David Humphries had a distinguished military career during the American Revolution, attaining the rank of major general. For several years he was an aide to George Washington, and became his friend as well as his military aide. Several letters written by him to General Washington are published in _______. He also wrote wrote Elegy on the Burning of Fairfield in Connecticut in his sorrow and outrage over that event.
After George Washington became President of the United States, he appointed David Humphries the first United States Ambassador to Spain. While serving in this office, David met Ann Frances Bulkeley, daughter of John Bulkeley, an English banker residing in Portugal. They were married in 1797 when David Humphries was forty-five years of age. No children were born of their marriage.
David was born in 1752 the son of Rev. Daniel and Sarah Riggs Bowers Humphreys.
He first appears as major in General Parson's brigade, in 1777. He subsequently became aide to General Israel Putnam and served under General Greene. In 1780 he was appointed aide-de-camp and military secretary to Commander-in-Chief General George Washington. It was Humphreys who received the captured standards from the British at Yorktown." Humphreys was just one of ten American officers during the Revolutionary War to be awarded a presentation sword by the US Congress for for bringing twenty-four captured British regimental colors from Yorktown to Congress and “as a mark of esteem.” [1] He had many other military and government posts.
Other interests were sheep herding and even wrote the first sonnet by an American just before he went off to war in the summer of 1776, titled "Addressed to my Friends at Yale College" and other war related sonnets.
He died in his room at Butler's Tavern, in New Haven, Connecticut, where he stayed when he was attending to affairs in Derby, and was interred at Grove Street Cemetery.
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