Andrew A. Humphreys

Andrew Atkinson Humphreys (November 2, 1810 – December 27, 1883), was a career United States Army officer, civil engineer, and a Union General in the American Civil War. He served in senior positions in the Army of the Potomac, including division command, chief of staff, and corps command, and was Chief Engineer of the U.S. Army.

Early life

Humphreys was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to a family prominent in naval architecture; his grandfather, Joshua, designed "Old Ironsides", the USS Constitution. Andrew graduated from Nazareth Hall (predecessor to the present day Moravian College & Theological Seminary), and, thereafter, from the United States Military Academy in 1831 and spent much of the next thirty years as a civil engineer in the Army. He saw combat in the artillery in the Seminole Wars. Much of his service involved topographical and hydrological surveys of the Mississippi River Delta.

Civil War

After the outbreak of the Civil War, Humphreys was promoted (August 6, 1861) to major and became chief topographical engineer in Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac. Initially involved in planning the defenses of Washington, D.C., by March 1862, he shipped out with McClellan for the Peninsula Campaign. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on April 28 and on September 12 assumed command of the new 3rd Division in the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac. He led the division in a reserve role in the Battle of...
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