Dorchester Illustration no. 2454 Walter Humphreys
We are continuing to share the Society’s collections by email and through other online methods.
Today’s illustration is a portrait of Walter Humphreys.
Walter Humphreys, son of Henry Humphreys and Sarah Clapp Humphreys, was born July 4, 1842. He enlisted in Company A of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment four days after his twentieth birthday in 1862.
He wrote a letter home dated May 2, 1864, when he was near Mitchell’s Station , Virginia:
I must say that I am ready for the coming contest and hope that victory although it may come with the sacrifice of life and the flow of much precious blood may be the result of our arms—with haste—
Yours in love,
Walter
He died one month later on June 2, 1864, at Cold Harbor.
One of the members of his company, Warren Freeman of West Cambridge, wrote about Walter:
“One day last week Walter Humphrey of our company, whom you know, while digging in the trenches was struck in the bowels by a bullet and died the next day. I was going to relieve him and was just on the point of taking his spade when he was struck. He looked at me as he said, “Well this is what we must all expect.” We are throwing up a line of rifle pits at this time. Since my last we have lost in the regiment twelve men killed and wounded.”
This is an excerpt from a letter by Warren home to his family, published by his father in a book, Letters from Two Brothers Serving in the War for the Union to Their Family at Home in West Cambridge, Mass. Cambridge, 1871.
Walter Humphreys’ name appears on the Soldiers Monument on Meeting House Hill.
His brother was Richard Clapp Humphreys who was later president of the Dorchester Historical Society from 1903 until his death in 1912. Richard began work at the grocery store of J. H. Upham & Co., in 1852, and nine years later became a partner in the business, where he remained for twenty years. He then associated himself with Messrs. Holbrook & Fox, real estate dealer, where he remained eight years, after which he retired and became engaged as a trustee of estates, receiving about 50 appointments from the courts as executor, administrator, trustee or guardian.
Sources:
Arthur Wellington Brayley. Schools and Schoolboys of Old Boston. (Boston, 1894)
Ebenezer Clapp, comp.. The Clapp Memorial. (Boston, 1876)