Andrew Atkinson Humphreys
     11th Mass. Connection: Division commander at Gettysburg.
     Humphreys, Andrew A., major-general, was born in
     Philadelphia, Pa., Nov. 2, 1810, and was graduated at the
     United States military academy in 1831. From the time of his
     graduation until the outbreak of the Civil war, with the
     exception of two years 1836-38, when he was employed by the
     U.S. government as a civil engineer, he was constantly on duty,
     most of the time in the engineer department, engaging in
     topographical and hydrographical surveys of the delta of the
     Mississippi river, and on other important engineering works,
     and on Aug 6, 1861, was promoted major corps of topographical
     engineers. He was chief topographical engineer under Gen. G.
     B. McClellan at Washington, Dec., 1861, to March, 1862, and in
     the Army of the Potomac, being engaged in the defenses of
     Washington, the siege of Yorktown the battles of Williamsburg,
     and the movements and operations before Richmond. He was made
     brigadier-general of volunteers, April 28, 1862, and in
     September, of that year assumed command of a division of new
     troops in the 5th corps of the Army of the Potomac, which
     division he led in the Maryland campaign. He engaged in the
     battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, at the latter
     commanding the extreme left of the army, was then transferred
     to the command of the 2nd division of the 3rd corps, which he
     commanded at Gettysburg under Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, and he
     was promoted major-general of volunteers, July 8, 1863. From
     that time until Nov. 1864, he served as chief-of-staff to Gen.
     Meade, and was then given command of the 2nd corps, which he
     commanded in the siege of Petersburg, the actions of Hatcher's
     run, and the subsequent operations ending in the surrender of
     Lee's army. Having previously been promoted lieutenant-
     colonel of engineers and brevetted colonel, U. S. A., for
     gallantry at Fredericksburg, Gen. Humphreys was awarded, on
     March 13, 1865, the brevet of brigadier-general, U. S. A., for
     gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Gettysburg,
     and that of major-general, U. S. A., for similar service at
     Sailor's creek. He was mustered out of the volunteer service,
     Sept. 1, 1866, having served after the march to Washington
     following Lee's surrender, in command of the District of
     Pennsylvania and subsequently in charge of the Mississippi
     levees. He was made brigadier-general and chief of engineers,
     Aug. 8, 1866 the highest scientific appointment in the United
     States army, with charge of the engineer bureau in Washington.
     This office he held until June 30, 1879, when he was retired
     at his own request, serving during this period on lighthouse
     and other important boards. During his military career he
     served in seventy engagements, covering Indian warfare and the
     Civil war. He was a member of various scientific societies
     and author of several works on scientific and historical
     subjects. Gen. Humphreys died in Washington D. C., Dec. 27,
     1883.

     Source: The Union Army, vol. 8
     11th Massachusetts: In Battle
 

     Gettysburg
                                                              Thursday, 2 July 1863

     Led By: Lt. Colonel Porter D. Tripp. Colonel Blaisdell was on
     leave of absence due to illness.
     Strength: 250-300. According to the 11th's muster roll of June 30,
     1863, there were 344 men "present for duty." However, several
     of this number were non-combatants, and others would have
     been absent due to straggling during the regiment's march to the
     battlefield on July 1. One estimate puts the number engaged at
     286 (Osprey Books Order of Battle Series No. 2).
     Losses: 26 Killed, 93 Wounded, 10 Missing. Fox (in Regimental
     Strengths and Losses) states that the regiment's casualty total
     was "fully half of those engaged."
     Command: 1st Brigade [Carr], 2nd Division [Humphreys], Third
     Corps [Sickles]. Carr's Brigade also contained the 1st and 16th
     Massachusetts, 11th New Jersey, 26th Pennsylvania, and 12th
     New Hampshire.

     The 11th Massachusetts arrived on the battlefield about 2:30 AM
     on July 2, having marched all of July 1 from Emmitsburg,
     Maryland. The Third Corps bivouacked for the night near
     Cemetery Ridge about a half mile north of Devil's Den. Lt.
     Henry Blake commented on the scene that presented itself at
     daybreak:

                         During the night, the picket-firing did not
                         interrupt the sleep of the soldiers, who were
                         astonished when the morning came to see the
                         Union skirmishers advance and receive volleys
                         from the enemy, that occupied the road over
                         which the division had marched five hours
                         previous. The batteries were pointing in the same
                         direction, and the first movement which the
                         regiment executed was a countermarch, so that it
                         faced the foe.

