The Humphreys family in America - citizen hylbom blog

'Ha! Ha! stone walls,' afforded as perfect a defensive work as any engineer could have planned, or any engineer
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troops could have constructed. Moreover, the Confederates had strengthened these already strong defenses so that
their infantry rose, as it were, out of the ground to deliver a concentric (ire. The head of Humphreys' column
seemed to propel itself into a perfect yawning gulf of flame.
"This fiery abyss must have appeared tenfold more terrible, because in the glooming of the deepening twihght,
and amid the thick mist arising from the bottom land, every discharge was as intensely brilliant as the trail of a
meteor traversing the night [sky]. In the day-time men may hear, but they cannot see the death-stroke. On this
occasion, the very earth seemed to belch forth lurid destruction, consuming like ground-lightning, or the sudden
vomiting forth of a glowing lava-flood from the crater of a volcano. As the chief actor declared: 'A sheet of flame
ran along that stone wall, accompanied by a long roll of thunder. It was the most magnificent sight I saw in the
war. It seemed to enfold the head of the column in an embrace of fire.'
" Notwithstanding, Humphreys persevered, and if the energy and valor of a single man could have crossed
as conqueror that wall of molten death, he would have carried his column over or through it, on and up to the
Heights beyond. Whether he could have maintained himself there successfully, was a question dependent not upon
himself, but upon his being properly reinforced and supported. As it was, despite his utmost endeavors, in which
t\vo horses were shot under him and another badly wounded, he could not get his men across that stone wall; indeed,
not nearer than fifteen or twenty paces to it. * •* * * * That Humphreys escaped is one of those
marvels which can only be explained by the doctrine either of ' preordained decree ' or Special Providence. His charge
will yet be blazoned forth in history as one of the noblest efforts of Northern resolution, or, as he remarked of one
of Kearny's exhibitions of valor, 'magnificent.' After Humphreys had lost two horses, killed or disabled imder him,
only one officer of his staff, his son, was in the saddle, and he mounted upon an animal wounded in three places.
Toward the close, Humphreys mounted a third horse, belonging to a sorely wounded subordinate, and continued to
ride about amid the rain of missiles, bearing a charmed life. His clothing was pierced and rent, but his person did
not receive a scratch. His division, like the third breaker upon a beach, left its traces of blood and wrecks a few
paces father 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, singing in chorus, to show that although shattered
physically, morally its spirit was unshaken. * * It is stated that out of 4,000 effectives, 1,700 had been
killed, wounded, or were missing. The general's corrected report returns 1,030— one man out of less than every four.
This charge put a period to the catastrophe. It was the last of the fighting. The protest of the hard-hitting and
iast-holding veteran Sumner prevented another sacrifice of life which Burnside had commanded.
"As Humphreys played a subordinate part in the Chancellorsville campaign (so styled), only a few words
must suffice to bridge over the period between the exliibition of his aggressive heroism at Fredericksburg and his
tenacious heroism at Gettysburg. At Chancellorsville, Humphreys was posted on the extreme left of the army, on
the 2d and 3d of May, to protect the pontoon bridge just below the United States Mine or Bark Mill Ford. His
defenses were on the Mine Run, just above its junction with Mineral Spring Run and where the Mineral Spring
Road joins the Old Mine or Mountain Road. During these days of misfortune, scarcely inferior in their sad results,
although under a different form, to those of Fredericksburg, he performed his duty, as he ever did, thoroughly.
"The march from Chancellorsville to Gettysburg was one of the most tremendous performed i.y the Army of
the Potomac, and circumstances threw it with more peculiar weight upon the Third than upon any other corps.
* * * General Humphreys' services at Gettysburg rose not only to the superlative on the battle-field, but
comparatively so, as well, in the strangeness of the circumstances attending his march to the field. The following,
an extract from a letter of July 11, 1869, from General Humphreys, in regard to this march and battle, is both
graphic and interesting:
"'When about four o'clock, July 2d, 1863, I was moving forward to the Emmettsburg road, my first in line
of battle, the second line m battalion in mass, an aid -de-camp of General Meade * * (tall, gentlemanly, a
good officer) rode to me from the direction of Peach Orchard, and gave me an order from General Meade (who, he
said, was on the ground in the direction he came from) to move at once toward the Round Top and occupy the
ground there, which was vacant. * * I immediately gave the order, by my aids, for the division to move
by the left flank— a movement that was made at once, and with the simultaneousness of a single regiment. The
order given, I turned to General Meade's aide, and requested him to ride at full speed to General Meade and inform
him that the execution of his order, which I was complying with, would leave vacant the position my division was
ordered to occupy, pointing out, at 'the same time, the ground that would then be left vacant, and where the left of
the Second Army Corps was, etc. I then turned my attention to guiding my division by the shortest line toward
the Round Top, which being done, to expedite matters I rode full speed toward where I supposed General Meade
to be, but met Colonel returning from him, who informed me General Meade recalled his order, and that I
should occupy the positicin General Sickles had directed me to take. In a second the division went about face, retrod
the ground by the right flank that they had the moment before gone over by the left flank, and then moved forward
to their positions along the Emmettsburg road. The whole thing was done with the precision of a careful exercise.