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Hunter (DAVID an American military)

DAVID, an American military officer; born in Washington, D. C., July 21, 1802; was graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1822; assigned to frontier duty; promoted captain in 1833; resigned from the army in 1836 and settled in Chicago; reentered the army in 1842 as paymaster with the rank of major. On May 17, 1861, he was appointed brigadier-general of volunteers and a few months later major-general. He was given command of the Department of the South in March, 1862, and recruited and organized in South Carolina the first negro regiment in the Union army. He was transferred to the Department of West Virginia in May, 1864; defeated the Confederates at Piedmont, June 5, 1864; was HUNTER chairman of the commission which tried the conspirators against the life of President Lincoln; brevetted major-general, U. S. A., March 13, 1865, and was retired on account of age, July 31, 1866. He died in Washington, D. C., Feb. 2, 1886.