                         The corps advanced in a brilliant line half a mile
                         at three o'clock in the afternoon, and the
                         regiment was formed upon the Emmettsburg
                         Road, and partially sheltered by the house and
                         barn of Peter Rogers, upon the crest of the rising
                         ground.

     The advance of the Third Corps to the Wheatfield/Peach
     Orchard area has always been deemed a mistake by military
     historians. Yet the position was not without merit, having clear
     fields of fire in every direction. The problem was that the area
     was too large to be covered by Third Corps alone, given the size
     of the Confederate attacking force. Carr's Brigade occupied the
     extreme right flank of the Third Corps line. Sgt. Gustavus
     Hutchinson succinctly described the Rebel attack:

                         Our skirmishers notified us that the rebels were
                         massing their brigades for an assault upon our
                         position; we had no breastworks, but made ready
                         for a determined resistance. We knew by the yells
                         of the foe and the occasional dropping of a bullet
                         that their line was on the advance. Our
                         skirmishers fell back. The rebel line rapidly
                         advanced, and our left was forced back. Heavy
                         masses of infantry supported the attack, and our
                         men were forced slowly backward.

     Hutchinson's account is basically correct, in that Carr's position
     was untenable once the left and center of the Third Corps fell
     back. However, Lt. Blake saw it a little differently. The 11th, and
     the artillery battery they were supporting, had a clear shot at the
     enemy, however:

                         [B]efore the regiment could deliver its volley, the
                         companies about-faced in pursuance of the orders
                         of some stupid general, and executed a right
                         half-wheel under a severe fire, with as much
                         regularity as if they had been upon parade, and
                         thus abandoned the advantages of the strong line
                         of defense. Š The soldiers were constantly loading
                         and aiming their rifles at the breasts of the
                         members of the [Confederate] regiment, [when]
                         orders were duly transmitted from a blockhead,
                         termed upon the muster-roll a brigadier-general,
                         not to discharge a musket, because they "would
                         fire upon their own men" and the enemy was
                         enabled in this way to cut down the ranks,and
                         diminish the effect of the first volley.

                         Candor compels me to admit that this mistake
                         was excusable upon this ground, that the officer
                         from his standpoint, which was far in the rear,
                         could not distinguish one line from the other.

                         More than half the division was disabled; eight
                         color-bearers of the regiment fell while the flag
                         was passed from one to another, and was never
                         lowered; the company to which I was assigned [K],
                         which had thirty muskets at the commencement
                         of the action, lost nineteen men by the bullet,
                         seven of whom died of their injuries.

     The Third Corps was severely depleted by the fighting of July 2.
     Elements of the Second Corps assisted in repelling the
     onrushing Confederates, who fell back beyond the Emmitsburg
     Road once their attack was spent. Third Corps was not involved
     in the battle on July 3, having been moved to a reserve position
     on the rear slope of Cemetery Ridge by the time Pickett's Charge
     occurred.
 
 

UNION THIRD CORPS, SECOND DIVISION 4,924 men
BRIGADIER GENERAL ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS

Andrew A. Humphreys was not a magnetic leader. He had none of the charisma of Maj. Gen. Dan Sickles, his corps commander. As he led his division onto the field at Gettysburg on July 2, the men had no affection for him. He was called "Old Goggle Eyes" because of his reading spectacles, and at the age of fifty-three, they considered him an old man, though he was tall and slim and not yet gray. He was new to his division, and his men knew him only as a strict disciplinarian, exacting and precise, an unfeeling, bow-legged tyrant.

