LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 

 
OF PENNSYLVANIA, 
 
 BRIGADIER GENERAL AND BREVET MAJOR GENERAL, U, S, i, 
 
 MAJOR GENERAL, U. S.V., 
 
 CHIEF OF STAFF AND COMMANDER OF THE 
 
 COMBINED SECOND-THIRD CORPS, 
 
 ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, 
 
 CHIEF OF ENGINEERS, U.S.A. 
 
 BY BREVET MAJOR GENERAL J. WATTS DE PEYSTER, 
 
 HONORARY MEMBER DIAGNOTHIAN LITERARY SOCIETY, FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE, 
 
 LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 LANCASTER INTELLIGENCER PRINT. 
 1886. 
 

 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 TAKEN IN HIS LATER YEARS, WHEN ABOUT 63. 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 " A true friend is distinguished in the crisis of 
 hazard and necessity ; when the gallantry of his aid 
 may show the worth of his soul and the loyalty of 
 his heart." Ennius. 
 
 " Trust on thy friend, deliberate with thyself; 
 
 Pause, ponder, silt ; not eager in the choice, 
 
 Nor jealous of the chosen ; fixing, fix ; 
 
 Judge before friendship, then confide till death." 
 
 Young. 
 " Rest, soldier,rest ! thy weary task is done ; 
 
 Thy God, thy country, thou has served them well; 
 
 Thine is true glory glory bravely won ; 
 
 On lips of men unborn thy name shall dwell. 
 " Live ! live on fame s bright scroll, heroic friend ! 
 
 Thy memory now we to her record give, 
 
 To earth, thy dust; our thoughts to heaven ascend, 
 
 Where with the immortals, thou dost ever live !" 
 
 Palmer. 
 
 [In a limited space it is next to impossible 
 to do more than to refer to the services ren 
 
 dered to his country by this distinguished 
 officer, since their mere mention fills Article 
 No. 641, Graduating Class, of 1831, two pages, 
 384, 385, 386, Vol. i, of the "Biographical 
 Register of the Officers and Graduates of the 
 U. S. Military Academy at West Point, N. Y., 
 | from its establishment, March 16, 1802, to 
 the Army Re-organization of 1866- 6 7," by 
 Brevet Major General Geo. W. Cullum, Colo 
 nel Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army, Vol. 
 i, 1802-1840. New York, D. Van Nostrand, 
 192 Broadway, 1868: " and in it each state 
 ment of service is so abreviated in brevier or 
 smaller type that simply to reprint them in full 
 in larger type would occupy eight pages of this 
 
 225803 
 
4 / - i\ ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 magazine. Consequently this sketch must be 
 much more general than that of Wayne, 
 because although Wayne s services extended 
 over a much longer period, and although 
 they were of absolute and decisive import 
 ance, the labors of Humphreys were of far 
 greater magnitude, proportional to the de 
 velopment of the country, and whereas 
 Washington as General-in-Chief never com 
 manded an army larger than a strong di 
 vision or depleted corps, Humphreys, when 
 Brigadier, was at the head of a division as 
 large as Washington s army on most occa 
 sions, and, as a Major General, of a corps far 
 more formidable than all the forces Wash 
 ington ever controlled. While as chief-of- 
 staff he, and he alone, formulated the orders 
 governing the operations of the Army of the 
 Potomac an army which comprised ten 
 times more men than Washington had at Mon- 
 mouth, the field to which he brought the most 
 and best in quantity and quality that he ever 
 had.] 
 
 THE question must often occur to reflect 
 ing minds: What *is the secret of human 
 success ? The proverb is almost universally 
 impressed upon the minds of youth in civil 
 ized countries that "Honesty is the best of 
 policy." Towards God it certainly is. 
 Towards men is it ? If in the latter case it 
 were not of doubtful truth another proverb 
 would not hold universally good : "Nothing 
 succeeds like success. if success were the 
 worldly test or reward of merit, virtue would 
 not ever be found upon the scaffold and 
 vice upon the throne. 
 
 " Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the 
 throne." 
 
 This ultimately resolves itself into the 
 sugar-coated pill that "Virtue is its own re 
 ward;" a recompense pretty much all that 
 it gets on earth. This result is certainly 
 very unsatisfactory and does not afford 
 wholesome food for consideration. The idea 
 of transferring the reward of merit to an 
 other world is a pretty hard system of justice 
 for those who have not a sufficient strength 
 of character which is .often the result of 
 physical defects or deficiencies to endure 
 the wrongs so eloquently set forth in Ham 
 let s soliloquy. Emperors and Popes and 
 Generals and Governors who have risen to 
 
 the highest fame and fortune have in the 
 majority of cases been more or less absolute 
 monsters of iniquity. Constantine, who or 
 ganized the Christian Church, was a crimi 
 nal of the deepest dye. Napoleon Bona 
 parte, almost deified, was a tissue of mean 
 ness, falsehood and cruelty, not possible to 
 be redeemed by even the vast ability credit 
 ed to him, but which in reality he did not 
 possess. In very fact, there is scarcely a 
 hero whose success will bear the probe or 
 touchstone of truth. What is more, if time 
 vindicates and redresses, it is very seldom 
 that good men survive to profit by the re 
 vulsion of public opinion in their favor; 
 and there is no passage in the Bible, the 
 superlative of common sense, which is so 
 suggestive of painful thought as the Verse 10 
 of Chapter xi of Revelations, where the 
 slain witnesses are represented under the 
 altar asking : "How long before judgment 
 and vengeance?" In this very country how 
 often have the honest minority beheld the 
 baser candidate elevated over the far better 
 man higher and higher to office ; and how 
 often have Generals who have saved a State 
 been superseded by men superior alone in 
 political influence, effrontery or fraud? The 
 Mortuary List of Generals who have perished 
 on the battle-field is very numerous, but its 
 startling aggregate becomes a much more 
 worthy object of contemplation when it is 
 found to comprise so many who were the 
 victims of a broken heart; that is to say, 
 the victims of ingratitude, injustice and 
 crime. 
 
 It is a painful consideration, but the list has 
 been growing larger and larger ever since 
 humanity has possessed anything like authen 
 tic annals. The presentation of striking ex 
 amples would constitute a most interesting 
 book, and the only consolation which attends 
 the contemplation is the equanimity of the 
 stoic who looks upon everything as the result 
 of "inevitable law" established at first, then 
 developed and still developing so that the very 
 divergencies which men regard as exceptions 
 are the germs of new laws destined in time 
 to produce another harvest of seed adapted 
 to other and remote conditions of the world. 
 The only present panacea for all the evils 
 which are daily witnessed is that the Supreme 
 Ruler must be just, because Almighty Power 
 and Wisdom are inconsistent with injustice. 
 It is that faith, that living hope which is al 
 most equivalent to absolute faith, which alone 
 can sustain a man who has sufficient clear 
 ness of vision to perceive and comprehend 
 the littlenesses by which men, esteemed great, 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 become so in the eyes of the multitude. It 
 might almost be safe to defy honest scrutiny 
 to point out a single individual who has risen 
 to power and fame by the unassisted force of 
 his own individual merit. Men are the crea 
 tures of circumstances without the slightest 
 power over the circumstances which make 
 and unmake them. 
 
 Among the ablest of our " Men of War," 
 our "Great Captains" grand terms if 
 properly understood the ablest and most 
 meritorious in all respects certainly did not 
 attain the prominence that their capacity 
 merited or that their services deserved. The 
 most marked example among these was un 
 doubtedly George H. Thomas; although the 
 country is gradually coming to the knowledge 
 of what a superlative soldier, general and 
 citizen he was. Another man who did not 
 enjoy the opportunity of exhibiting his full 
 force was A. A. Humphreys kept down in 
 an even greater degree by his own modesty 
 than he was prevented from rising by un 
 happy prejudices. Major General Andrew 
 Atkinson Humphreys was great as a scien 
 tific and practical engineer ; equally great as 
 a division commander ; even greater as the 
 chief of staff of the grandest army of the 
 Republic ; and greatest as the head of a 
 splendid corps, as a planner, director and 
 fighter. Well might one of our most popu 
 lar major-generals, who came near being the 
 head of the nation, declare that if he was an 
 absolute monarch and could dispose of a 
 large army he knew no one to whom he 
 would entrust its direction and leadership 
 with such perfect confidence as Humphreys. 
 On the other hand, one of the leaders of the 
 Rebellion, in many respects its Arch-magus, 
 after the four successive changes in the com 
 mand of the Army of the Potomac, observed : 
 " They have not got the right man yet, and 
 they never will have him until they appoint 
 Andrew Atkinson Humphreys." 
 
 An officer of high rank in the Rebel 
 army, who occupied a very conspicuous 
 position, a hard military student, and prac 
 tically well versed in military operations, 
 remarked in substance, that "while he looked 
 upon Hancock as the best fighter in the 
 Army of the Potomac, Humphreys was best 
 fitted to command it." 
 
 In regard to soldiers an expression is 
 sometimes used which, perhaps, is the most 
 complimentary possible, that is, styling an 
 officer a "duty-man." Wayne was certainly 
 such, and in comparing the portrayal of his 
 character and deeds with those of the hero 
 of the present sketch, a very close resemb 
 
 lance will be found ; Wayne was one, Hum 
 phreys was another duty-man. 
 
 " Humphreys leadership and soldiership 
 was the attest of a veteran observer were 
 so unobtrusive that the country was not 
 aware of what an able man it possessed in 
 him." 
 
 A Major-General himself very distin 
 guished, experienced and esteemed who 
 occupied a position which gave him the 
 amplest opportunities of judging said that 
 he "considered Humphreys, take him all in 
 all, the best General in the Army of the 
 Potomac, or best fitted to command it." 
 
 The same remark was made by other 
 prominent eyewitnesses, with the additional 
 commendation that "if Humphreys had 
 enjoyed a more influential position the 
 Northern people would have enjoyed many 
 more occasions to rejoice. This must have 
 been the case if the power of handling 
 large bodies of troops ; if rare science and 
 its test, application ; if calmness and clear 
 ness of judgment under fire ; if energy, un 
 daunted courage and self-forgetfulness in 
 view of results have any effect upon mili 
 tary operations." 
 
 Another officer, whose peculiar, varied 
 and constant service gave him unusual ad 
 vantages for judging and comparing, said a 
 very handsome thing of Humphreys. " For 
 general, as well as intimate acquaintance 
 with the country in which he (Humphreys) 
 was operating, and the troops against whom 
 he was engaged in fact, the general rela 
 tive situation of affairs, Humphreys was sec 
 ond to no other Union general." 
 
 Humphreys was wonderful in his powei 
 of seeing what had to be done and of doing 
 it promptly. He was a consummate handler 
 of troops, [out of fire and under fire] as wit 
 ness before [and amid] the culminating shock 
 on the second [THE] day of Gettysburg." 
 
