Brig Gen Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Sr

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_G._Humphreys

Benjamin Grubb Humphreys (August 26, 1808 – December 20, 1882) was an American politician from Mississippi. He was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and served as Governor of Mississippi from 1865 to 1868, during Reconstruction.

Early life

Humphreys was born in Claiborne County, Mississippi, on the Bayou Pierre. He was educated in New Jersey and enrolled at West Point in the same class as Robert E. Lee. However, he was expelled when he participated in a "Christmas frolic" that ended up turning into a riot. Upon his return to Mississippi, he was elected to the state senate representing his native county and served from 1839 to 1844. In 1846, he moved to Sunflower County, Mississippi, founded Itta Bena, and continued as a planter.

Civil War

Humphreys was commissioned a captain in the Confederate States Army in 1861. He was subsequently promoted to brigadier general after the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. There, Humphreys's regiment was part of the force that attacked Federal positions at the Peach Orchard, driving the defenders back toward Cemetery Ridge. Humphreys took command of the brigade upon the mortal wounding of Brig. Gen. William Barksdale.

He remained in command of the brigade through the end of the war.

Political career

After the surrender of the Confederate Army, Southern politicians and Army officers were not automatically pardoned and were forbidden to hold public office. At the time of his candidacy, Benjamin Humphreys was unpardoned, and President Andrew Johnson did not want him elected. Unwilling to withdraw his candidacy, on October 2, 1865, Humphreys was elected as a Democrat, but was not immediately recognized as the Governor of Mississippi. Without presidential approval, on October 16, 1865, Humphreys had himself inaugurated and sworn in as the 26th Governor of Mississippi. By October 26, 1865, Mississippi provisional Governor, William Sharkey, received from President Andrew Johnson a pardon authorizing political office under the Reconstruction plan. He won re-election in 1868 and continued with a second term, but with the beginning of Congressional control of Reconstruction he was physically removed by occupying U.S. armed forces on June 15 of that year.

As a Democratic Governor of the State of Mississippi, he encouraged Jim Crow laws. In his own words:

"The Negro is free, whether we like it or not; we must realize that fact now and forever. To be free, however, does not make him a citizen, or entitle him to political or social equality with the white race."

After his retirement from politics, Humphreys entered a career in insurance in Jackson, Mississippi. He continued there until his retirement in 1877, when he moved to his plantation in Leflore County, Mississippi, where he died in 1882. He is buried in Wintergreen Cemetery, Port Gibson, Mississippi.

Humphreys County, Mississippi, is named after him. His son, also named Benjamin G. Humphreys, entered into a political career of his own. He became a Congressman and was on the Harbors and Rivers Committee, where he was instrumental in the successful amendment that created and added levees to the charter of the commission.

Civil War Confederate Brigadier General, Mississippi Governor. During the Civil War he served as a General in the Confederate Army. Humphreys served as the Governor of Mississippi from 1865 to 1868. He was removed from the office as Governor by armed force under the orders of the United States military commander of Mississippi. He also served as a Member of the Mississippi State Legislature in 1837, and Member of the Mississippi State Senate in 1839.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For five years after the Civil War, martial law and civil authority existed concurrently in Mississippi. That phenomenon created a constitutional entanglement that scholars have yet to unravel. Gov. Benjamin Grubb Humphreys had the misfortune of being caught in that knot of conflicting and often competing authority. When Humphreys was inaugurated on 16 October 1865, he shared power with a provisional governor, and he was eventually removed by a military governor whose authority Humphreys challenged and whose orders he countermanded.

Humphreys was born on 26 August 1808 at Hermitage, his father’s plantation in Claiborne County along the Bayou Pierre. He was appointed to the US Military Academy at West Point but was expelled with about forty other cadets after they were involved in a Christmas frolic. He then returned to Mississippi to help his father manage the plantation. For almost a decade, Humphreys, a Whig, represented Claiborne County in the state legislature, serving in both the House and the Senate.

In 1846 Humphreys purchased some land in Sunflower County and established a plantation at Roebuck Lake. Humphreys opposed secession, but when the war began, he organized the Sunflower Guards and was soon elected colonel of the 21st Mississippi Regiment. Union troops destroyed his plantation during the Vicksburg Campaign. In July 1863 Humphreys received a promotion to brigadier general and command of Gen. William Barksdale’s brigade after Barksdale fell at Gettysburg. Humphreys was seriously wounded at Berryville in September 1864 and was reassigned to duty in South Mississippi.

On 2 October 1865 Humphreys was elected as Mississippi’s governor. Among the uncertainties during this difficult and confusing time was the possibility that a Confederate brigadier general might not be eligible for high office in postwar Mississippi. More broadly, Mississippi and other southern states were expected to reconstruct themselves and extend the rights of citizenship to their former slaves. White Mississippians, however, would not voluntarily do so.

Humphreys criticized state legislators’ efforts to return African Americans to peonage and to deny them access to the courts and other Black Codes. But when Mississippi and other ex-Confederate states failed to reconstruct themselves under Pres. Andrew Johnson’s lenient plan, Congress placed the southern states under military law and installed military governors. While that action did not automatically remove the civil governor, it did create a rivalry between the military and civil authorities that led to Gov. Humphreys’s removal from office in 1868.

Humphreys subsequently retired from public life and engaged in business and planting until his death on 22 December 1882. Humphreys County is named in his honor.

https://civilwarintheeast.com/people/benjamin-grubb-humphreys/