David Hunter (21 July 1802-2 February 1886) was a Union Army major-general who served in American Civil War.
Biography[]
David Hunter was born in Troy, New York in 1802, the maternal grandson of Richard Stockton. He graduated from West Point in 1822 and went on to serve on the Illinois frontier, as an infantry officer, and as a dragoon before settling in Illinois and becoming a real estate agent. He rejoined the army during the Second Seminole War and the Mexican-American War. He struck up a correspondence with Abraham Lincoln in 1860, bonding over their shared anti-slavery views, and Hunter was promoted to colonel of the US 6th Cavalry Regiment at the start of the American Civil War. He was wounded in the neck and cheek at the First Battle of Bull Run before serving as a division commander in Kansas under John C. Fremont, as president of the court-martial of Fitz John Porter, at the Battle of Fort Pulaski (after which he strongly advocated for emancipation and the creation of Black regiments), and in the Valley campaigns of 1864. During that campaign, Hunter replaced Franz Sigel in command of the Army of the Shenandoah after the Battle of New Market and oversaw the burning of vast swathes of the Shenandoah Valley. While he defeated William E. Jones at the Battle of Piedmont on 5 June 1864, he was defeated by Jubal Early on 19 June and was replaced by Phil Sheridan. Hunter was promoted to brevet major-general on 13 March 1865, and he served as president of the military commission trying the conspirators behind Lincoln's assassination. He retired from the army in July 1866 and died in 1886.