Brigadier General Andrew A. Humphreys (USV)

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Aug 27, 2016
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Hangzhou, China (Wisconsin, USA)
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Brigadier General Andrew Atkinson Humphreys (USV)

Andrew Atkinson Humphreys was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 2 November 1810. His grandfather, Joshua, was the “Father of the American Navy”, designing the USS Constitution. His father, Samuel, designed and built the USS Pennsylvania, the largest and most heavily armed ship at the time.

Andrew graduated from Nazareth Hall (predecessor to the present-day Moravian College & Theological Seminary). Then he entered the United States Military Academy and graduated on 1 July 1831. He was assigned to the Second Artillery at Fort Moultrie in South Carolina. He received his first combat experience in the Seminole Wars during 1836. He left the service for two years serving as a civil engineer before being reappointed as 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers.

In 1844, he took charge of the Central Office of the Coast Survey at Washington. During the 1850s, he commenced surveys and investigations of the Mississippi River Delta to develop a solution to prevent inundation and increase the depth of water on the bars. From 1853 – 1857, he also worked on the Pacific Railroad Surveys with Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Humphreys went west to find the most practical route for the First Transcontinental Railroad.

After the outbreak of the Civil War, Humphreys was promoted to major and became chief topographical engineer in Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. He participated in the Peninsula Campaign where he was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on 28 April 1862 and on 12 September assumed command of the new 3rd Division in the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac.

He led the 3rd Division in a reserve role in the Battle of Antietam. At Fredericksburg, his division achieved the farthest advance against fierce Confederate fire from Marye’s Heights, with Humphreys personally commanding from the very front of the line on horseback. Although this action earned his men’s respect, he was not well like by them. They considered him an old man, in his mid-fifties, despite his youthful appearance, nicknaming him “Old Goggle Eyes” for his eyeglasses. He was also a taskmaster and strict disciplinarian. Charles A. Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, called him a man of “distinguish and brilliant profanity.”

At the Battle of Chancellorsville, Humphreys’ division was attacked by Colquitt’s brigade on the 3rd day of the battle. On 23 May 1863, Humphreys was transferred to command of the 2nd Division in the III Corps under Maj. Gen. Daniel E. Sickles. When Maj. Gen. George Meade assumed command of the Army of the Potomac just before Gettysburg, he asked Humphreys to be his chief of staff, but he declined.

His new division immediately saw action at Gettysburg on 2 July, when Sickles moved his corps from its assigned defensive position on Cemetery Ridge. Humphrey’s new position was on the Emmitsburg Road, part of a salient directly in the path of the Confederate assault, and it was too long for one division to defend. Assaulted by Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws, Humphreys’ three brigades were demolished. Humphreys was able to reform his survivors on Cemetery Ridge.

Humphreys was promoted to major general on 8 July 1863, and finally acceded to Meade’s request to serve as his chief of staff, no longer having much of a division to command. He served in that position until November 1864 when he assumed command of the II Corps, which he led through the rest of the Siege of Petersburg and during the pursuit of Gen. Robert E. Lee to Appomattox Court House and surrender. On 13 March 1865, he was breveted brigadier general in the regular army and then on 26 May 1865, he was awarded brevet major general in the regular army for “gallant and meritorious service”.

After the war, Humphreys commanded the District of Pennsylvania. He came a permanent brigadier general and Chief of Engineers in 1866. He held this position until 30 June 1879, when he retired. In retirement, he studied philosophy and was one of the founders of the National Academy of Sciences. Humphreys’ published works were highlighted by the 1861 Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River, co-authored with Lt. Henry Abbot, which gave him considerable prominence in the scientific community. He also wrote personal accounts of the war, From Gettysburg to the Rapidan and The Virginia Campaign of ’64 and ’65, published in 1883.

He died in Washington, D.C., on 27 December 1883. A military base in Virginia founded during World War I was named Camp A. A. Humphreys, since renamed Fort Belvoir, but the adjacent United States Army Corps of Engineers Humphreys Engineer Center retains part of the original namesake. In 1935, after the base in Virginia was renamed, the Washington Arsenal in Washington, D.C., was named in his honor, but in 1948, the arsenal was renamed Fort McNair. Humphreys Peak at 12,633 feet, Arizona’s highest peak, is named in honor of Andrew A. Humphreys.

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At some point. I tend to work through the battles. Currently working through the Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula Campaign, so most of the heavy hitters will get done during this battle. Already did McClellan, French, etc. I think I'll probably run across Pickett on the Confederate side of this battle.
 
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