 From his usual quiescent suavity, he was 
 metamorphosed into the impersonation of 
 enthusiasm in action. "General Hum 
 phreys," wrote a gallant soldier (17, 12, 72), 
 afterwards occupying an important civil posi 
 tion, "holds a place in my estimation as a 
 soldier whose skill, bravery and modesty are 
 second to none, and whose real service was 
 infinitely more valuable than that of many 
 officers more talked about in the newspapers. 
 
 "Take him all in all, soldiership, culture, 
 science, generalship, manners, lines of 
 thought, social relations, disposition, inten 
 tion and energy, friendship and affection, he 
 realized the words of another unfortunate, 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 the poet, George Brookford, singing over the 
 grave of a national hero 
 
 " The noble heart, the master mind, 
 
 The chief that knew no fear, 
 And leaves no warrior peer behind, 
 Lies, sleeping soundly, here. 
 
 When riding mid the battle s blaze, 
 
 His eye with soul afire, 
 The traitor foe stood still to gaze, 
 
 And wonder and admire." 
 
 " A high ideal of excellence," according 
 to Ram s Philosophy of War/ in any in 
 dividual involves combativeness and readi 
 ness to suffer. The great soldier, who has 
 also the brains to be a great civilian and the 
 heart of a good man, is the highest of human 
 beings. Such men have been rarely seen. 
 Alexander, in spite of the vices of his day, 
 approached this ideal. Napoleon missed it 
 through having a petty heart. There was 
 nothing petty in our hero, Humphreys ; but, 
 on the contrary, everything grand, the 
 grandest ! 
 
 It is a false but favorite idea with the 
 people of these United States that there 
 is no advantage in ancestry and birth.* 
 The ignorant, uneducated masses for the 
 masses are so, let demigods assert to the 
 contrary as often and loudly as they please 
 are so profoundly ignorant that they do not 
 remember, or know, that the term "aristoc 
 racy does not imply the might or right to 
 govern, derived through the simple advan 
 tage of birth, but signifies the rule of the 
 " best born " in all that best born signifies. 
 (See Myer s Mazzini, 23). Socrates ac 
 cording to Xenophon would say: "That 
 when the chief offices of the commonwealth 
 were lodged in the hands of a small number 
 of the most eminent citizens, it was called an 
 aristocracy." In this, (the correct sense), 
 aristocracy has nothing to do with the physi 
 cal among men, although its advantages are 
 acknowledged in horses and cattle, but the 
 best -born, through hereditary genius, the sim 
 ple bed-rock truth of one of the most mis 
 understood expressions in our language, the 
 "Survival of the Fittest," that "Heredi 
 tary Genius" is a fact, is a problem solved. 
 The direct transmission of superior qualities 
 may be open to question, but the indirect, in 
 one sense, although perfectly direct in an 
 other, is as irrefutable as that light may come 
 to us from the sun through various mediums, 
 but yet it is light, and it is the light of the 
 sun. 
 
 *See Dr. Geo. H. Naphey s chapter on "Atavism," and 
 " Inheritance of Talent and Genius," and "Sayings of the 
 fir^at and f^ood ." and "Distinction between Opinion anc 
 
 Great and Good," and 
 Truth." 
 
 Everyone who has visited that remarkable 
 urothic structure, the Church of St. Eustache, 
 n Paris, must have seen near the great door 
 a monument, which commemorates one of 
 ;he ablest and least known generals who 
 lave illustrated the history of France 
 Francois de Chevert. The inscription on it 
 las been celebrated by Mercier and is attrib 
 uted to Diderot. A portion of the inscrip 
 tion runs thus : 
 
 " He rose, in spite of envy, by the 
 
 force of merit, 
 and every promotion was purchased by a distinguished 
 
 action : 
 
 the single title of Marshal of France 
 was wanting to him not to his glory, but to the ex 
 ample of those who will take him as a 
 model for emulation." 
 
 If for the words of "Marshal of France " 
 be substituted " Commander-in-Chief of the 
 Armies of the United States," this part of 
 the inscription would be as applicable to 
 Humphreys as to Chevert. 
 
 The apologue of the Russian philosopher, 
 Tourgenieff, exhibiting the deserving poet 
 rejected by his compatriots, who triumph 
 antly crowned a fortunate rival a rival who 
 had actually stolen the former s verses is 
 equally pertinent to CHEVERT and to HUM 
 PHREYS. The latter was so great a man so 
 exceptionally great a man "because he cov- 
 ered so much space so far, in so many direc 
 tions, and because, unlike most men who 
 are distinguished in only one or two direc 
 tions, he was a wonderfully capable man in 
 a variety of directions, in scarcely one of 
 which, and at rare intervals, individuals 
 made a decided mark. 
 
 A cynical critic, although a man of ex 
 perience and study, summed up the charac 
 ter of Humphreys soon after the war, 1869, 
 as aptly as concisely, "as a fighting division 
 commander ; as a proficient in the handling 
 of a corps ; as a consummate chief-of-staff of 
 the Army of the Potomac; as an intrepid 
 gentleman ; as a faithful soldier ; and as a 
 remarkable engineer General Humphreys 
 had no superior. His survey and reports 
 upon the Mississippi will be as proud a me 
 morial of his engineering capacity as his 
 military record, beginning with the Florida 
 War, in 1836, a record which is without a 
 stain, as rich in historic deeds and services 
 as the sacred shield of Lancelot. 
 
 It is such a full and rounded life as that of 
 Humphreys which justifies the lines of Tenny 
 son, and a belief in a continuation of indi 
 viduality beyond the grave : 
 
 Though world on world, in myriad myriads roll 
 Round us, each with different powers, 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 And other forms of life than ours, 
 What know we greater than the soul ? 
 
 He is gone, who seemed so great 
 
 Gone but nothing can bereave him 
 Of the force he made his own 
 
 Being here, and we believe him 
 Something far advanced in state. 
 
 Yes ! it is a career like that of the subject of 
 this sketch that makes a "Thinker," who 
 may have doubted the Immortality of Man as 
 an invention of priestcraft, and as a delusive 
 hope, come decidedly to the conclusion 
 that Divine Wisdom is never guilty of waste, 
 and therefore there must be some utilization 
 of aggregated and perfected forces, for 
 which reasoning by analogy individuality 
 could scarcely be permitted to cease at death? 
 Major-General J. W. Phelps, U. S. V., of Ver 
 mont, arrived at the same judgment by a some 
 what different course of reasoning. He 
 thought that some men by individual force 
 and growth, petrified themselves, so to speak, 
 into a condition capable of resisting the 
 change from what is styled life into death, but 
 he considered this power very restricted in its 
 application and operation. Humphreys based 
 his faith in the individual immortality of the 
 soul upon the belief that a creation like man 
 after a long life of usefulness involving con 
 tinual improvement and accumulation of 
 various knowledge valuable to his kind, must 
 continue to exist an Ego, or else the maga 
 zine had been filled in vain, which is incon 
 sistent with the intelligence Seneca s " Uni 
 versal Reason " which formed and regulates 
 the universe. He himself was an example of 
 the truth of this idea, if ever a notable ex 
 ample did exist. A great and at the same 
 time a good man, who attained the ripest age 
 with undiminished faculties; a magnificent 
 soldier who combined the calmest intrepidity 
 with executive ability in battle ; a mind capa 
 ble of working with the nicest precision amid 
 the wildest churm of conflict under excep 
 tional circumstances of peril ; a scientist of 
 views most comprehensive and practical ; of 
 knowledge vast and developed: that "a 
 marked combination such an aggregate of 
 excellence not to be "far advanced in state," 
 after death, would infer an absurdity on the 
 part of superlative Wisdom and Power. It 
 would be equivalent to filling a store-house 
 with the most precious commodities simply 
 to destroy it and them by a sudden death, 
 catastrophe or stroke, as in the case of 
 Humphreys, or to suffer them to go to 
 waste through protracted disease, as is or 
 dinarily the case. Nature allows no such 
 destruction and knows no such waste. 
 
 The author of a very remarkable book, 
 "Sketches of Creation," truthfully observes . 
 " The blood of the thousands and hundreds 
 of thousands who fell on the hundred fierce 
 ly contested fields of the Great Rebellion, 
 and the traces of the manful struggles which 
 they waged, were all washed out by the next 
 spring s rains, while even the ripple-marks of 
 the age of Saurians, and the impression of 
 the rain-drops of the passing shower, are 
 perpetuated in all their distinctiveness 
 through ages. Mart s history is not written 
 on rocks and river shores. His monuments 
 are not foot-marks imprinted on the soil and 
 sands of earth, but achievements of moral 
 and intellectual labor, less perishable than 
 the visible records of the ancient Saurians, 
 because inwrought into the lineaments of the 
 indissoluble soul." 
 
 These too eloquent remarks are both ap 
 plicable and inapplicable to Major-General 
 Andrew Atkinson Humphreys applicable 
 in the grander and broader, inapplicable 
 in the restricted sense. It was under the 
 grander scope of vision that our hero, " a 
 scientific soldier," as he was elegantly 
 styled by Major J. M. Bundy, editor of 
 the Mail and Express, so greatly exceeds 
 in enduring reputation his peers in rank 
 and his superiors in command. "Man s 
 History," says Alexander Winchell, " [as a 
 rule] is not written on the rocks and river 
 shores." This man s (Humphrey s) is writ 
 ten on both, "on rocks and river shores." 
 In the former case "on rocks" through his 
 Explorations and Surveys for Railroads from 
 the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean, and 
 Geographical Explorations west of the Mis 
 sissippi from 1854 to 1 86 1 ; and "on river 
 shores" through the "Topographical and 
 Hydrographical Survey of the Delta of the 
 Mississippi River a voluminous report, of 
 world-wide celebrity, translated and retrans 
 lated six or seven times abroad in 1848- 51, 
 and in his "Examination of the Mississippi 
 Levees," 1865 and 1866. 
 
 What is more and better for the purpose 
 of this article, the labors of Humphreys do 
 exemplify the magnificent truth of the pre 
 ceding quotation which, for emphasis, will 
 bear repetition : " His monuments are not 
 [only] footmarks imprinted on the soil and 
 sands of earth, but achievements of moral 
 and intellectual labor, less perishable than 
 the visible records of the ancient Saurians, 
 because inwrought into the lineaments of the 
 indissoluble soul." 
 
 Humphreys resigned from the army 3oth 
 September, 1836, but demonstrated his pos- 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 session of such rare qualities, he was reap- 
 pointed 7th July, 1838, to a far better posi 
 tion. 
 
