David Hunter was a
Union general during the Civil War. In May 1862, he issued an
order freeing all the slaves in Florida, Georgia, and South
Carolina, but it was quickly rescinded by President Abraham
Lincoln.
David Hunter was born in Washington, D.C.,
on July 21, 1802 to Mary Stockton Hunter and Andrew Hunter, a
minister, and was a grandson of Richard Stockton, a signer of
the Declaration of Independence from New Jersey. After
graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1818,
he served with the U.S. Army on the western frontier, including
two trips across the Rocky Mountains. He was stationed at Fort
Dearborn (later, Chicago), 1828-1831, and married Maria Indiana
Kinzie. In 1836, he resigned from the army, but he found his
business pursuits in the Chicago area to be unsatisfactory, so
he returned to the army in 1842 as a paymaster at the rank of
major. He again served across the western frontier until the
Civil War. Correspondence with Abraham Lincoln resulted in
Hunter accompanying the president-elect from Illinois to
Washington, D.C., in early 1861.
On May 14, 1861, Hunter was promoted to
colonel, and three days later to brigadier general. He was
wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, and was
promoted to major general on August 13. On November 2, he
replaced General John C. Fremont as commander of the Western
Department. Hunter sent detachments to participate in the Union
victories at Forts Donelson and Henry in February 1862. On
March 31, 1862, he was reassigned to command the Department of
the South, which encompassed Florida, Georgia, and South
Carolina. After capturing Fort Pulaski (Georgia) on April 11,
he emancipated all the captured slaves. On May 9, he declared
all the slaves in the Department of the South to be “free for
ever.” Ten days later, President Lincoln nullified Hunter’s
emancipation order, reserving the “war power” of emancipation
for himself as commander-in-chief. The president also overruled
Hunter when he raised a regiment of black recruits in South
Carolina. He was relieved of the command of the Department of
the South on August 22, 1862.
Hunter served on the court-martial of Fitz-John
Porter, who was dishonorably discharged in January 1863 (the
sentence was reversed in 1882). In May 1864, Hunter was placed
in charge of the Union offensive in the Shenandoah Valley of
Virginia. On June 5, he defeated a Confederate force at
Piedmont and then set fire to the Virginia Military Institute in
Lexington. He later ordered the burning of the residence of
John Letcher, a former governor of Virginia. Hunter’s actions
provoked a Confederate counteroffensive led by General Jubal
Early, who penetrated into Maryland, demanding ransom from
several towns, and reaching as far as seven miles from the White
House. The Confederates were forced back into Virginia, but
Hunter was relieved of his command on August 8, 1864, in favor
of General Philip Sheridan. Hunter spent the rest of the war
serving on courts-martial.
After Lincoln’s assassination in April
1865, Hunter accompanied the president’s body back to
Springfield, Illinois, for burial. He then served as first
officer of the military commission trying the conspirators in
Lincoln’s assassination. He retired the next year. Hunter died
in Washington, D.C., on February 2, 1886. |