Humphrey Marshall (General)

Humphrey Marshall ( born January 13, 1812 in Frankfort, Kentucky, † March 28, 1872 in Louisville, Kentucky) was an American soldier and politician. Between 1849 and 1852, and again from 1855 to 1859, he represented the state of Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Politically, Marshall was a member of the Whig party. In the congressional elections of 1848 he was in the seventh election district of Kentucky in the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington DC chosen, where he became the successor of Garnett Duncan on March 4, 1849. After a re-election in 1850 he was able to start a second term in Congress on March 4, 1851. After he was appointed as the successor of John Wesley Davis to the American ambassador in Imperial China, he put his seat down on 4 August 1852. Until 1854 Marshall exercised his diplomatic office in China. After his return to the United States he became a member of the short-lived American Party after the dissolution of the Whigs.

For the 1854 elections, he was again selected in the seventh district of Kentucky in Congress. There he took over from the March 4, 1855 William Preston. After a re-election in 1856 he was able to complete up to March 3, 1859 two other legislatures in the U.S. House of Representatives. These were characterized by the discussions and events leading up to the Civil War. In 1858 he declined a re- nomination for Congress.

In the presidential elections of 1860 Marshall supported the candidacy of John C. Breckinridge. At the beginning of the Civil War, he advocated the neutrality of Kentucky. As Union troops marched into his country to Marshall joined the army of the Confederacy, where he rose to brigadier general. Two of his cousins, William Birney and David B. Birney generals were, at the same time in the opposing army of the Union. With an interruption he remained until 1863 in the army. He then moved to Richmond in Virginia, where he practiced as a lawyer. In the fall of 1863 he was elected to the Konföderiertenkongress.