 Thus he did much better for himself by 
 resigning than if he had remained con 
 tinuously in the discharge of regular profes 
 sional routine. During the ensuing twenty- 
 two years his "Statement of Service" is a 
 continuous record of scientific triumphs, and, 
 as hereinbefore stated, his survey of the Mis 
 sissippi and calculation of the dynamics of its 
 floods the effects of inundations, the re 
 straints and remedies are to this day a 
 "bonanza " of the most precious facts, de 
 ductions and directions for every country of 
 which the scientific administrations have to 
 grapple with difficulties of a similar charac 
 ter. His publications are caskets filled with 
 
 " Pure and precious pearls of splendid thought," 
 and are recognized as of unexceeded value 
 throughout the civilized world. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say more, even, 
 when so much remains to be said, but the 
 attest of such a witness as Colonel William 
 H. Paine is worthy of citation. Colonel 
 Paine was literally the "Pathfinder" of the 
 Army of the Potomac, who did more danger 
 ous duty in exploring the difficult region of 
 Virginia, and served repeatedly with more 
 generals than any other officer in the national 
 forces. Having had so many opportunities 
 for observation and comparison, his judg 
 ment is that of an expert of the first-class. 
 He is always exuberant in his eulogies of 
 Humphreys, a praise echoed and endorsed 
 by men of every rank, who had the honor 
 and glory to serve with such a perfect speci 
 men of the real gentleman and exemplar of 
 a commander. After the war he wrote as 
 follows : " Humphreys leadership and sol 
 diership were so unobtrusive that the country 
 is not aware of what an able man he is. 
 
 There are many eminent philosophers who 
 have argued against "hereditary genius," 
 claiming that the truth of this rule is not de- 
 monstr ated by the examples of history ; but, 
 if so, Humphreys is a notable exception 
 to its falsity. His grandfather, likewise 
 wise his father, were unsurpassed naval archi 
 tects, and to the former is due the concep 
 tion of those frigates " 745 (or line of battle 
 ships) in disguise," which redeemed the 
 failures and disgraces of the American land 
 forces, by triumphs that are immortal in their 
 unexpected and extraordinary results. With 
 a preference for the army which is curious 
 in the sons of men who have distinguished 
 themselves in connection with the navy 
 
 young Humphreys elected to enter the Mili 
 tary Academy. 
 
 Here limited space renders it necessary to 
 postpone any farther consideration of the 
 military actions of General Humphreys dur 
 ing the Great American Conflict. His State 
 ments of Services must appear as a separate 
 article. They are worthy of study, because 
 he was not only a scientific but an enthusi 
 astic soldier, who literally lived another and 
 higher life amid the terrors and horrors, the 
 dangers and demands of battle. There, he 
 was indeed alive calmly, grandly, efficient 
 ly alive. Physically and morally it is true of 
 him what is narrated of Nelson, when asked 
 if on one occasion Fear had not influenced 
 his conduct, he said: "I have never met 
 Fear." In one of his letters to the writer he 
 suddenly breaks out, filled with fond memo 
 ries of the joys of battle {guadia certaminij} 
 and portrays his sensations with a vivid force 
 of language which present living pictures 
 (tableaux vivants) of scenes which he held, 
 constituted the superlative of the sublime. 
 
 * * * * # # * 
 
 The war being entirely over i8th August, 
 1866, Humphreys was made Chief-of-Engi- 
 neers, the highest and most honorable scien 
 tific position in the .country, and, in 1879, 
 having reached the legal term of active ser 
 vice, he was retired, bearing with him out of 
 office the "respect, admiration and love" 
 of every one who had had, or enjoyed, 
 private, civil, or military relations with him. 
 Having done actions worthy of Caesar in the 
 field, he took up his pen and wrote a volume 
 of commentaries entitled "The Virginian 
 Campaign of 64 and 65," published by 
 Charles Scribner s Sons in 1883, worthy to 
 rank in the same class with those of the Caesar 
 whose executive soldiership he had emulated. 
 Shortly after, a short Supplementary volume 
 was published, also by Charles Scribner s 
 Sons, supplementary to their regular series, 
 but introductory to the last and twelfth num 
 ber of it, so as to present as concisely as is 
 consistent with clearness the operations of 
 the Army of the Potomac from Gettysburg 
 to Appomattox Court House. The first mili 
 tary treatise which has survived in accord 
 ance with the inevitable law which applies 
 to all things, " The survival of the fittest," 
 is a Chinese work, bearing date B. c. 600. 
 About 275 B. c., Pyrrhus, the Frederic the 
 Great of antiquity, produced a Book on 
 Tactics " Treatise on the Art of War" 
 of which nothing much is known beyond its 
 reputation among military magnates. This 
 was extant within the time of Cicero. Just 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 9 
 
 before the Advent, Caesar s " Commen 
 taries" appeared. A second gap of over 
 800 years occurred, until the Emperor Leo 
 VI. produced a "Summary of the Military 
 Art," containing lessons which can never 
 be inapplicable. About 1361, Timour or 
 Tamerlane composed his "Commentaries of 
 the Caesar of the East" and "Institutions 
 of the Empire." Timour was a great soldier 
 and had a finely organized army, admirably 
 uniformed, strange to say, and equipped. 
 Another silence of a little more than a cen 
 tury was broken, at the West, by the "Rosier 
 de Guerres," attributed to one of the most 
 misjudged, misrepresented and maligned 
 monarchs, Louis XI. of France, who, never 
 theless, gave the first impulse to real progress 
 in national, municipal and military adminis 
 tration. Shortly after, Montluc s "Soldiers 
 Breviary was printed, which even Napoleon 
 considered worthy of citation. In the eigh 
 teenth century, Frederic the Great pub 
 lished his War Histories and "Instructions 
 for his Generals," &c., which are models in 
 many respects. Before the "Wars produced 
 by the French Revolution" had closed, von 
 Bulow, a genius, and Jomini, a man of 
 mere talent, placed before the world military 
 treatises and criticisms which need no more 
 than mention. Humphreys is in some re 
 gards " Casar redivivus ;" in others, Fred 
 eric the Great; in others, again, Jomini. 
 His Manual of War, for brevity in style, will 
 live an authority as long as an army con 
 tinues to be a national necessity. While en 
 gaged in preparing a revised and enlarged 
 edition of his Military Treatise, without a 
 visible symptom of decay, the light of his 
 life went out, instantly, without a flicker. 
 
 Such a sudden and peaceful manner of 
 death, contrary to general opinion, is by no 
 means as uncommon as is usually supposed. 
 James de Lancey, the celebrated Colonial 
 Governor of New York, died in exactly the 
 same way. My great-grandfather, who mar 
 ried his sister, has left on record that, called 
 to his side by the alarm of his illness, he 
 found on his arrival that the Governor was 
 already dead. " He sat reclining in his easy 
 chair, one leg drawn in, the other extended ; 
 his arms over the elbows so naturally that had 
 I not been apprised of it I certainly should 
 have spoken as I entered the room. 
 
 Identical in the circumstances of the 
 above was the decease of Francis W. Ed 
 monds, a member of note of the National 
 Academy of Designs. He was found seated 
 in his " easy chair near his own bed in that 
 position, dead." 
 
 Perhaps, however, a still more exact paral 
 lel is found in the case of "the illustrious 
 Nestor of the Chemical Revolution," Dr. 
 Joseph Black. 
 
 " Thus iue spin otit the thread of life to the last 
 fibre. It was his generous and manly wish that he 
 might never live to be a burden to his friends ; and 
 never was the wish more completely gratified, on the 
 26th of November, 1799, and in the seventy-first year 
 of his age, he expired without any convulsion, shock 
 or stupor to announce or retard the approach of death. 
 Being at table with his usual fare some bread, a few 
 prunes, and a measured quantity of milk diluted with 
 water, and having the cup in his hand when the last 
 stroke of the pulse was to be given, he had set it down 
 upon his knees, which were joined together, and kept 
 it steady with his hand in the manner of a person per 
 fectly at ease, and in this attitude expired, without 
 spilling a drop, and without a writhe in his counte 
 nance, as if an experiment had been required to show 
 his friends the facility with which he had departed. 
 The servant opened the door to tell him that some 
 one had left his name, but getting no answer, stepped 
 about half-way toward him, and seeing him sitting in 
 that easy posture, supporting his basin of milk with 
 one hand he thought that he had dropped to sleep, 
 which he had sometimes seen happen after his meals. 
 The man went back and shut the door, but before he 
 got down stairs, some anxiety that he could not ac 
 count for made him return and look again at his mas 
 ter. Even then he was satisfied, after coming pretty 
 near, and turned to go away, but again returned, and 
 coming quite close, found his master without life." 
 
 The following extract from a letter will 
 present the peculiar peacefulness of General 
 Humphrey s unexpected decease. Such a 
 termination of a life which had been de 
 voted to science over fifty years of the sever 
 est, and continual draughts upon the brain 
 fibres is, as stated, -not exceptional. 
 
 " The General left Washington on the ist of Au 
 gust last, (1883), taking our daughter to Utica, and 
 then went to Newport, where he intended to remain 
 until September, or later, if the weather was not too 
 warm to return. He never looked better or seemed 
 better than when he left; but knowing how the heat 
 prostrated him, and fearing it, he thought it best to 
 make the change. The summer throughout with us 
 was delightfully cool, no undue heat such as he 
 feared we would have, and which apprehension 
 caused him to leave. The summer at Newport 
 proved to be cold and disagreeable, and at the end of 
 two weeks he returned and enjoyed the comforts and 
 warmth at home. He had taken cold from being 
 subjected to the draughts of cold air in the hotel. He 
 looked and felt badly, but very soon gained in ap 
 pearance and health. On the 2ist of September he 
 left for Detroit, to bring our daughter home. She 
 had gone from Utica to Detroit with her friend to 
 pass some time with her there. On their return they 
 stopped at Niagara for one day and night. The 
 weather had changed and become very cold. He 
 again took cold, which settled in his back causing lum 
 bago, from which he suffered for some time after his 
 return. He remained for two days in bed, and it 
 seemed to have almost left him, and more from pru 
 dence, and to satisfy [his family] he remained in his 
 room for at least ten days. The doctor prescribed 
 