It was true that Humphreys was one of the most demanding officers in the army. When he advanced into a fight, he left no one behind. At the Battle of Fredericksburg, one colonel had detached six of his youngest, frailest soldiers to stay behind and guard the regiment's knapsacks, but Humphreys, swearing mightily, ordered them back into line with the rest. Two were killed. Charles Anderson Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War, thought him "one of the loudest swearers" he had ever known, a man of "distinguished and brilliant profanity," much like the Second Corps's Maj. Gen. Winfield Hancock. But Dana also found Humphreys to be charming, a man completely without vanity in a profession swarming with prima donnas. Theodore Lyman of Meade's staff, who served under Humphreys later in the war, described him as a nice old gentleman who was boyish, with quick peppery ways, and extremely neat, "continually washing himself and putting on paper dickeys." Another of his peers considered him "eminent both as a scientist and a soldier, a man of broad and liberal views, of commanding intellect, and of the highest personal honor." Humphreys liked long conversations with his staff after meals and had knowledge of many things. He regarded the military profession as a "godlike occupation," and developed a positive fondness for battle, once observing that war was a "very bad thing in the sequel, but before and during a battle it is a damn fine thing!" The division's provost marshal recollected Humphreys as "without a superior on the field of battle--full of fire, and yet in absolute equipoise." Brig. Gen. Joseph Carr commented on the general's "conspicuous courage and remarkable coolness."

Humphreys was not gifted with the ability to inspire, so instead he led his men personally into battle, putting himself up front, writing later that "for certain good reasons connected with the effect of what I did upon the spirit of the men and from an invincible repugnance to ride anywhere else, I always rode at the head of my troops." Lt. Cavada of the general's staff recalled that just before he took his troops up to the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg, Humphreys had bowed to his staff in his courtly way, "and in the blandest manner remarked, 'Young gentlemen, I intend to lead this assault; I presume, of course, you will wish to ride with me?'" Since it was put like that, the staff had done so, and five of the seven officers were knocked off their horses. After his men had taken as much as they could stand in front of the Stone Wall on Marye's Heights, the next brigade coming up the hill saw Humphreys sitting his horse all alone, looking out across the plain, bullets cutting the air all around him. Something about the way the general was taking it pleased them, and they sent up a cheer. Humphreys looked over, surprised, waved his cap to them with a grim smile, and then went riding off into the twilight. In this way Humphreys had turned his first division's dislike of him into admiration for his heroic leadership, and he would do the same with his new division at Gettysburg.

Humphreys was descended from the famed Humphreyses of Philadelphia, the distinguished naval architects who designed the USS Constitution and Constellation and many other ships of the Old Navy. Andrew graduated from West Point 13th out of 33 students in the class of 1831, and served in the artillery in the Seminole War. His interest shifted quickly to engineering, however, and by 1838 he was serving in the Corps of Topographical Engineers, conducting hydrographic surveys on the Mississippi River (like Generals Lee and Meade.) His Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River was published the year the Civil War began, a contribution so valuable to the knowledge of the hydraulics of great rivers that it was translated into foreign languages and permanently established Humphreys's scientific reputation.

At the outbreak of the War, Humphreys was a man with military training but little experience with troops in the field. His health had never been good, and illness prevented him from joining the army until late 1861, when he was appointed as chief engineer to Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan; he served on McClellan's staff during the Peninsula Campaign. Just before the Battle of Antietam he was given command of a new Fifth Corps division of nine-month men, which were held in reserve in that battle. It was three months later, at the Battle of Fredericksburg, that he and his division won fame for their valor, known for getting closest to the Stone Wall of any Union division before being driven back. "He behaved with distinguished gallantry at Fredericksburg," New Fifth Corps commander Maj. Gen. George Meade wrote afterward. Meade sympathized with Humphreys--even after such a performance, Meade said, Humphreys was omitted from a long list for promotion "including such names as. . . Sickles . . . who have really done nothing," probably as a result of Humphreys's long association with the discredited McClellan.

After the Battle of Chancellorsville, where his division was not heavily engaged, many of his men, whose terms of service had expired, were too tired or disgusted to re-enlist. Nearly a division in all evaporated from the Fifth Corps, so on May 23, about five weeks before Gettysburg, Humphreys was transferred to a Third Corps division to replace Maj. Gen. Hiram Berry, who had been killed at Chancellorsville. Humphreys would be the only West Point-trained career soldier in his new corps; although Third Corps chief Sickles--himself a political general--might not have fully appreciated it, Humphreys was a valuable addition to his command.

