Humphrey was born on September 2, 1844, in Tioga County, New York. He married Juanita Foster DaCosta and had five children. Two of their sons, Evan and Charles Jr., would become brigadier generals. Humphrey died on June 4, 1926, and is buried with Juanita, as well as Evan and another son, Marion, at Arlington National Cemetery.[1]
Career
Grave at Arlington National Cemetery
Humphrey originally joined the Union Army during the American Civil War as a private in Company E of the Fifth Artillery Regiment of the Regular Army on 17 March 1863. He was promoted to first sergeant by the time he was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant in the same regiment on 28 August 1866. He was promoted to first lieutenant on 21 May 1868 and captain and acting quartermaster on 23 June 1879.
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.[2]
He rose through the ranks in the Quartermaster Corps and served as a brigadier general of volunteers from September 1898 to June 1899.