10 
 
 ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 the electric battery, which certainly relieved him. I 
 Frcm that time he appeared as well as he usually [ 
 did, but would say repeatedly : I do not know 
 why I should feel so weak ; but when the spring j 
 comes I will ride on horseback, and will live more j 
 in the open air. There were two things which his i 
 family noticed, and which caused them some anxiety ; j 
 but as he seemed so well and so bright, and en- I 
 joyed his meals, eating more than he generally had j 
 done, they dismissed the anxiety, thinking it was only j 
 my undue solicitude. They were these : First, I j 
 noticed at times a flushing of the face. This was un- | 
 usual, for he was generally pale. Other persons, it 
 seemed, had noticed an extreme pallor. The second j 
 thing was, he appeared to find the heat of the room j 
 oppressive, and would shut off the registers, would j 
 find his clothes oppressive and would be constantly j 
 changing them for lighter ones, so that it was re- ; 
 marked to him that his temperament was certainly 
 changing. All this was a very decided change, 
 and one which did cause anxiety, by which is meant j 
 that age at last was making its changes The weather 
 previous to that terrible nigjht had been for three or , 
 four days very cold and disagreeable, rainy, damp, ; 
 penetrating, so that he did not go out saying, I 
 feel tired, and it is so disagreeable I think I will 
 lie down and not go out, which he had done. 
 That afternoon, the 27th [December, 1883,] he came 
 from his office to sit with my daughter and myself, \ 
 coming about 4 o clock, saying, I have the lumbago 
 again ! suggested applying the battery, which was j 
 done at 5 o clock. He did not feel it as actively as I 
 he had heretofore done, so that we increased its 
 strength, but although feeling it more, it was not as 
 actively felt as heretofore, but he said it had made ! 
 him feel better. It was then nearly 6 o clock, our 
 dinner hour. The family went to dinner, which was ! 
 enjoyed much. The evening was passed in the par 
 lor, as usual, reading papers^ etc., and conversing also, | 
 when about a quarter past 10 o clock we finally left j 
 him looking over a pictorial magazine, which was j 
 rather amusing. I remarked as I left him : I have 
 opened all the registers; to which he replied : Very 
 well. He generally followed us up stairs in about 
 five or ten minutes. Finding he did not come after 
 some time, the family felt very much disposed to call 
 him, telling him that he would become so wide 
 awake if he read much longer that he would not 
 sleep, but refrained from doing so, thinking it might 
 annoy him. At a quarter of II o clock the servant | 
 came up to say the General was asleep in the parlor ; j 
 should she wake him? The reply was: Certainly, 
 wake him. A scream from the one who remained 
 down stairs to waken him, soon took me to him, to 
 find, alas, that he was no longer living. The head 
 rested on the back of the chair (a large chair), the j 
 paper had fallen to the floor. The glass (a small j 
 magnifying one) was still held in his hand, both hands 
 resting on his knees. There was no trace of pain ; 
 there had been no sound, no call, for it must have | 
 been heard, for all the doors were open. He simply ! 
 
 fell asleep, without knowing that he had done so. As 
 all warmth had fled, I suppose had we remained five 
 minutes longer with him we should have known or 
 been with him when it occurred. I gave instantly, as 
 soon as I could collect my thoughts, brandy mus 
 tard but, of course, of no avail. The spirit had fled. 
 The servant went instantly for the doctor, who soon 
 arrived, but all had been over for some time. He 
 told my son afterward, the heart was worn out and 
 had simply stopped beating, " 
 
 A Scotch essayist, whose extensive reading 
 and interesting articles in connection with 
 the military past, and especially biography, 
 make his opinions valuable, commenting on 
 the life and character of Humphreys, re 
 marked : "General Humphreys must in 
 deed have been a loss to the country and to 
 his friends. I was looking at a biography 
 of Skoboleff, translated from the Russian, 
 and it struck me that there was a certain re 
 semblance between them." Such undoubt 
 edly was the case. Humphreys was in all but 
 dandyism or display, the mannerism or 
 phantasmagoria of war, the Skoboleff of the 
 Army of the Potomac the Russian in all 
 his grandest characteristics, without any of 
 those qualities, which, like over-ornamenta 
 tion in any structure, detract from, rather 
 than add to, a truly great man. To Hum 
 phreys may be applied emphatically the fine 
 and pointed remark of Sallust concerning 
 Jugurtha : " He was, indeed, both brave in 
 action and wise in council; qualities very 
 seldom united in the same person ; precaution 
 being generally accompanied with timidity 
 and courage with rashness." 
 
 O er his dear corpse a pyramid shall rise, 
 
 Each stone a deed of duty bravely done : 
 Vast in its height and tiers of massive size, 
 
 Fnchas d with wreaths in battle nobly won, 
 Capped with the cone, his science none denies 
 
 Pure in its casing, brilliant in the sun. 
 Duty his motto : not what in men s eyes 
 
 Glitters deceptive, glory, rarely won 
 By honest merit ; as a rule the prize 
 
 Of charlatans, in courtier arts begun. 
 He served his country there his merit lies 
 
 From youth to age like Barca s famous son.* 
 
 Hannibal. 
 
 J. WATTS DE PEYSTER, 
 
 Brev. Major General, S. N. Y. 
 
 Honorary member of Diagnothian Literary Society 
 of Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 MILITARY SERVICES DURING THE "SLAVEHOLDERS REBELLION." 
 
 TAKEN DURING T 
 
 " AN Utility General." " The best of them all, 
 after all." " The only engineer officer who had go 
 not think all the time of 
 
 ahead in him and did 
 digging." A Veteran 
 World. 
 
 out of the "Slaveholders Rebellion" the 
 story of his Military Service follows the 
 same course as that of a majority of our 
 regular officers. The only fighting that he 
 saw previous to the " Great American Con 
 flict " was in the miserably mismanaged 
 Seminole War in 1836. Of suffering he 
 underwent a sufficiency. Disgusted, he re 
 signed 3oth September, 1836. For about 
 two years he was a Civil Engineer in the U. 
 S. service. On the yth July, 1838, he was 
 re-appointed in the U. S. Army as ist 
 Lieutenant in the corps of Topographical 
 Engineers. Of the next twenty-three years 
 each one was illustrated by some distin 
 guished engineering achievement which won 
 for him a reputation at home only exceeded 
 by that which he acquired abroad. 
 
 When the "Slaveholders Rebellion" 
 broke out he was viewed with disfavor by 
 the administration. He had been very inti 
 mate with the rebel president, Jefferson Davis, 
 and others who rose to high political and 
 military positions at the South. The same 
 
 leer of the A ew and Old \ absurd suspicion which militated against 
 I George H. Thomas on account of his hav- 
 You have always told me truth truth I could j ing been born in Virginia, was even more 
 
 not obtain through any other channel." Emperor 
 Alexander to Gen. Sir Robert Wilson, 1812. 
 
 " If not in Poetry, at least in Fact, 
 
 And FACT is TRUTH, the great desideratum." 
 
 " All that a citizen could be I was ; 
 Raised by thy [his country s] will, all thine in Peace 
 and War." Byron. 
 
 " More moderate gifts might have prolonged his 
 date." 
 
 " I d show you 
 
 How easy tis to die by my example, 
 
 And hansel Fate before you." Dry den. 
 
 General Humphreys was born 2d Novem 
 ber, 1810, and was graduated at the U. S 
 Military Academy, West Point, ist July, 
 1831. From that date until the breaking 
 
 injurious to Humphreys on account of his 
 previous social relations which in a great 
 measure grew naturally out of his long term 
 of engineering duties at the South. Even 
 his astonishing feat of arms, his intrepidity 
 and devotion at Fredericksburg, i3th De 
 cember, 1862, did not relieve him from the 
 odium of his prior accidental intimacies. It 
 was not until he had again shown his super 
 lative patriotism and manifested his hold upon 
 his troops and his power of handling them upon 
 the battle-field, to the admiration of the whole 
 army, at Gettysburg, that he was made a 
 Major General of Volunteers, 8th July, 
 1863. At that time he was outranked by 
 officers of whom the great majority were 
 
12 
 
 ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 not only vastly inferior to him in every 
 characteristic of a great soldier, but as in 
 capable as the politicians of entertaining 
 even the faintest estimate of his abilities. 
 
 Resuming in proper order his rise in active 
 service, he was, as late as the 5th March, 1862, 
 simply a Major of Topographical Engineers 
 on the staff of the General-in-Chief, that is 
 even seven months after the first battle of 
 Bull Run, when the impending perils of the 
 country had developed themselves in all 
 their vastness and when thousands of men 
 with neither experience, capacity nor prepa 
 ration were permitted to assume far more 
 important duties than were entrusted to 
 Humphreys. He accompanied McClellan 
 to the Peninsula as Chief Topographical En 
 gineer with the rank of Colonel, and it was 
 only on the 28th April, 1862. he became 
 Brigadier General of Volunteers. He was 
 opposed to the "round-about raid;" the 
 James river plan of McClellan, and is 
 known to have urged the Urbanna route, so 
 styled, if such a course was to be pursued. 
 To those who have no maps it might be well 
 to state that Urbanna is on the south bank 
 of the Rappahannock, near its mouth. It 
 is hard to perceive its advantages in the 
 light of our present knowledge, but with 
 such a magnificent army as McClellan com 
 manded, the overland route was the best, if 
 the campaign had commenced when it 
 should have begun during the good weather 
 of the Fall of 1862. With a leader of Mc 
 Clellan s views any route was perhaps of 
 equal advantage. Humphreys was a fighter 
 with the same texture of thought and mode of 
 action as Anthony Wayne. Would that there 
 had been more like him ! 
 
 He first shone on Malvern Hill. The 
 posting of our troops on that field, ist July, 
 1863, was, as a whole, entrusted to Hum 
 phreys and the duty was well performed. 
 There the army gained a grand victory which 
 its leader threw away ; without any fault of his 
 " Sergeant-Major of Battle " who had dis 
 posed and arranged the majority of the 
 troops. The posting of the minority by an 
 other cost unnecessary fighting. 
 
 Just previous to Antietam, Humphreys 
 was transferred from staff duty to the com 
 mand of a division of new troops at Wash 
 ington, a change he had long and ardently 
 desired. With these, on the night prior to 
 the battle, iyth September, 1862, he made a 
 forced march, remarkable for its energy and 
 expedition, spurred by the lively hope of 
 being up in time to participate in the great 
 battle impending. With all his ardor and 
 
 alacrity he was too late ; no fault of his. On 
 the i6th and zyth October he made a recon- 
 noissance up the Shenandoah Valley to 
 Kerneysville, Leetown and Smithfield, which 
 was one of the most remarkably effective of 
 the war. For this he was highly praised. 
 
