Charles Frederic Humphrey Sr.

Charles Frederic Humphrey's Army career spanned the Civil War, the campaigns of the American West, the Spanish-American War, the China Relief Expedition and service in the Philippines. He entered the Regular Army as an eighteen-year-old private and eventually retired as a major general, but the act for which he received the Medal of Honor came in a few violent minutes during the Nez Perce War.

Humphrey was born on September 2, 1844, in Cortland, New York. On March 17, 1863, with the Civil War still raging, he enlisted as a private in Company E, 5th U.S. Artillery. He rose to first sergeant and, after the war, received a commission as a second lieutenant in the 5th Artillery on August 28, 1866. He was promoted to first lieutenant on May 21, 1868. His postwar service took him to the South and the Pacific Coast, and he attended the Artillery School at Fort Monroe before returning to western duty. By 1877 he was serving as a first lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Artillery during the Nez Perce campaign.

On July 11, 1877, at Clearwater, Idaho, Humphrey's command came under intense fire and a howitzer and two Gatling guns were left exposed between the opposing lines. Humphrey voluntarily gathered a party and led it forward through the fire to recover the abandoned weapons. His Medal of Honor was presented on March 2, 1897, nearly twenty years after the action.

Medal of Honor Citation

"Voluntarily and successfully conducted, in the face of a withering fire, a party which recovered possession of an abandoned howitzer and two Gatling guns lying between the lines a few yards from the Indians."

Humphrey transferred into quartermaster service in 1879 and spent much of the following two decades supporting Army operations across the West. By the Spanish-American War he was a senior quartermaster officer. In 1898 he served with Major General William R. Shafter's expedition to Santiago, Cuba, and his report on the expedition to the Quartermaster General survives among the Shafter papers. He later served as Chief Quartermaster of the Division of Cuba.

In July 1900 Humphrey left his post in Cuba and was ordered to China as Chief Quartermaster of the U.S. China Relief Expedition. National Archives records show that he arrived in China on September 15, 1900, and remained there until ordered to the Philippine Islands. He reached Manila on June 5, 1901, inspected Army facilities, and on July 1 took command as Chief Quartermaster in the Philippines. His surviving official report covers Quartermaster Department operations in both China and the Philippines.

In April 1903 Humphrey became the 22nd Quartermaster General of the United States Army. He remained in that office until his retirement on July 1, 1907. Because of his Civil War service, he was advanced to major general on the retired list under legislation enacted in 1907.

Major General Charles Frederic Humphrey died in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 1926. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 4, Grave 3115. His career had begun as that of a teenage artillery private during the Civil War and ended after more than four decades of service encompassing some of the United States Army's most important campaigns of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.