until his resignation on April 22, 1861. Johnston was appointed a full general in the Confederate States Army on August 31, 1861. Adhering to the ideology of states' 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 his family was from Philadelphia and he adhered to the Union during the Civil War. Meigs served throughout the war and retired on February 6, 1882. Contemporaries such as U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward and many historians have given Meigs's work in keeping the Union Army adequately and timely supplied considerable credit for the Union victory.

From February 13, 1882, to February 23, 1882 Daniel H. Rucker was quartermaster general, an appointment intended to honor his many years of military service. At the end of his brief tenure, Rucker retired. 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. Samuel B. Holabird, who was chief quartermaster of the Union Department of the Gulf during much of the Civil War, succeeded Ingalls and served from July 1, 1883, to 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, 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, 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 relative peace that followed 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. He was promoted to major general on April 12, 1903, and retired the next day.

Duties at close of century

At the close of the 19th century, in an annual report for Congress, the Quartermaster General defined his duties as follows.

Under existing laws the Quartermaster's Department, under the direction of the Secretary of War, provides the Army with military stores and supplies requisite for its use, such as clothing and equipage, tents, band instruments, tableware and mess furniture, equipments for post bakeries, fuel, forage, stationery, lumber, straw for bedding for men and animals, all materials for camp, and for shelter for troops and stores, furniture for barracks, such as bunks, benches, chairs, tables, lockers, heating and cooking stoves for use in public barracks and quar ters, tools for mechanics and laborers in the Quartermaster's Department, furniture. Text-books, papers, and equipment for post schools, reading matter for post libraries, wagons, ambulances, carts, saddles, harness, water supply, sewerage, plumbing, illuminating supplies, and heating for all military posts and buildings.

The Department is also charged with the duty of transporting, by land and water, troops, munitions of war, equipments, and all articles of military supplies from the place of purchase to the several armies, garrisons, posts, and recruiting places.

Under act of Congress amending section 1661, Revised Statutes, for arming and equipping the militia, this Department supplies quarter: master stores, clothing, and equipage to the militia of the several States and Territories, and transports the same to said States and Territories. It also furnishes transportation for ordnance and ordnance stores issued by the United States to the militia of the several States and Territo ries. It also transports the property for other Executive Departments on requisitions, payments therefor being made by the respective Depart ments to the carriers upon accounts forwarded through the Quarter master-general's Office for that purpose.

This Department prepares the necessary plans and constructs all buildings at military posts, such as barracks, quarters, storehouses, hospitals, etc., builds wharves, constructs and repairs roads for military purposes, builds all necessary military bridges, provides, by hire or pur chase, grounds for military encampments and buildings; contracts for all horses for cavalry, artillery, and for the Indian scouts, and for such infantry and members of the Hospital Corps in the field campaigns as may be required to be mounted; pays for all incidental expenses of the military service which are not provided by other corps.

20th century

Quartermaster General Maj Gen Gregory discusses Army nurses' clothing with Lt. Alice Montgomery, Lt. Josephine Etz, and Lt. Leophile Bouchard, of Walter Reed Hospital. The Quartermaster General is responsible for supplying all branches of the Army.

In 1907 James B. Aleshire was named Quartermaster General; he would retire in 1916 with the rank brigadier general. Aleshire was notable for combining the formerly separate Quartermaster, Subsistence and Pay Departments to create the consolidated U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps. He named his classmate and subordinate, Henry Granville Sharpe, the father of consolidation. Sharpe and Aleshire succeeded at eliminating the unwieldy centralized control of the army supply system that had grown up after the end of the American Civil War. In addition to creating administrative departments at his headquarters to manage the day to day operations of the Quartermaster Corps, Aleshire replaced centralized purchasing with a decentralized system that saved time and money by enabling department, division, and unit quartermasters to procure supplies locally.