 The fighting had then been going on 
 East, West, or South, almost continuously 
 for over nineteen months, and Humphreys 
 had had no chance. He was now to have 
 an opportunity to exhibit himself in the full 
 splendor of his courage and leadership, and 
 he improved it. With the Third division of 
 the Fifth corps, he was ordered to storm the 
 Rebel fortifications and position at Marye s 
 Heights. It is said that "in war and poli 
 tics peril is the twin of security." In this 
 case the maxim was to prove fallacious. To 
 anything but Fortune, favoring extraordinary 
 valor, the Rebel positions were impregnable. 
 The valor was displayed, but Fortune did not 
 smile even faintly ; she rather frowned dark 
 ly. This was on the evening of the First 
 Battle of Fredericksburg, i3th December, 
 1862. The first attempt was made by 
 French with the Third Division of the 
 Second Corps. It was equivalent to the 
 effort of a Forlorn Hope on a very large 
 scale. French carried his front to within 
 about 100 feet of the Ha ! Ha! stone-wall 
 which served as a scarp to the Rebel line of 
 defence. He had to fall back, leaving behind 
 him about half his command. Hancock, 
 with the First Division, Second Corps, re 
 peated the mad adventure. He, too, was 
 driven back, having sacrificed about two- 
 fifths of his effectives in .that "evil quarter 
 of an hour." He had the trifling consola 
 tion that his dead and wounded lay some 25 
 or 30 feet nearer to the enemy than those of 
 French. 
 
 Then Humphreys was put in. His division, 
 like the third breaker upon a beach, left its 
 traces of blood and wrecks a few paces fur 
 ther on, and nearer to the enemy than the 
 preceding two, lingered longer, strove harder 
 to maintain itself so far, and to accomplish 
 the impossible. Finally it withdrew, sing 
 ing in chorus, to show that although shat 
 tered physically, morally its spirits were un 
 shaken. His charge will yet be blazoned 
 forth in history as one of the noblest efforts 
 of Northern resolution, or, as he expressed 
 it, one of Kearny s exhibitions of valor 
 " magnificent." 
 
 "Two horses were shot under the intrepid leader 
 [Humphreys], who hastily mounted a third, and con 
 tinued to ride about amid the rain of missiles, bear 
 ing a charmed life ; his clothing was pierced and rent, 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 13 
 
 but his person was unhurt. Every officer of his staff 
 but one, his son, was dismounted, and his horse was 
 badly wounded. In vain Humphreys endeavored to 
 halt his men as they turned slowly backward. In vain 
 did he endeavor to remedy the disorder occasioned 
 by the troops lying down whom [the divisions pre 
 viously put in] he had been sent to support; in vain 
 did he endeavor to induce them to rise and join in 
 the charge, and with some bitterness he subsequently 
 wrote that had they been "withdrawn before he moved 
 forward a different restilt "would have folloTved. 
 f^jlj 1 * Indeed, so near was he to carrying the wall and 
 heights that the enemy were actually moving their 
 guns out of the batteries, and on the right they were 
 beginning to quit the wall^"^^^, Letter of Humph 
 reys to William Swinton, May 10, 1866, ut stipra. 
 
 While this slaughter was going on, the 
 Rebels, perfectly sheltered, were heard to cry 
 out, " Come on, Yanks ; if you don t mind 
 it, it doesn t hurt us." Afterwards on the 
 second day of Gettysburg, the Rebels assault 
 ing on the Union right near the cemetery, 
 exclaimed, " The Yanks have got us this 
 time ; this is like their hopeless charge on 
 Marye s Heights at Fredericksburg. " 
 
 Here it is impossible to refrain from a few 
 observations. The European world sounds 
 and re-sounds, echoes and re-echoes with 
 plaudits for the Rebel grand charge on the 
 third day of Gettysburg. Such excessive, 
 applause is unjust to many similar exhibitions 
 of Union determination. The assaults of 
 French and of Hancock, but particularly of 
 HUMPHREYS, were much more desperately 
 brilliant ; likewise the Union assault by the 
 troops of Thomas on Bragg s centre on 
 Mission Ridge at Chattanooga ; likewise the 
 capture of the Rebel bridge-head at Rappa- 
 hannock Station ; likewise the triumphant 
 storm at the Spottsylvania Death Angle, 
 which by writers generally is attributed to 
 the effects of a surprise, whereas the Rebel 
 General, Johnson, " states emphatically that he 
 was not surprised, that his division was ready 
 in the trenches before the assaulting force 
 made it appearance," cScc. (Humphreys, 95.) 
 If time and space permitted, example might 
 be added to example. What is more, the 
 Rebel assault in dense column upon the 
 Union batteries at Charles City Cross Roads, 
 2 Qth June, 1862, and upon the Union works 
 at Corinth, were fully as fine exhibitions of 
 pluck as that of Pickett s division. Foreign 
 applause for the Rebels is all well enough. 
 Emperors, kings, kinglings, and aristocracy 
 abroad hated us because they were greedily 
 looking forward to our ruin. To them the 
 Northerners were "Mud-sills" and the 
 Southerners "chivalry." The glamour of 
 this factitious renown is due in a great meas 
 ure to the first important history that ap 
 peared, which purported, by title, to be 
 
 one thing and in spirit was another thing, 
 altogether. Then comes in that inexplica 
 ble subserviency to Southern assumption. 
 Why should the North glorify the South 
 that never glorifies it? It is very doubtful if 
 there was ever a man born South under the 
 influence of slavery that is, one who could 
 stand it and stay there and not come out of 
 it who could ever perceive the truth (that is 
 "our rights," without regard to the rights of 
 others), through the atmosphere of his inter 
 ests, his prejudices and his passions, or do 
 justice to the North when it clashed with 
 them. Let us hurrah for our own people 
 and applaud their greatness and goodness, 
 and let the South hurrah for themselves. 
 Judging from the past they will do enough 
 of it. While I live I will avouch that our 
 people behaved as bravely and accomplished 
 as much as any people under similar circuin- 
 stances on the face of the earth. 
 
 At Chancellorsville, 24th May, 1863, 
 Humphreys, with his Third Division, Fifth 
 Corps, held the extreme left of the Army of 
 the Potomac under, or rather with, Hooker. 
 His duty was simply that which Milton de 
 scribes in the famous line of his sonnet XIX 
 on his blindness : 
 
 " They also serve who only stand and wait." 
 
 Humphreys realized a great many of Mil 
 ton s truisms that day. 
 
 " The paradise of fools to few unknown." 
 
 " My sentence is for open war." 
 
 "The hell within him;" 
 
 "All hell broke loose." [On our right]. 
 
 He often related how he suffered for want of 
 food (in the Wilderness at Chancellorsville), 
 and how delicious something tasted which 
 turned up at the right moment. That he 
 did not do something "elegant " was no fault 
 of his, but of his immediate superiors and 
 the generals in chief command. If ever op 
 portunities were wasted it was on this field 
 Firstly Friday, April 3oth, p. M., when the 
 Fifth Corps pushed forward almost to Bank s 
 Ford. The withdrawal of our troops on that 
 day was one of the mistakes in war which seem 
 utterly inexplicable. It was actually worse 
 than neutralizing the brilliant results of the 
 preceding magnificent initiative. Another 
 chance lost was when Stuart advanced to 
 attack Sickles at Hazel Grove and openly 
 and persistently exposed his right flank to 
 Meade and Reynolds. Mars and Bellona, 
 god and goddess of war ! What a chance 
 was there for the Fifth and First Corps ! 
 Webb, with Meade, saw it and groaned over 
 it then and since. Again, when Sedgwick 
 had advanced to Salem Church, why was he 
 
14 
 
 ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 not reinforced or supported by attacks else 
 where ? Oh ! Oh ! Oh ! and all these corps 
 commanders are held by the people as great 
 generals. 
 
 Humphrey was very severe on Hooker. 
 I never agreed with him in the extent of 
 his condemnation. After Hooker was 
 knocked over senseless, those next in rank 
 were as much, if not more, to blame. 
 
 The judgment of the world has been very 
 cruel upon Hooker. Sir Robert Wilson, 
 Bart, in his " Narrative of Events during 
 the Invasion of Russia " by Napoleon Bona 
 parte, (1812,) whom he detested, is much 
 more generous. Speaking of the "Action 
 before Loubino," August, 1812, (page 96) 
 he observes : " The French historians affirm 
 that Napoleon himself was not on this occa 
 sion so stirring, decided, and judicious as 
 usual ; but genius, and aspirations which cre 
 ate and feed the excitement of the hero as well 
 as of the poet, must occasionally slumber, for 
 they animate but a mortal frame, subject to 
 lassitude, internal derangement, and decay. 
 As Lieut. Gen. Sir Robert Wilson, B. A., 
 said of Barclay de Tolly, in 1812, "He was 
 a brave soldier and a good officer, but not a 
 captain with a master-mind equal to the need. 
 Most true and sympathetically manly. 
 
 The march of the Army of the Potomac 
 from Chancellorsville to Gettysburg in June, 
 1863, was one of the most severe which it 
 was ever called upon to make. It fell with 
 extra severity upon the Third Corps, to 
 which Humphreys had been transferred 
 after the former battle and upon the division 
 to which he had been assigned. He now 
 commanded the Second Division in place of 
 the gallant Berry, killed on the 2d May. 
 There are some very curious, nay interesting, 
 if not romantic, incidents connected with 
 the march of Humphreys to the field of 
 Gettysburg on the night of the ist and 2d 
 July. He actually got up, undiscovered, 
 within a few yards of batteries on the left of 
 the Rebel army on the ridge overlooking the 
 Black Horse tavern on Marsh Creek. It was 
 a moonlight night. A sudden attack in this 
 quarter might have inflicted a terrible shock 
 upon Lee. God knows best and all is for 
 the best. He intended that the Rebels 
 should receive a crashing defeat on the en 
 suing days, whereas a partial night attack 
 might have simply compelled the Rebels to 
 shift their battle-ground have " tumbled 
 them out " of a weak into a strong position. 
 Within 24 hours they were reinforced with 
 their best troops. Then, if a battle was to 
 occur, Meade might have had to attack, and 
 
 all the advantages would have been with the 
 Rebels. In the development of the inevita 
 ble decree of God, it seemed as if the war 
 was to be protracted until the veterans of 
 Rebeldom were destroyed and its power for 
 mischief ended until "the cradle and the 
 grave were robbed of their last available 
 " food for the cannon," just as there was no 
 hope of peace for Europe, until the "hordes 
 of disciplined savages" with which the ac 
 cursed despot Napoleon had made his wars, 
 maintained war, had perished in Russia. 
 The miracles of the Supreme Ruler always 
 appear to have been effected by law, through 
 natural means, and though " His mills 
 grind slowly," they eventually " grind ex 
 ceedingly small." In assaulting as he did, 
 but particularly: on the 3rd, Lee seemed to 
 have become insane and "whom the gods 
 would destroy they first make mad." 
 
 However, this is not a regular military 
 criticism, and speculation upon the " ifs " 
 and the "whys" is without utility here. 
 Humphreys was a " duty man." Undiscov 
 ered, in obedience to precise orders, he re 
 traced his steps and countermarched to take 
 up a position on the left of the Union Army, 
 where he was to assist in the great battle of 
 next day, 2nd July, THE DAY, on which he 
 played so distinguished a part. 
 
