Letter signed by Montgomery Cunningham Meigs (1816-1892), as Quartermaster General, to Colonel George Wood Wingate (1840-1928), Office of the General Inspector of Rifle Practice. Washington, DC, 1 March 1877. 4 pages, 8vo, on letterhead of the War Department, Quartermaster General's Office, docketed to verso.

Meigs, a civil engineer, served as quartermaster general of the Union Army before and after the Civil War. His management of the logistics of the army significantly contributed to the victory of the Union. Wingate, his correspondent, believed strongly in the proper training of marksmanship and took great care to train his company. After the war, he wrote several works on marksmanship and went on to found the National Rifle Association.

Here, Meigs writes to Wingate regarding his request to use notes in his instruction in rifle shooting. The letter is quite detailed and technical, and even includes a diagram of the sight of a rifle: "There is an optical principle made use of in this sight which I did not allude to, but on which one of its advantages rests. So long as the diameter of the front sight is just equal to that of the peep-hole parallel rays of light come from the object, pass tangent to the outline of the from sight and tangent also to the edges of the peep-hole. All the rays from the object inside the cylinder of rays tangent to the front sight are cut off by its interposition and it hides only a surface of the target or game as large as the front sight itself."

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