World War I

Sharpe succeeded his friend and was named the 24th Quartermaster General on September 16, 1916; his term in office was to end on July 21, 1918. His appointment predated the entry of the United States to World War I by seven months. The Quartermaster Corps and the War Department generally were unprepared for World War I. The supply bureaus within the Quartermaster Corps were eager to procure and ship as quickly as possible the enormous quantities of supplies for which they were responsible. However, their uncoordinated procurement due to the Sharpe-Aleshire decentralization resulted in excessive and unbalanced railway shipments that overtaxed port facilities and finally developed into a serious congestion of the railroad system in the winter of 1917–18. By that time shortages in clothing, hospital equipment, and other supplies were causing hardships in Army camps, and it was charged by some that the lack of adequate clothing and shelter was responsible for an epidemic of pneumonia sweeping through the camps. General Sharpe was held responsible by many for a large share of the supply crisis that had developed.

These developments stirred a widespread uneasiness that led to a Congressional hearing on the conduct of the war. In the end the General Staff took complete control of supplies and the Office of the Director of Purchase and Storage in the Purchase, Storage, and Traffic Division was erected on the foundation of the Quartermaster Corps.

On December 15, 1917, a War Council was formed (as distinct from the Council of National Defense) consisting of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army Tasker H. Bliss, the Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, his Assistant and some subordinates amongst whom were Quartermaster General Henry Granville Sharpe and Chief of Ordnance William Crozier. The War Council was to oversee and coordinate all matters of supply and to plan for the more effective use of the military power of the nation. While serving on the Council on 18 December 1917, General Sharpe was required to delegate all his administrative duties to an acting chief Quartermaster designated by the Secretary of War Newton D. Baker to be George Washington Goethals. Baker fired three of the five officers appointed to the War Council on that day.

In June 1918, General Sharpe was relieved from duty with the War Council and assigned to the command of the Southeastern Department. The following month he was appointed a major general in the line of the Army, with rank from July 12 and officially ceased to be Quartermaster General.

World War II

In 1940 Edmund B. Gregory was appointed as the Army's Quartermaster General, advancing from colonel directly to major general. In 1945 he was promoted to lieutenant general, the first Quartermaster Officer to attain this rank. As Quartermaster General during World War II, he oversaw the development, procurement and distribution of billions of dollars worth of equipment and supplies. Gregory also supervised the training of thousands of quartermaster soldiers. In addition, he had responsibility for over 900,000 civilian personnel employed by contractors to produce supplies, equipment, ammunition and vehicles for the war effort.

Post-war years

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

Twelve officers held the office of quartermaster general in the United States Army in the twenty-first century including the first African American, first female and the first female African American.