 In regard to Gettysburg, General Hum 
 phreys, in his Address at the Meade Memo 
 rial Meeting, Philadelphia, i8th November, 
 1872, makes this criticism : "You all know 
 how the battle on the second day went on, 
 and that the hat dest fighting of the three days 
 of battle took place on it, [especially that done 
 by Humphreys division]. Lee attacked our 
 left with Longstreet s corps and part of 
 Hill s, under the cover of woods which con 
 cealed their approach, and a long-continued, 
 desperate struggle ensued, lasting from half- 
 past four until seven o clock, in which we 
 lost the advanced part of the ground we had 
 taken up ; but the main position remained 
 intact." 
 
 It was this same battle drew from Hum 
 phreys pen the following remarks, in the same 
 address, which develop fully how strong in 
 him were the instincts of a warrior : "Of all 
 the sublime sights within the view and com 
 prehension of man, the grandest, the most 
 sublime is a great battle. Its sights and 
 sounds arouse a feeling of exaltation, com 
 pared to which, tame indeed is the sense of 
 the sublime excited by all other great works, 
 either of God or man. No grander sight was 
 seen throughout the war than this great bat- 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 15- 
 
 tie between two brave, well disciplined and 
 ably commanded armies." 
 
 Before quitting the subject of Gettysburg, 
 it may be justifiable to remark that I do not 
 believe that any one living outside of his 
 own family was more intimate with Hum 
 phreys than myself. Ever since the battle 
 there has been a furious controversy between 
 the friends of Sickles and of Meade as to 
 the action of the former and its influence 
 upon the result. No expression, to remem 
 brance, ever fell from the lips of Humphreys 
 reflecting upon Sickles, and he always re 
 marked that while he was willing to serve 
 under that officer, nothing would induce 
 him to remain in a position subordinate to 
 any who were likely to succeed him, Birney 
 particularly. Therefore. Sickles being se 
 verely wounded and not likely to return, 
 although Humphreys had an intense desire to 
 remain in the active command of troops, he 
 determined to accept the position of Chief 
 of Staff to Meade, and, as such, he contin 
 ued with him so long, because he could not 
 get a command such as he thought due to 
 himself. 
 
 When Grant became Lieutenant-General 
 and assumed the immediate supervision of 
 the Army of the Potomac, and the reduction 
 of the number of the corps and their consoli 
 dation was broached, Humphreys was op 
 posed to it for many reasons, but particu 
 larly on the same grounds for which Lee pre 
 ferred organizations which were equiva 
 lent to small corps in his army, because 
 they were more manageable or handy, 
 and better adapted to a wooded country like 
 Virginia, where immediate command or 
 even supervision was so difficult and limited 
 in extent. Meade gave Humphreys to under 
 stand that even if the corps were to continue 
 as they were, small and compact, acclimated 
 to the severest service, annealed, so to speak, 
 he, Humphreys, would not get one of them 
 under any circumstances. That is the sole 
 reason that Humphreys remained so long 
 with Meade as Chief of Staff. As soon as he 
 could get away he did so, but it was not until 
 24th November, 1864, when he succeeded 
 Hancock in the command of the combined 
 Second-Third Corps. He always gave me to 
 understand that Meade had not done him 
 due justice ; that the whole burthen of the 
 direction, except general expressions, had 
 rested with him for sixteen months, and the 
 people had no idea of the strain he had un 
 dergone or the work he had done. On 
 reading what might be styled his Obituary 
 Address upon Meade, the effect was aston- 
 
 shment. All Meade s offences were con 
 doned, and when Humphreys two books 
 came out, the astonishment was still greater. 
 To one who knew the very inward workings 
 of the soul of Humphreys there was only one 
 solution. In action he was one of the most 
 decided of men, and his indignation often 
 flamed up. On the other hand, in calmer moods 
 ic was one of the gentlest of men mag 
 nanimity itself. This dual nature is the only 
 explanation of his views as expressed at dif 
 ferent times. I know that in one engage 
 ment an officer of high rank behaved very 
 badly. When Humphreys wrote his report 
 lie denounced him in the strongest lan 
 guage. When the report was made public 
 everything severe had been expunged. On 
 another occasion an officer of high rank dis 
 obeyed him and was immediately superseded. 
 In his published report there was scarcely 
 any, if any, reference to the matter. There 
 could have been no reason for this but mag 
 nanimity, because Humphreys did not fear 
 the face of clay, and it is questionable if he- 
 took anything else into account. 
 
 During what Mr. Swinton styles a " Cam- 
 paign of Manoeuvres," that is, the operations 
 of the fall or autumn of 1863 and winter of 
 1863-64, Humphreys must have been bitterly 
 exercised in soul. He always maintained 
 that, during this period he had three or four 
 chances to make a splendid reputation, and 
 that if his plans had been followed Lee would 
 have been severely handled if not utterly de 
 feated. In the first case, Meade listened to 
 bad advice, but finally yielded to the coun 
 sel of Humphreys. The latter issued orders 
 which, if they had been followed, would 
 have enabled the Army of the Potomac to 
 deliver exactly such blows against the Army 
 of Northern Virginia as those which Napo 
 leon struck with such terrible success against 
 Blucher s Army of Silesia at Champ-Aubert,. 
 Montmirail and Vaux-Champs, three princi 
 pal successes, but in reality five, on the loth, 
 nth and 12 February, 1814, and sent it 
 reeling and writhing and whirling, but still 
 struggling desperately and nobly, back 
 whence it had started, to Chalons on the 
 Marne. 
 
 Humphreys used to wring his hands meta 
 phorically in relating how he had provided 
 against every contingency, and for insuring 
 success sent aides and messengers to enjoin 
 obedience ; and, then at the critical moment 
 and point on which everything turned, he was 
 disobeyed and failure followed. 
 
 The next occasion lost was at Mine Run. 
 Humphreys declared that if he had been 
 
16 
 
 ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 clothed with sufficient power after Mine Run 
 he would have shot those who had been the 
 principal causes of the failure of his unex 
 ceptional plan for the campaign or opera 
 tion. 
 
 On the third occasion Humphreys was even 
 more disheartened. Meade was absent. 
 Humphreys had learned that Lee s forces 
 were very much dislocated and open to sur 
 prise. He at once drew up a plan which he 
 felt, if it was instantly carried into execution, 
 would be glorious for the country, triumphant 
 for the army, and bring renown to him. But 
 ler was to make a simultaneous movement 
 up the Peninsula to distract Lee s attention. 
 Humphreys hastened to the general who com 
 manded in the absence of Meade, submitted 
 his plans, with his orders all digested and 
 prepared for the necessary movement of the 
 occasion. "Wait till Meade gets back." 
 When Meade got back it was too late. 
 "Crushed again!" thought Humphreys, as 
 Lady Jane remarks in "Patience;" "crush 
 ed again !" 
 
 NOTE. All just and intelligible allusions to this plan 
 of Humphreys seem wanting in general history. Col. 
 Fletcher, B. A., refers to it as follows : 
 
 " Pending the concentration of the great armies, an 
 attempt was made by a coup de main to obtain posses 
 sion, if only temporary, of the city, for whose capture 
 so many thousand lives had already been sacrificed. 
 A scheme was devised by which, whilst the attention 
 of General Lee was engaged in watching a feint of 
 the army of the Rapidan, General Butler, in command 
 of the forces at Yorktown, strengthened by reinforce 
 ments from Charleston, should surprise Richmond, 
 release the prisoners confined in the Libby Prison, and 
 thus, whilst settling the difficulties of the exchange, 
 should accomplish a deed attempted in vain by so 
 many able commanders. The expedition, as might 
 have been expected, failed ; on the 5th of February, 
 General Sedgwick, in temporary command of the 
 Army of the Potomac, made a reconnaissance across 
 the Rapidan ; but finding the enemy well prepared to 
 receive him, returned after inflicting and sustaining 
 some slight loss." History of the American War, by 
 Lieut. -Colonel Fletcher; Scots Fusilier Guards, Vol. 
 iii; Third and Fourth Years of the War (Concluding 
 Volume); London : Richard Bentley, New Burlington 
 Street. Published in Ordinary to her Majesty, 1866. 
 Pages 185-6. 
 
 The fourth opportunity lost was when 
 Kilpatrick failed to go into Richmond, 
 Tuesday, ist March, 1864. Humphreys is 
 emphatic here in his Gettysburg to the 
 Rapidan," 77-78 ; the only force opposed to 
 him [Kilpatrick] was 500 men with six field 
 guns, and had he made a determined charge, 
 he would have taken Richmond and accom 
 plished the object of his expedition," not 
 least of which was the liberation of our dis 
 tressed fellow-citizens, prisoners on that ac 
 cursed Belle Island and in Libby. " Consid 
 
 ering the circumstances under which he was 
 before Richmond, it was incumbent upon 
 him [Kilpatrick] to have dismounted his 
 command, and to have led it in person in 
 an assault upon the entrenchments." 
 
 It is useless to attempt to go into any de 
 tails of the Overland or Wilderness Campaign, 
 or Siege of Petersburg, commencing 3d~5th 
 May, 1864. The masses have elected to be 
 lieve that as generals, Alexander, Hannibal, 
 Caesar, Frederic, and even Napoleon, were 
 fools to Grant and Lee. A great many close 
 observers, deep readers, and acute judges do 
 not believe any such thing. Sherman s ad 
 vance to Atlanta was much better managed, 
 than the "bloody sap," styled the Wilder 
 ness campaign ; but then Sherman had 
 Thomas with him (using the latter s expres- 
 ssion to me) "to serve as a balance-wheel." 
 
 If anything was well done, it was due to 
 Humphreys energy and accuracy. One of 
 the bravest and most truthful of men at 
 tached to headquarters, who kept a diary, 
 said that Grant expressed to Meade what he 
 wanted done in the concisest terms, and this 
 Meade transmitted to Humphreys. Humph 
 reys says he drew up every order for the 
 movements of that vast army under the most 
 difficult and aggravating* circumstances. 
 Humphreys reveals, reading between the lines, 
 that Lee overestimated as the man always 
 is W as nevertheless always beforehand with 
 Grant, and more than a match for him, and 
 that Grant won all that he did win with a 
 prodigal waste of blood in which the country 
 seemed willing to acquiesce, and to have its 
 soldiers perish so that another billion was 
 saved. Moreau and Kleber styled Napoleon 
 " a general at six thousand (or ten thousand) 
 lives a day." Apply that arithmetic to the 
 Wilderness Campaign. People in office dare 
 not speak out. 
 
 Simplicity in war is sometimes sublime, 
 but it is not the " sane fa simplicitas" big 
 oted weakness of intellect, as the term was 
 used by John Huss in regard to the old wo 
 man who helped to burn him and by Sir 
 Hudson Lowe as to Napoleon s movements 
 at Waterloo. 
 