In mid-1863, Humphreys, though unfamiliar with his new division, was developing into a fine field officer. Meade considered him a "splendid man," and when Meade became commander of the Army of the Potomac three days before Gettysburg, he asked Humphreys to be his chief of staff. Humphreys refused, not wanting to give up combat duty for a desk job.

At Gettysburg:

Moving toward Gettysburg from Emmitsburg on the afternoon of July 1, Humphreys's division arrived after dark, followed a guide along the wrong road and almost blundered straight into a swarm of Confederates at Black Horse Tavern, miles to the west of the nearest friendly troops. Humphreys discovered his peril, tiptoed his division away from the near-meeting and, about midnight, found his place with the other Third Corps units camped on the southern end of Cemetery Ridge.

In mid-afternoon of July 2, Humphreys's division moved forward, by Sickles's order, to an exposed position, stretched out in a line running generally north and south along the Emmitsburg Road, facing west. Humphreys's left abutted the men of Birney's other Third Corps division at the Peach Orchard. His right was in the air, a half-mile in front of the Second Corps supports on Cemetery Ridge.

When the Confederate attack came soon afterward, it started on the far Union left against Maj. Gen. David Birney's men, and to Humphreys's dismay, his reserve brigade--Burling's--was drawn away to the south to help Birney, who parceled Burling's regiments out one by one to meet emergencies. This left Humphreys with only two brigades when the Confederate attack reached his front. "Had my Division been left intact," he wrote, "I would have driven the enemy back, but this ruinous habit (it doesn't deserve the name of system) of putting troops in position & then drawing off its reserves & second line to help others, who if similarly disposed would need no such help, is disgusting." The Confederates of Barksdale's, Wilcox's, and Perry's brigades converged on Humphreys's short line from the left, front, and right.

Sickles was by now down with his leg gone, and Birney ordered Humphreys to form a new line to the rear. Despite the immense difficulty of retreating in good order and redeploying while under intense attack by superior numbers, Humphreys managed to execute Birney's order, largely, according to subordinates, by placing himself "at the most exposed positions in the extreme front, giving personal attention to all the movements of the Division" with "conspicuous courage and remarkable coolness." At one point, Humphrey's horse, already wounded six times, was hit by a shell, sprang in the air and threw the general violently to the ground. Humphreys mounted an aide's horse and continued. Keeping the ranks steady by riding up and down and drawing his men back slowly with iron discipline, he managed to withdraw his division all the way to Cemetery Ridge, leaving 1,500 men dead or wounded on the half-mile of ground over which he had made his fighting retreat. He wrote later that the experience was even worse than storming the Stone Wall at Fredericksburg. Second Corps chief Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock recalled that afterward there seemed to be nothing left of Humphreys's division but a mass of regimental flags still waving defiantly.

Humphreys's brigades stayed on Cemetery Ridge that night. They were moved to the rear at sunrise the next morning, and spent July 3 in reserve behind the ridge.

Reward for Humphreys's heroic performance on July 2 was immediate. Five days after the battle, he was promoted to major general and drafted as Meade's new chief of staff upon the unlamented departure of the previous chief, Dan Butterfield. When Hancock's Gettysburg wound finally forced him from the field at the end of 1864, General Grant named Humphreys his successor as head of the Second Corps. Humphreys held that high command until Appomattox four months later. Charles Anderson Dana, Assistant Secretary of War, called Humphreys "the great soldier of the Army of the Potomac."

For further reading:
Humphreys, Andrew A. From Gettysburg To The Rapidan. The Army of the Potomac, July 1863 to April 1864. Dayton, 1987
Humphreys, Henry H. Andrew Atkinson Humphreys, a Biography. Philadelphia, 1924
Reardon, Carol. "Brig. Gen. Andrew A. Humphreys's Pennsylvania Division at Fredericksburg." in Gary Gallagher, ed. The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock. Chapel Hill, 1995
Round, Harold. "A.A. Humphreys." Civil War Times Illustrated, Feb 1966