Andrew A . Humphreys Andrew Atkinson Humphreys ( November 2 , 1810 – December 27 , 1883 ) , was a career United States Army officer , civil engineer , and a Union General in the American Civil War . He served in senior positions in the Army of the Potomac , including division command , chief of staff , and corps command , and was Chief Engineer of the U . S . Army . Early life . Humphreys was born in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , to a family prominent in naval architecture ; his grandfather , Joshua , designed " Old Ironsides " , the USS " Constitution " . Andrew graduated from Nazareth Hall ( predecessor to the present day Moravian College & Theological Seminary ) , and , thereafter , from the United States Military Academy in 1831 and spent much of the next thirty years as a civil engineer in the Army . He saw combat in the artillery in the Seminole Wars . Much of his service involved topographical and hydrological surveys of the Mississippi River Delta . Civil War . After the outbreak of the Civil War , Humphreys was promoted ( August 6 , 1861 ) to major and became chief topographical engineer in Maj . Gen . George B . McClellan ' s Army of the Potomac . Initially involved in planning the defenses of Washington , D . C . , by March 1862 , he shipped out with McClellan for the Peninsula Campaign . He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers on April 28 and on September 12 assumed command of the new 3rd Division in the V Corps of the Army of the Potomac . He led the division in a reserve role in the Battle of Antietam . At the Battle of Fredericksburg , his division achieved the farthest advance against fierce Confederate fire from Marye ' s Heights , with Humphreys personally commanding from the very front of the line on horseback , and five of his seven staff were shot down ; his corps commander , Brig . Gen . Daniel Butterfield , wrote : " I hardly know how to express my appreciation of the soldierly qualities , the gallantry , and energy displayed by my division commanders , Generals George Sykes , Humphreys , and Charles Griffin . " For an officer with little combat experience , he inspired his troops with his personal bravery . Historian Larry Tagg wrote : Although respected by his men for his bravery under fire , Humphreys was not well liked by them . In his mid - fifties , they considered him an old man , despite his relatively youthful appearance . His nickname was " Old Goggle Eyes " for his eyeglasses . He was a taskmaster and strict disciplinarian . Charles A . Dana , the Assistant Secretary of War , called him a man of " distinguished and brilliant profanity . " At the Battle of Chancellorsville , Humphreys ' division was attacked by Colquitt ' s brigade on the 3rd day of the battle . On May 23 , 1863 , Humphreys was transferred to the command of the 2nd Division in the III Corps , under Maj . Gen . Daniel E . Sickles . When Meade assumed command of the Army of the Potomac just before the Battle of Gettysburg , he asked Humphreys to be his chief of staff , replacing Maj . Gen . Daniel Butterfield , who was considered to be too close politically to the previous commander , Maj . Gen . Joseph Hooker . Humphreys declined the opportunity to give up his division command . His new division immediately saw action at Gettysburg where , on July 2 , 1863 , Sickles insubordinately moved his corps from its assigned defensive position on Cemetery Ridge . Humphreys ' new position was on the Emmitsburg Road , part of a salient directly in the path of the Confederate assault , and it was too long a front for a single division to defend . Assaulted by the division of Maj . Gen . Lafayette McLaws , Humphreys ' three brigades were demolished ; Sickles had pulled back Humphrey ' s reserve brigade to shore up the neighboring division ( Maj . Gen . David B . Birney ) , which was the first to be attacked . Humphreys put up the best fight that could have been expected and was eventually able to reform his survivors on Cemetery Ridge , but his division and the entire corps were finished as a fighting force . Humphreys was promoted to major general of volunteers on July 8 , 1863 , and finally acceded to Meade ' s request to serve as his chief of staff ; he did not have much of a division left to command . He served in that position through the Bristoe and Mine Run campaigns that fall , and the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg in 1864 . In November 1864 , he assumed command of the II Corps , which he led for the rest of the siege and during the pursuit of Gen . Robert E . Lee to Appomattox Court House and surrender . On March 13 , 1865 , he was brevet ed brigadier general in the regular army for " gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Gettysburg " , and then to major general for the Battle of Sayler ' s Creek during Lee ' s retreat . Postbellum . After the war , Humphreys commanded the District of Pennsylvania . He became a permanent brigadier general and Chief of Engineers in 1866 , a position he held until June 30 , 1879 , when he retired , serving during this period on lighthouse and other engineering boards . In retirement , Humphreys studied philosophy . He was one of the incorporators of the National Academy of Sciences . Humphreys ' s published works were highlighted by his 1867 " Report on the Physics and Hydraulics of the Mississippi River " , which gave him considerable prominence in the scientific community . He also wrote personal accounts of the war , published in 1883 : " From Gettysburg to the Rapidan " and " The Virginia Campaign of ' 64 and ' 65 " . He died in Washington , D . C . , and is buried there in the Congressional Cemetery . A military base was founded during World War I as Camp A . A . Humphreys , named for Andrew A . Humphreys . The post was renamed Fort Belvoir in the 1930s in recognition of the Belvoir plantation that once occupied the site , but the adjacent United States Army Corps of Engineers Humphreys Engineer Center retains part of the original namesake