 On several questions General Humphreys 
 and I had long,-often-reapeated and very lively 
 discussions. I always held, and still hold", 
 that when Grant crossed the Rapidan to in 
 augurate the Wilderness Campaign, he ought 
 
 *When Humphreys " Virginia Campaign of 1864-5" a P- 
 peared he sent a copy to Grant, which was never acknowl 
 edged, and in his " Personal Memoirs," Grant (whoscarcely 
 mentions (only four times and one paragraph, 1,255-6) his 
 fortune-maker, Rawlins) classes Humphreys unequally and 
 damns him with the faintest praise, considering the ser 
 vices he rendered. 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 17 
 
 to have turned Lee s position by a flank move 
 ment to the right. Humphreys discusses the 
 same matter at pages 9-10 of his Virginia 
 Campaigns of 64- 65." It is impossible to 
 enter upon a critical discussion without 
 maps, but any map will show the positions of 
 Gordonsville and Charlotteville, the import 
 ance of which in regard to an advance upon 
 Richmond, General Kearny saw in 1861. It 
 is admitted that the Union Army could 
 carry fifteen days supplies in its wagon- 
 trains, and within that space of time how 
 many bloody battles were fought on the other 
 line selected by Grant? At page 17 the 
 strength of the Rebel army is given at 61,- 
 953, and at pages 13-14 Grant s Army of the 
 Potomac given at 99,438, besides the Ninth 
 Corps which, de facto, belonged to it and was 
 about 22, ooo men, (14, note) making an ag 
 gregate of say 121,000. These were about 
 the relative forces under Sherman and 
 Thomas, 100,000 ; and those under John 
 ston, 55,000, on the Atlanta Line, ist May, 
 1864. There the course followed, was to 
 hold with a force sufficiently strong to be 
 able to take care of itself, and flank with a 
 force equally able to take care of itself on an 
 emergency. I have discussed this matter 
 with a number of Regular officers. General 
 Thomas told me that if General Sherman 
 had allowed him instead of McPherson to 
 make the Snake Creek Gap movement, yth 
 May, that campaign would have ended al 
 most as soon as it began, /. e., the very next 
 day, with the annihilation, or rather, perhaps, 
 dispersion of Johnston s army, and capture 
 of its material of every kind. Humphreys, 
 arguing in favor of Grant, admits that to 
 move by the Union right flank would take 
 us through a more open and cultivated 
 country, and thai is just where the Union 
 troops always had the Rebels. Moving by 
 the Union left was plunging into the Wild 
 erness, literally, and there we lost all the ad 
 vantages of our numbers and gave every ad 
 vantage to the enemy. Turn to the battle- 
 plans of Hohenlinden, and there is an ana 
 logous case. Moreau s lieutenants, especial 
 ly Richepanse, struck the Austrians very 
 much as the Rebels struck Grant. Again, in 
 the course of the operations of the loth, 
 nth, 1 2th February, already alluded to 
 which redeemed Napoleon s madness anc 
 blunders in 1814, the very same strategy 
 grand tactics and tactics which inflicted such 
 terrible losses on the Army of Silesia were 
 similar to Lee s principles of action at the 
 beginning of the Wilderness fights. The 
 movement by our right would have been 
 
 icross the shallower and narrower headwaters 
 >f the streams which proved such obstruc- 
 ions on the other line, nor was the country 
 filled in that direction with defensive works, 
 f Lee, alarmed, did not stand fast to fight a 
 battle, but fell back on Richmond, the dis- 
 ance between the Rapidan on our right was 
 not greater than from Fredericksburg on our 
 eft. If Lee accepted battle immediately 
 oward Charlotteville, as he did in the Wild 
 erness, fifteen days supplies were amply suf 
 ficient for our army. There are a great 
 many who think that the Wilderness cam 
 paign was a blunder, a bloody blunder, and 
 t looked very much like it, and the more it 
 s examined in the light of subsequent events, 
 the more- so it appears. Reading Humph 
 reys book between the lines, the text makes 
 the fact absolutely clear that Lee saw through 
 rant s moves, and was always up in time, if 
 not beforehand, with him. We did a bril- 
 L iant thing at the Spottsylvania death-angle, 
 Because there were grounds somewhat open. 
 It would have been altogether more open on 
 the right flank route, and the Army of the 
 Potomac always had the Rebels sure, when 
 they caught them in the open. With Rebel 
 assumption of their superiority to the Union 
 troops in fighting qualities, there is hardly a 
 doubt that Lee would have given or accepted 
 battle. If he had hesitated his Hotspurs and 
 "yellow-jackets" would have pressed it. In 
 fact, Humphreys publicly declared i8th 
 November, 1872, it was the conviction of 
 the Army of Northern Virginia that it could 
 beat the Army of the Potomac wherever it 
 found it. In a pitched battle, immediately, 
 and in an open country, with Grant in com 
 mand, who would have fought it out to the 
 bitter end, superiority of numbers and artil 
 lery must have told, and all things being equal 
 then and there would have ended the exis 
 tence of the Army of Northern Virginia. 
 
 I have heard able and patriotic Regular 
 generals who had been severely under fire, 
 criticise that campaign in a way that would 
 have done good to the heart of any real mil 
 itary critic like the Archduke Charles, von 
 Bulow, or Jomini. The real manipulation 
 of the Army of the Potomac, as far as de 
 pended on the reduction of orders for sixteen 
 months, must be credited to Humphreys. 
 As far as healthily digested orders influence, 
 all the credit was his. 
 
 Before Petersburg the combined 2d-3d 
 Corps, whether under Hancock or Birney, 
 as the policemen sing in the " Pirates of Pen- 
 zance, " " did not have a happy time. They 
 did have a happy time after Humphreys took 
 
18 
 
 ANDREW ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 command, and afterwards they were a very 
 strong quantity in the equation which set 
 tled the fate of Lee. The inside story of 
 the "how" and the "why" and the 
 "when" of the " VENIT SUMMA DIES" of 
 the evacuation of Petersburg and the cap 
 ture of Richmond has never been told. 
 Seli-interest and moral timidity keep a great 
 many mouths shut and pens in the racks. 
 
 In turning of key which opened the 
 Rebel lock in the direction of Five Forks, 
 that is on our left, Humphreys exerted 
 strength and ability. He saw clearly what 
 ought to be done. So did Sheridan, who has 
 a mighty clear head, and not only knows how 
 to deliver a body-blow, but is one who can 
 put it in with terrible effect. 
 
 Once launched in pursuit of Lee, Hum 
 phreys played the most important part. Be 
 tween the 24th November, 1864, and the 9th 
 April, 1865, about four and one-half months, 
 was all the time that was accorded to Hum 
 phreys while he was Corps Commander to 
 show to the world what was in him, and in 
 this short time he proved that it was. Yes, 
 perhaps all that was necessary to exhibit his 
 perfect capacity for command of troops was 
 the last two weeks of the fighting. Napoleon 
 made Generals, Princes and Marshals for less 
 than Humphreys accomplished during that 
 short period. 
 
 As Parton says, with by far less reason 
 {127) of Aaron Burr, was eminently true of 
 Humphreys: "If he had been as much in 
 the eye of Napoleon as he was in Washing 
 ton s, the Emperor would have made a 
 Marshal of him, and he would have shared 
 with Napoleon his splendid immortality." 
 
 High-for-Newton as regards its object. 
 Let us look into it, however, if true, as it 
 manifestly is, in the case of Humphreys. 
 
 The day will come when true military crit 
 icism will judge correctly of the retreat of 
 Lee and the pursuit of Grant. Neither [de 
 served the praise lavished upon them. That 
 Grant ever overtook Lee at all was entirely 
 owing to Lee s unnecessary delays and inde 
 cision. The Rebel troops did all that men 
 could do. The leader in ability was not 
 worthy of them. As I said in my remarks 
 on "Bridging and Fording," in connection 
 with the fight at Cumberland Church, 
 .g^ one thing is certain, the Rebels, during 
 the retreat from Petersburg were never stam 
 peded. Stupid from want of sleep, beat out 
 through fatigue, exhausted from want of food, 
 staggered by constant driving and defeat at 
 every stand they may have been but stam 
 peded, never, "^g Wonderful, wonderful 
 
 breed of men ! How they fought ; although 
 they recognized from the first, as they said 
 to me, more than once, near the field of Chan- 
 cellorsville, "We knew it was the rich man s 
 war and the poor man s fight." The Rebel 
 civil and military administrative functionaries 
 were still more to blame ; in fact, in some 
 respects, altogether to blame. If Lee had 
 found provisions at Amelia Court House, 
 and kept moving, the pursued would have 
 distanced the pursuers. 
 
 When Lee evacuated Petersburg, circum 
 stances were very much the same as after 
 Ligny in 1815. Like the Rebels here, the 
 Prussians there, had been defeated and 
 "trundled out" of their positions, worsted 
 but not demoralized. They retreated ; the 
 night swallowed up all traces of them, and 
 Napoleon was at a loss to know what route 
 they had taken. It was exactly so in 1865. 
 At Jetersville, three days after the evacuation 
 of Petersburg-Richmond, Sheridan expected 
 to be attacked by Lee, and Lee at one time 
 entertained the idea of such a return to the 
 aggressive. On the night of the 5th April, 
 the Army of the Potomac was pretty much 
 up in full strength. Now refer to the ac 
 companying map, and although it is on a 
 very small scale, it reveals the situation 
 clearly. 
 
 On the morning of the 6th Grant started 
 the three Corps which he had with him in 
 such directions that if HUMPHREYS had 
 not discovered the Army of Northern 
 Virginia, in the direction of Amelia Salt 
 Sulphur Springs, moving rapidly across his 
 front, to the westward, the Union infantry 
 would have been entirely thrown out. The 
 cavalry could have harassed Lee, but they 
 could not have handled his infantry which 
 would have defied them. The Fifth Corps in 
 their circuitous march 6th to pth April did not 
 come in contact with the enemy. Even the 
 Sixth Corps, which in conjunction with the 
 Cavalry won so much credit at Little Sailor s 
 Creek, did not encounter Lee s main body, 
 which Humphreys was fighting all day but 
 only a portion of it, split off, late in the after 
 noon by Humphreys persistent sledge-ham 
 mer strokes. This was near the J. Holt 
 house, where Humphreys put in a section of 
 guns at Sheridan s request. (Refer to the 
 map.) Humphreys first struck Lee near Ame 
 lia Salt Sulphur Springs, having come up with 
 him partly by fording Flat Creek, armpit 
 deep, partly by restoring a bridge. This 
 stream is 80 to 100 feet wide. Thereafter 
 the fighting continued for eleven hours, 
 over 14 miles, until night closed upon a 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON 
 
 heavy battle at the junc 
 tion of Sailor s Creek, 
 proper, and the Appo- 
 mattox. Again and again, 
 the Rebel rear guard at 
 tempted to take up posi 
 tions and restrain the ardor 
 of Humphreys unremitting 
 pursuit, but in vain. The 
 map or plan develops what 
 occurred better than it can 
 be described. How many 
 men Lee actually had with 
 him is very much disputed. 
 Humphreys, a man of fig 
 ures as well as of fighting, 
 went into a careful inves 
 tigation of these numbers. 
 On the morning of the 6th, 
 Lee must have had over 
 40,000 men ; Humphreys 
 had about 19,000. 
 
