Milton W. Humphreys

He was the first professor to introduce the Roman pronunciation of Latin in the United States while teaching at Washington and Lee University.

[3][5][6] During the American Civil War of 1861–1865, he served as a sergeant in the Thirteenth Virginia Light Artillery and Bryan's Battery of the Confederate States Army.

[1] On May 19, 1862, in Fayetteville, West Virginia, he set a precedent for modern warfare by firing an indirect cannon missile.

[7] He insisted upon the Roman pronunciation of Latin, making Washington and Lee the first American university where this was the case.

[1][2][5][7] However, his research during his time in Austin was very much hampered by a lack of books available, as the university had just been established.

According to Edwin Mims (1872–1959), who served as chairman of the English Department at Vanderbilt University from 1912 to 1942, Humphreys was sickened to find out that Tadeusz Stefan Zieliński (1859–1944) has already published a volume on research he had been doing for years.

[5] As a result, he had no choice but to review Zielinski's book for the American Journal of Philology.

[3][7] He served as a commissioner to Weltausstellung 1873 Wien, a world fair in Vienna, Austria, in 1873.