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Biography/History:
Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, planter, Confederate brigadier general, eighteenth governor of Mississippi, and life-insurance agent was born at the Hermitage, his father's plantation in Claiborne County, Mississippi Territory, on August 26, 1808. His parents were George Wilson and Sarah Smith Humphreys. The Humphreys family was originally from Wales, but they were exiled to Ireland. They later emigrated to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Many Humphreys family members served in the Revolutionary War. Ralph Humphreys, a Virginian and the grandfather of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, was a colonel in the Continental Army. He married Agnes Wilson, a niece of James Wilson, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Their eldest son, George Wilson Humphreys, later married Sarah Smith. Her father, Major David Smith, was a native of South Carolina. His ancestors were Huguenots who fled to America after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. From her father, Sarah Smith Humphreys inherited the land on Bayou Pierre that would become the Hermitage.
Sarah Smith Humphreys died when Benjamin Grubb Humphreys was young, and his father sent him to live with his grandfather in Kentucky, where he received his early education. Humphreys later attended school in New Jersey from 1821 until his father requested him to return home in 1824. Upon his return, he worked as a store clerk in Port Gibson, Mississippi. Humphreys was later appointed as a cadet at the United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, where he was a classmate of Robert E. Lee. For disciplinary reasons, he and several other cadets were expelled after a riot on Christmas Eve of 1826. Humphreys returned to Mississippi to become the overseer of his father's plantation in 1827.
On March 15, 1832, Humphreys married Mary McLaughlin. They settled on his plantation near the Big Black River in Claiborne County, where his wife died three years later. He then returned to the Hermitage with his son, Thomas McLaughlin, who died at the age of four in 1838, and his daughter, Mary Elizabeth Douglas. She later married the nephew of Jefferson Davis, Captain Isaac Stamps, who was killed at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1863.
Humphreys entered the political arena in 1838, when he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives as a Whig. He was a successful candidate for the Mississippi Senate in 1839, and on December 3 of that year he married his second wife, Mildred Hickman Maury, daughter of Judge James H. and Lucinda Smith Maury. Humphreys served in the Mississippi Senate from 1840 to 1844. He managed his plantation until the outbreak of the Civil War.
Despite his earlier opposition to secession, he organized the Sunflower Guards in 1861. His company later fought in all of the major campaigns of the Army of Northern Virginia except the Second Battle of Bull Run. Humphreys was promoted to brigadier general after the death of General William Barksdale at Gettysburg, and he assumed command of the brigade. A disabling wound at Berryville, Virginia, forced him to return to Mississippi in 1864, but he still commanded a military district until the end of the war.
Humphreys was the first Mississippi governor to be elected after the Civil War, and he served from October 2, 1865, to June 15, 1868. In his inaugural address, he pleaded for peace, economic recovery, and federal and state cooperation. Humphreys oversaw greater provisions for destitute soldiers and their families during Reconstruction. During his administration, the Mississippi legislature passed the Black Code of 1865. The legislature also rejected the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on the grounds that Mississippi had already abolished slavery and that national enforcement of the amendment would infringe on states’ rights. Humphreys and the legislature also contested the Fourteenth Amendment for its similar infringement on states’ rights. Shortly after being reelected in 1868, he was ousted from office by federal military authorities. Humphreys was succeeded by military governor Adelbert Ames of Massachusetts. This transfer of power was authorized under the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867.
After leaving office, Humphreys worked as an agent for the New York Life Insurance Company in both Jackson and Vicksburg. He eventually retired to his plantation in Leflore County, where he died on December 20, 1882. Humphreys was survived by his second wife and four children: Benjamin Grubb II, David Smith, John Barnes, and Mary Douglas Humphreys Stamps.
Benjamin Grubb Humphreys II was born on August 17, 1865. He served in the United States Congress from 1903 to 1923. Humphreys died in office on October 16, 1923.
Scope and Content:
This collection consists of correspondence, military records, newsclippings, printed material, a scrapbook, and miscellaneous papers of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys and other Humphreys and Maury family members of Claiborne, Leflore, and Warren counties in Mississippi.
Series Identification:
The scrapbook of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys is inscribed "to David S. Humphreys from his mother M. H. Humphreys. Leota, Mississippi. 9/1/1894." The scrapbook appears to have had three main compilers: Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Mildred Hickman Maury Humphreys, and Dr. David Smith Humphreys. The scrapbook contains a manuscript autobiography of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, notes by other family members and unidentified writers, original and typewritten copies of correspondence, photographs of various Humphreys and Maury family members, memorabilia, and newsclippings. The autobiography is divided into separate sections in the front and back of the scrapbook, including reminiscences of Humphreys’s early years, wartime experiences, and family genealogy. The portion of the autobiography describing Humphreys’s early years begins with an essay on the Civil War, which also includes a military, political, and religious narrative of the Humphreys family in England, Ireland, and colonial America. Humphreys also describes the migration of his Virginia ancestors to Mississippi. Additional notes are supplied by Dr. David Smith Humphreys. The portion of the autobiography in the back of the scrapbook is actually made up of notes for another Civil War manuscript that Humphreys was writing. Some passages are similar to other reminiscences by Humphreys.
Immediately following the first part of the autobiography is a section of manuscript copies of letters entitled "Humphreys Family." After that is a genealogical section entitled "‘Walker,’ ‘Grubb,’ and ‘Curry.’" Following that are newsclippings of Humphreys’s obituaries, a copy of the military orders removing Humphreys as governor of Mississippi, a draft of Humphreys’s response to President Andrew Johnson, and a newsclipping praising Humphreys’s military and political expertise. Next is a newsclipping of an 1871 interview with Humphreys, a Humphreys family genealogy in several anonymous hands, and photographs of David Smith Humphreys (1813-1845) and his wife, Martha B. Humphreys. Following that is a section entitled "Maury Ancestry" and more newsclippings of obituaries and tributes to Humphreys. There is correspondence regarding a monument to Revolutionary War veteran Colonel Ralph Humphreys and the renaming of the Mississippi National Guard division hospital at Camp Columbus in memory of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys. Included in this section is a leave-of-absence request written by Humphreys from Fredericksburg, Virginia, on May 17, 1863, and endorsed by Brigadier General William Barksdale. Next are three photographs. The first, labeled "Glen Dale," is of a house surrounded by trees, with a horse-and-buggy approaching. The second, labeled "Ruth on the Hermitage [yard]," depicts a woman standing on the edge of a porch. The third, labeled "David / Old Smokehouse at ‘Hermitage,’" shows a boy sitting outside a two-story building.
One section focuses on Mildred Hickman Maury Humphreys, her children, and her ancestry. There are two pages of newspaper obituaries. Other items include a calling card on which is printed "Mrs. B. G. Humphreys / Govrs. Mansion/ Thursday" and a frayed ribbon of the United Sons of Confederate Veterans, Mildred Humphreys Camp No. 213. On the following page are more U.S.C.V. items, including a 1908 button and ribbon. Next is an article entitled "A Southern Educator / Mrs. Mary Humphreys Stamps," by Grace King, and newsclippings about Stamps and her sister, Lillie Humphreys Bertron. There are newsclippings about the monument in Port Gibson for Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, news about Benjamin Grubb Humphreys II, and a small photograph and a birth announcement of William Yerger Humphreys. Several newsclippings about Benjamin Grubb Humphreys and articles by Benjamin Grubb Humphreys II are included. The next section is a long family memoir by James H. Maury tracing family genealogy from France in 1500 to the date of the memoir’s composition in Port Gibson in 1864. At the end of this genealogy are photographs of Judge James H. and Lucinda Smith Maury, both dated August 2, 1866. Also included is an 1828 letter to James H. Maury from his brother, Matthew Fontaine Maury, who was serving in the navy, a newsclipping about that brother, and a typewritten genealogy of the Hickmans, the family of Lucinda Smith Maury. More newspaper obituaries follow, along with more typewritten copies of letters and correspondence regarding military records and genealogy for Humphreys and Maury ancestors. Also included is a January 27, 1883, issue of the Southern Reveille, Port Gibson, Mississippi.
Another section concerns Dr. David Smith Humphreys and his family. There is a certificate appointing Dr. Humphreys as lieutenant colonel and assistant surgeon general in the Mississippi National Guard on May 10, 1900. There are also newsclippings and memorabilia of Dr. Humphreys and two of his children, Sallie Walton Humphreys and Elizabeth Fontaine Humphreys.
The last section of the scrapbook contains the second part of the autobiography of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys.
Box 1: Scrapbook may not be photocopied.
This series consists of incoming correspondence of Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, Mildred Hickman Maury Humphreys, and David Smith Humphreys from Jefferson Davis, J. T. Eason, James Longstreet, Dabney H. Maury, and others. Topics include war reminiscences and family news.
This series consists of one issue of the periodical, The Land We Love, volume 3, number 6, October 1867. It contains an article entitled "Recollections of Fredericksburg from the Morning of the 29th of April to the 6th of May, 1863," by Benjamin Grubb Humphreys. Two letters accompany this issue, one from D. S. Freeman and the other from Lawrence M. Foster.
This series includes a copy of Special Orders No. 18, issued by Robert E. Lee to Benjamin Grubb Humphreys. Another item is printed General Orders No. 34, an act of the Confederate States Congress to provide an Invalid Corps, and accompanying Circular No. 3, with instructions to medical officers. Another item is a broadside containing a roster of the Twenty-first Regiment, Mississippi Infantry.
This series includes newspaper obituaries for Benjamin Grubb Humphreys II and Adelbert Ames, articles about the Civil War, and miscellany. Of interest is a letter from Mildred Hickman Maury Humphreys to Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, originally written during the Civil War and reprinted in a 1908 newspaper by their son, Dr. David Smith Humphreys.
This series consists of several disparate items: a typescript of a poem entitled "Little Sergeant Banks"; an advance publication notice of a biography of James Wilson; a newsclipping entitled "Why Wilson’s Fame Grew Dim" from the Vicksburg Daily Herald, Vicksburg, Mississippi, December 23, 1906; and a letterhead fragment on which is printed a graphic image of Home in the Woods, Humphreys’s plantation home near Itta Bena, Leflore County, Mississippi.
Box 2