List of Army Quartermaster Generals

Order	Image	Rank	Name	Term began	Term ended	Notes
1.		O-08 !Major general	Thomas Mifflin	August 14, 1775	May 16, 1776
2.		O-06 !Colonel	Stephen Moylan	June 5, 1776	September 27, 1776
1.		O-08 !Major general	Thomas Mifflin	October 1, 1776	November 17, 1777
3.		O-08 !Major general	Nathanael Greene	March 2, 1778	August 5, 1780
4.		O-06 !Colonel	Timothy Pickering	August 5, 1780	July 25, 1785
5.		—	Samuel Hodgdon	March 4, 1791	April 19, 1792
6.		—	James O'Hara	April 19, 1792	May 1, 1796
7.		O-08 !Major general	John Wilkins, Jr.	June 1, 1796	June 1, 1802
8.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Morgan Lewis	April 3, 1812	March 2, 1813
9.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Robert Swartwout	March 21, 1813	June 5, 1816
10.	—	O-06 !Colonel	James Mullany	April 29, 1816	April 14, 1818
11.		O-06 !Colonel	George Gibson	April 29, 1816	April 14, 1818
12.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Thomas S. Jesup	May 8, 1818	June 10, 1860
13.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Joseph E. Johnston	June 20, 1860	April 22, 1861
14.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Montgomery C. Meigs	May 15, 1861	February 6, 1882
15.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Daniel H. Rucker	February 13, 1882	February 23, 1882
16.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Rufus Ingalls	February 23, 1882	July 1, 1883
17.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Samuel B. Holabird	July 1, 1883	June 16, 1890
18.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Richard Batchelder	June 26, 1890	July 27, 1896
19.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Charles G. Sawtelle	August 19, 1896	February 16, 1897
20.		O-07 !Brigadier general	George H. Weeks	February 16, 1897	February 3, 1898
21.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Marshall I. Ludington	February 3, 1898	April 12, 1903
22.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Charles F. Humphrey	April 12, 1903	July 1, 1907
23.		O-08 !Major general	James B. Aleshire	July 1, 1907	September 12, 1916
24.		O-08 !Major general	Henry G. Sharpe	September 16, 1916	July 21, 1918
25.		O-08 !Major general	Harry L. Rogers	July 22, 1918	August 27, 1922
26.		O-08 !Major general	William H. Hart	August 28, 1922	January 2, 1926
27.		O-08 !Major general	B. Frank Cheatham	January 3, 1926	January 17, 1930
28.		O-08 !Major general	John L. DeWitt	February 3, 1930	February 3, 1934
29.		O-08 !Major general	Louis H. Bash	February 3, 1934	March 31, 1936
30.		O-08 !Major general	Henry Gibbins	April 1, 1936	March 31, 1940
31.		LTG	Edmund B. Gregory	April 1, 1940	January 31, 1946
32.		O-08 !Major general	Thomas B. Larkin	February 1, 1946	March 21, 1949
33.		O-08 !Major general	Herman Feldman	March 21, 1949	September 28, 1951
34.		O-08 !Major general	George A. Horkan	October 5, 1951	January 31, 1954
35.		O-08 !Major general	Kester L. Hastings	February 5, 1954	March 31, 1957
36.		O-08 !Major general	Andrew T. McNamara	June 12, 1957	June 12, 1961
37.		O-08 !Major general	Webster Anderson	June 12, 1961	July 31, 1962
38.		O-08 !Major general	Harry L. Dukes, Jr.	July 15, 1981	March 29, 1984
39.		O-08 !Major general	Eugene L. Stillions, Jr.	March 29, 1984	June 4, 1987
40.		O-08 !Major general	William T. McLean	June 15, 1987	July 14, 1989
41.		O-08 !Major general	Paul J. Vanderploog	July 14, 1989	June 3, 1991
42.		O-07 !Brigadier general	John J. Cusick	July 24, 1991	August 3, 1993
43.		O-08 !Major general	Robert K. Guest	August 3, 1993	June 21, 1996
44.		O-08 !Major general	Henry T. Glisson	June 21, 1996	June 10, 1997
45.		O-08 !Major general	James M. Wright	June 10, 1997	July 30, 1999
46.		O-08 !Major general	Hawthorne L. Proctor	July 30, 1999	July 11, 2001	First African American Quartermaster Corps General.
47.		O-08 !Major general	Terry E. Juskowiak	July 11, 2001	May 16, 2003
48.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Scott G. West	May 16, 2003	August 11, 2005
49.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Mark A. Bellini	August 11, 2005	October 26, 2007
50.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Jesse R. Cross	October 26, 2007	November 22, 2010
51.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Gwen Bingham	November 22, 2010	August 30, 2012	First female to serve as Quartermaster General and the first female African American Quartermaster Corps General
52.	—	O-07 !Brigadier general	John E. O'Neil IV	June 14, 2013	June 9, 2014
53.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Ronald Kirklin	June 9, 2014	June 10, 2016
54.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Rodney D. Fogg	June 10, 2016	June 12, 2018
55.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Douglas M. McBride Jr.	June 12, 2018	May 29, 2020
56.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Michelle K. Donahue	May 29, 2020	June 22, 2022
57.		O-07 !Brigadier general	Michael B. Siegl	June 22, 2022	June 2, 2023	First Asian American Quartermaster Corps Commandant and general
58.		O-06 !Colonel	Jin H. Pak	June 2, 2023	Present

References

Sources

• Risch, Erna (1981). Supplying Washington's Army. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. http://www.history.army.mil/books/RevWar/risch/risch-fm.htm. 

External links

• The Act of Congress Establishing the position of Quartermaster General at the United States Army Center of Military History