 As said before, Lee in his 
 retreat showed how little of 
 a general he was. Had he 
 made one of von Bulow s 
 eccentric retreats he might 
 have given us infinite trou 
 ble ; had he sacrificed his 
 baggage, had he even uti 
 lized the stores he did pos 
 sess he might have protract 
 ed the war to a point that 
 might have given the South 
 by arms what they have 
 since recovered through the 
 weakness and stupidity of 
 our politicians at the North. 
 This retreat, if everything 
 in his whole career failed 
 to prove it demonstrated 
 he had no adventure, no 
 adaptativeness, no origi 
 nality of mind. It was not 
 even the retreat of a pedant 
 nor of an academician, 
 much less of an expert. It 
 was simply an obstinate 
 rushing on until caught in 
 a net, such as should have 
 been set on the 6th to take 
 him on the yth. So Sir 
 Robt. Wilson foresaw the 
 hopelessness of a general 
 "engaged in a stern chase 
 after Tome, of which he 
 never more could gain or 
 keep the lead." 
 
 As von Clausewitz says 
 referring to the concen- 
 
2-0 
 
 ANDREW- ATKINSON HUMPHREYS. 
 
 tration, ordered and expected, upon Na 
 poleon at the Beresina "the threads were 
 now gathering up into the final knot" 
 Lee s Beresina should have been at Cumber 
 land Church. Why it was postponed to 
 Appomattox Court House is not one of the 
 secrets pigeon-holed by red-tape to which 
 Metternich alludes, but one of those which 
 can never be solved through the dissolution 
 of the mortal brain that conceived and 
 held it. 
 
 If people personally interested would only 
 abide by impartial criticism and not allow 
 passion to interfere, it would be found that 
 the influence of the cavalry upon the capture 
 of Lee was small. They did gobble large 
 slices of his impedimenta "impedimenta 
 belli et fugcz" admirably expressive now 
 in every language but de Trobriand and 
 others aver that a great many of the cap 
 tured wagons contained trash. Indeed it 
 is wonderful, that, when to escape it was 
 necessary to strip, what an enormous amount 
 of stuff the Rebels dragged after them. 
 
 On the evening of the 6th, Wright and 
 Sheridan had captured Swell s Corps ; 
 Mahone s (Rebel) division, which had been 
 transferred to Longstreet s command, had 
 repulsed the Union cavalry in the direction 
 of High Bridge ; Longstreet had about de 
 stroyed a detachment of the army of the 
 James near Rice s Station ; and Humphreys 
 fought a final heavy battle at Perkinson s 
 Mills, to which complete darkness alone put 
 an end. Night again afforded respite to Lee 
 
 Next morning with first light, Humphreys 
 moved again, found the enemy in force, be 
 tween 8 and 9 o clock, at High Bridge ; drove 
 them across, captured and saved it. About i 
 p. M. with two divisions he had detached a 
 third division to follow up a column retreat 
 ing on Farmville Humphreys came up 
 with the whole of the remains of the army of 
 Northern Virginia, concentrated and strong 
 ly entrenched at Cumberland Church and 
 there he held them until night and, then 
 and there, Lee s army might have been and 
 should have been destroyed. 
 
 The telegrams and despatches of that day 
 have been collected, collated and published. 
 At 2.20 P. M. enough troops were collected at 
 Farmville to swarm Lee out. Farmville is 
 only about 3 miles from where Humphreys 
 was holding Lee. The excuse for not taking 
 advantage of circumstances, and thus then 
 and there overwhelming Lee, was that the 
 river was not fordable and the bridge over it 
 burned. With a large village or townlet at 
 
 hand to furnish materials, with many large 
 trees about, and with thousands of teams 
 and competent hands ready and willing, the 
 river, about 100 feet wide, say 125, could 
 and should have been bridged within two 
 hours. Besides other methods, a cantilever 
 bridge, using the abutments of the burned 
 viaduct, would have been most simple, easy 
 and speedy. To the objection that the 
 Appomattox was not fordable there were 
 living refutations at the time and on the spot. 
 Fitz Lee s whole cavalry forded on the 
 morning of the yth. Crook s division of 
 cavalry, with its trains and artillery, in the 
 early afternoon forded belly deep, was sur 
 prised, came to grief, and re-crossed by 
 fording at Farmville again. The map shows 
 the Old Plank Road, mid-way forking into 
 two roads, by which and across country the 
 6th Corps and the 24th Corps, (and the 5th 
 Corps ?)could have been thrown entire by 5 
 o clock in the rear of Lee s position and 
 there with energy and will there where the 
 last stand-up fight between the army of 
 Northern Virginia and the combined or 
 consolidated 2nd and 3rd Corps under Hum 
 phreys, representing the Army of the Poto 
 mac, took place there at Cumberland 
 Church, on the yth April, the main army of 
 the Rebellion should have been consumed in 
 a blaze of glory and not allowed to get off, 
 and keep on for about 40 miles and 40 hours 
 to quietly surrender on the 9th April, Palm 
 Sunday, at Appomattox Court House. 
 
 The operations and pursuit of the Rebel 
 forces this day, (yth April) by the combined 
 Second and Third Corps alone, and the fight 
 with Lee s whole remaining army at Cumber 
 land Church, may recall to the reader, well 
 posted in history, the attempted escape of 
 Admiral Decres in the William Tell, eighty- 
 six guns, on the 3oth March, 1800, from 
 Malta. (Brenton iii, 19-20). Pursued by 
 the blockading fleet, the French Leviathan 
 was overhauled by the British frigate Pene 
 lope, thirty-six guns, which although nearly 
 annihilated by the tremendous broad-side 
 of its gigantic antagonist, inflicted such dam 
 age upon the latter as to cripple it and ensure 
 its capture. Or, to institute a parallel nearer 
 home, let the reader recall the pursuit of 
 the frigate President "a seventy-four in 
 disguise" by a British squadron in January 
 1815, (Cooper s History of the United States 
 Navy, ii Chapter 26). Overhauled by the 
 Endymion, a twenty-four gun ship, which 
 boldly threw itself in the way, the United 
 States vessel was sufficiently injured to render 
 escape impossible, and even our Decatur 
 
ANDREW ATKINSON 
 
 shortly after found himself compelled to sur 
 render. 
 
 Lee, likewise, must have put a high esti 
 mate on the situation at Cumberland Church 
 or Heights of Farmville, yth April, 1865, 
 p. M., since he remained in person on the 
 ground till very late, if not till next morning; 
 for during the night Grant s first proposition 
 to Lee, requesting his surrender, was for 
 warded through Humphreys line and then 
 through Mahone s, under a flag of truce, or 
 rather under a red light, as a flag could not 
 be seen. 
 
 That Lee dreamed he had accomplished 
 something of importance in holding his 
 own against Humphreys would seem to 
 be attested by the fact that he was "encour 
 aged by the ephemeral gleam of success," 
 (Draper iii, 588) to dream again of eventual 
 triumph. That Lee was even yet sanguine of 
 escaping to renew the struggle, seems to be the 
 spirit of all the Southern authorities, and a 
 correspondent stated (29, 8, 71), that one of 
 the orderlies belonging to Lee s headquar 
 ters, wounded and captured on the 8th of 
 April, "was sanguine of success, and firmly 
 believed that our army would be totally de 
 feated." 
 
 Now laying aside all bias and partiality, 
 let each reader ask himself if the history of 
 our own war presents a more glorious exhi 
 bition of the spirits of the true soldier at the 
 head of a body worthy a Lancelotic leader 
 than that of Humphreys at Cumberland 
 Church? Whoever fought the Army of 
 Northern Virginia under such disadvantages 
 without ruing the day ? The writer will not 
 say fought Lee, because he does not believe 
 in him; but fought Longstreet, grim and 
 doughty ; Gordon, able and fiery; Mahone, 
 spiteful and dangerous as a tiger ; not to 
 mention others who for years had upborne 
 the Stars and Bars with unwavering constan 
 cy and rare capacity. That such as these 
 did not crush Humphreys is the marvel ; 
 that he kept such as these up to their work 
 from noon till dark is the greatest marvel. 
 For half that Spring day he was at them, 
 
 watching them as the panther the buffalo, 
 harassing, attacking, bleeding them, and 
 only prevented from the fatal spring because 
 he did not have the buffalo s relative weight 
 and strength to make the spring fatal and the 
 rush profitable. Take Mahone s testimony, 
 and the evidence shows that Bratton s bri 
 gade in reserve was needed at every point 
 throughout the afternoon. 
 
 Humphreys gave the enemy no respite. 
 His sword s point was always ready for an un 
 guarded aperture or a loosened rivet. 
 
 Had any of our Generals done this before ? 
 
 Grant s first summons for Lee to surrender 
 was sent through Humphrey s lines at dark, 
 and all the subsequent notes passed through 
 Humphreys lines until Lee was actually 
 brought to bay at Appomattox Court House. 
 Why? Because Humphreys was always 
 nearest to Lee, pressing him, depleting him, 
 holding him. When the last stand was 
 made, Humphreys was again close upon 
 Longstreet s corps or division, and, unques 
 tionably, if he had not been restrained by 
 orders, he would have annihilated the force 
 opposed to him. I have always maintained 
 that Lee was not the great general South 
 erners and dough-faces have claimed, nor 
 equal to Albert Sydney Johnston or Joseph E. 
 Johnston. Lee had every advantage. Among 
 these, the best army and the best most 
 appropriate field for it. I have also held 
 that there were more able Generals at the 
 North than at the South, judging of the lat 
 ter by those who were permitted to become 
 prominent, because there was as much per 
 sonal and political favoritism at the South 
 as at the North; and that in the Union 
 army, the best and greatest were George H. 
 Thomas, whose only fault, if it was a fault, 
 was, he would take, time, and that other one, 
 who was always up to time and never behind 
 hand anywhere or in anyway, Andrew At 
 kinson Humphreys. 
 
 J. WATTS DE PEYSTER, 
 
 Brev. Major General, S. N. Y. 
 
 Honorary member of Diagnothian Literary Society 
 of Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 WAY I 8 
 
 LD 21-100m-7, 39(402s) 
 

 
 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES