82 architects to the nation
There is some question as to whether or not Mullett wanted to add
the State, War, and Navy Building to his already heavy workload.
However, Mullett wrote to Walter in the fall of 1869 that there was
 no prospect for the erection of a new War Department at present.
He instead offered Walter the job of examining  that miserable abor-
tion called the New Orleans Custom House and preparing plans for
its completion.35 Walter declined the assignment. While Mullett was
discouraging Walter s interest in the new State, War, and Navy
Building, he was also writing to Senator Joshua Mix regarding the lo-
cation of the building and his expectation that he would be consulted
on architectural questions.36 Later in 1871, when Congress made the
first appropriation for the building, Walter wrote to Mullett, stating
 If it would not interfere either with you or Mr. Clark [architect of
the Capitol], I would like to be the architect of that work. 37 Walter s
vehicle for returning to the capital city did not materialize because,
as he noted, Mullett had the  inside track. 38
Mullett s constellation of professional associates included former
Civil War battlefield artist Henri Lovie, who prepared presentation
drawings of many Mullett-designed federal buildings, and William J.
McPherson, an interior decorator from Boston, who prepared de-
signs for rooms at the White House and other federal buildings and
whom Mullett described as possessing  exquisite taste 39 and as  the
most accomplished architectural decorator in the United States. 40
Also among Mullett s Washington, D.C., associates was Adolf Cluss,
who served as superintendent of the District of Columbia jail for
which Mullett prepared designs. John L. Smithmeyer, a superinten-
dent of repairs under Mullett, had a falling out with his supervisor
and left the Office to enter the private sector. Smithmeyer later
formed an architectural partnership with Paul Pelz and initiated lob-
bying efforts to persuade the U. S. Congress to break the architectural
monopoly held by the supervising architect. Mullett s subordinates
included Bartholomew Oertly, who left the office in 1869 and whom
Mullett referred to as a  scoundrel 41 over accounting and measure-
ment errors. James C. Rankin entered the office in 1868 and rose to
the position of assistant supervising architect, a job that put him in
charge of the preparation of estimates and the examination of
monthly reports. Rankin later became superintendent of the new
custom house in Chicago the work which, above all others, led to
Mullett s downfall. Mullett also hired Count Richard Von Ezdorf as
a draftsman, whose interiors for the State, War, and Navy building
won him considerable acclaim, and William G. Steinmetz, the assis-