Henry Jackson Hunt (September 14, 1819 – February 11, 1889) was Chief of Artillery in the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War. Considered by his contemporaries the greatest artillery tactician and strategist of the war, he was a master of the science of gunnery and rewrote the manual on the organization and use of artillery in early modern armies. His courage and tactics affected the outcome of some of the most significant battles in the war, including Malvern Hill, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and most notably at Gettysburg, where his operational decisions regarding strategic cannon placement and conservation of ammunition for the Confederate main assault, contributed greatly to the defeat of Pickett's Charge. Early life and family Hunt was born in the frontier outpost of Detroit, Michigan, the son of Samuel Wellington Hunt, an Army infantry officer who entered West Point in 1814 and died in 1829. He was named after his uncle, Henry Jackson Hunt, who was the second mayor of Detroit. His grandfather was Colonel Thomas Hunt, who served with distinction in the Continental Army throughout the American Revolution and served in the United States Army after the war until his death in 1808. Thus, Hunt was a hereditary member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati by right of his grandfather's service. As a child in 1827, he accompanied his father on the expedition to the future Kansas Territory that founded Fort Leavenworth. His brother, Lewis Cass Hunt (1824–1886), served throughout the Civil War in the infantry, becoming a brigadier general of volunteers in 1862, and brevet brigadier general in the Regular Army in 1865. Career Mexican-American War and Instructions for Field Artillery He graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1839 as a brevet second lieutenant in the 2nd U.S. Artillery. He served in the Mexican War under Winfield Scott, and was appointed a brevet captain for gallantry at Contreras and Churubusco and to major at Chapultepec. Hunt was a veteran member of the Aztec Club of 1847 and a First Class Companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States which were military societies of United States officers who had served in the Mexican War and Civil War respectively. On October 5, 1856, Brevet Major Hunt commanded Company M, 2nd U.S. Artillery from Fort Leavenworth, that protected the polls at Eaton, Kansas, during the territorial legislature elections. Hunt served