Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/342

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314
HUMPHREYS
HUMPHREYS

"India," of which he was supercargo, was not heard of after 1 Aug., 1803. — Another son, Samuel, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 23 Nov., 1778; d. in Georgetown, D. C, 16 Aug., 1846, was sent to Georgia by the government at the age of eighteen to make contracts for supplying live-oak for a navy. In 1815 he was appointed chief contractor of the U. S. navy, which post he held until his death. In 1824 the Emperor Alexander of Russia requested him to construct a navy for Russia, offer- ing him a yearly salary of $60,000. This was re- fused by Mr. Humphreys, who replied : " I do not know that I possess the merits attributed to me, but, be they great or small, I owe them all to the flag of my country." — Samuel's son, Andrew At- kinson, soldier, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 2 Nov., 1810 ; d. in Washington, D. C, 27 Dec, 1883. He was graduated at the U. S. military academy in 1831, assigned to the 2d artillery, and served at the academy, on garrison duty, in special work, and in the Florida campaign of 1835. In September, 1836, he resigned, and was employed as a civil engineer by the U. S. govern- ment on the plans of Brandywine Shoal lighthouse and Crow Shoal breakwater, under Major Hartman Bache. On 7 July, 1838, he was reap- pointed in the U. S. army, with the rank of 1st lieutenant

in the corps of topographical engineers, and served in

charge of works for the improvement of various harbors, and in "Washington in 1842-'9 as assistant in charge of the coast-survey office. Meanwhile, in May, 1848, he was promoted captain, and sub- sequently was engaged in a topographical and hydrographical survey of the delta of the Missis- sippi river, with a view of determining the most practicable plans for securing it from inundation and for deepening its channel at the mouth. He was compelled by illness to relinquish the charge of this work in 1851. and went to Europe, where he examined the river deltas of the continent, studying the means that were employed abroad for protection against inundation. On his return in 1854 he was given charge of the office duties in Washington that were connected with the explora- tions and surveys for railroads from the Mississippi to the Pacific. In 1857 he resumed his work on the survey of the Mississippi delta, and published in conjunction with Lieut. Henry L. Abbot a " Re- port on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Missis- sippi River " (Philadelphia, 1861). He was made major in August, 1861, and after the beginning of the civil war was assigned to duty on Gen. McClellan's staff. During the campaign on the Virginia pen- insula he was chief topographical engineer of the Army of the Potomac, and was made brigadier- general of volunteers on 28 April, 1862. In Sep- tember, 1862, Gen. Humphreys was given command of a division of new troops in the 5th corps of the Army of the Potomac, with which he led in the Maryland campaign. He was engaged in the bat- tle of Fredericksburg and at Chancellorsville, where he was posted on the extreme left of the army, and meanwhile he received the brevet of colonel and was made lieutenant-colonel in the corps of engineers. He was then transferred to the command of the 2d division in the 3d corps, with which he served in the battle of Gettysburg under Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, where he was promoted major-general in the volunteer army. On 8 July, 1863, he became chief of staff to Gen. Meade, and he continued to fill that place till November, 1864. He was then given command of the 2d corps, which was engaged tinder his direction at the siege of Petersburg, the actions at Hatcher's Run, and the subsequent operations, ending with Lee's sur- render. Gen. Humphreys received the brevet of major-general in the U. S. army for services at Sailor's Creek, and, after the march to Washington, was placed in command of the district of Pennsyl- vania. From December, 1865, till August, 1866, he was in charge of the Mississippi levees, where he was mustered out of the volunteer service. He was then made brigadier-general and given com- mand of the corps of engineers, the highest scien- tific appointment in the U. S. army, with charge of the engineer bureau in Washington. This office he held until 30 June, 1879, when he was retired at his own request, serving during three years on many commissions, including that to examine into canal routes across the isthmus connecting North and South America, and also on the lighthouse board. Gen. Humphreys was elected a member of the American philosophical society in 1857, a member of the American academy of arts and sciences in 1863, and was one of the incorporating members of the National academy of sciences in the last-named year. He also held honorary mem- berships in foreign scientific societies, and received the degree of LL. D. from Harvard in 1868. His literary labors included several reports to the gov- ernment concerning the engineering work on the Mississippi and on railroad routes across the continent, and he contributed biographical material concerning Joshua Humphreys to Jas. Grant Wil- son's " History of the Frigate Constitution." He also published " The Virginia Campaigns of 1864 and 1865 " (New York, 1882), and " From Gettys- burg to the Rapidan " (1882).


HUMPHREYS, Milton Wylie, educator, b. in Greenbrier, W. Va., 15 Sept., 1844. He entered Washington college, Va. (now Washington and Lee university), but left at the age of seventeen to enlist in the Confederate army. He was a gunner in Bryan's battery, and was noted for his skill as a marksman, making a practical study of the prob- lem of a projectile moving in a resisting medium, and having his mathematical books thrice thrown out of the limber-box into the rain by his superior officers. After the war he re-entered Washington college, was made tutor of Latin, assistant profes- sor of Greek and Latin, and adjunct professor of ancient languages, and received the degrees of M. A. in 1869 from Washington and Lee univer- sity, and Ph. D. in 1874 from Leipsic university. He was called to the chair of Greek in Vanderbilt university at its opening in 1875, and to that of ancient languages in the University of Texas at its opening in 1883. Vanderbilt university gave him the degree of LL. D. in 1883. He has published numerous papers in the " Transactions of the American Philological Association," of which he was president in 1882, and editions of the " Clouds " of Aristophanes, the " Antigone " and " GMipus Tyrannus " of Sophocles, and the second book of Thucydides. He is editor for the United States and Canada of the " Revue des Revues," and cor- respondent of the " Philologische Wochenschrift."