Rufus Ingalls

Rufus Ingalls (August 23, 1818 – January 15, 1893) was an American military general who served as the 16th Quartermaster General of the United States Army. Early life and career Ingalls was born in the village of Denmark in what is now Maine (at the time, it was a part of Massachusetts). His father Cyrus was a prominent local mill owner and politician who was among those at the Maine constitutional convention in 1819. Through his father's political connections, Rufus Ingalls was appointed to the United States Military Academy, graduating in the Class of 1843, which included his friend Ulysses S. Grant. Ingalls was brevetted as a Second Lieutenant and assigned to garrison duty in the western frontier. In 1845, he joined the First U.S. Dragoons with the rank of first lieutenant. Ingalls served in the Mexican–American War in the New Mexico Territory in the Army of the West under Col. Stephen W. Kearny. Ingalls distinguished himself in action at the skirmish at Eabudo and conflict at Pueblo de Taos, for which he received the brevet rank of first lieutenant. He later served in California under Kearny. He became a quartermaster in 1848 and served in that role the rest of his career. Promoted to the rank of captain, he was assigned to duty in the Oregon Territory in 1849, and then to Fort Vancouver in 1852, along with Ulysses Grant. There, he joined the local Freemasons. In early 1854, while on duty in Washington DC, Ingalls was ordered to accompany the Steptoe Expedition from Fort Leavenworth in Kansas across the continent through the Utah Territory to the Pacific Coast.