Joseph J. Reynolds

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For the War of 1812 general with a similar name, see Joseph Reynolds.

Joseph Jones Reynolds (January 4, 1822 – February 25, 1899) was an American engineer, educator, and military officer who fought in the American Civil War and the postbellum Indian Wars.

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[edit] Early life and career

Born in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, Reynolds briefly attended Wabash College before he received an appointment in 1839 to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. After graduating tenth of thirty-nine cadets in the Class of 1843, Reynolds was brevetted as a second lieutenant and initially assigned to the 4th U.S. Artillery.

He successively served at Fort Monroe in Virginia, Carlisle Barracks in central Pennsylvania, and then in Zachary Taylor's occupation army in Texas in 1845 before returning to the academy as assistant professor in 1846. On December 3 of that same year, he married Mary Elizabeth Bainbridge.

He resigned from West Point in 1857 and subsequently returned to frontier duty, this time in the Indian Territory. He resigned his army commission and taught engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, for a time.

In 1860, he moved to the state of Indiana, where he owned a grocery business with one of his brothers.

After receiving a |colonel]]'s commission from Governor Oliver P. Morton and was placed in command Indiana's Camp Morton, the wartime state's militia muster encampment at Indianapolis. Reynolds's 10th Indiana Volunteer regiment was sent to western Virginia, where it played a decisive role repulsing Confederates under Robert E. Lee at Cheat Mountain.

Although promoted to brigadier general, Reynolds resigned in January 1862 and resumed training Indiana regiments at Camp Morton until November 1862 without a commission. Retroactively appointed colonel of the 75th Indiana volunteers, brigadier general and then major general of U.S. volunteers, Reynolds commanded a division of XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland at Hoover's Gap and Chickamauga.

After serving as the army's chief of staff before Chattanooga, Reynolds was transferred to the Gulf, where he led a division of XIX Corps that garrisoned New Orleans, Louisiana. He was later promoted to the command of the XIX Corps, and led it effectively at the Battle of Mobile Bay in southern Alabama.

[edit] Postbellum career

After the war, Reynolds remained in the Regular Army as colonel of the 26th U.S. Infantry and was assigned command of the Department of Arkansas. He later was transferred to duty in Texas during Reconstruction, replacing Charles Griffin in charge of the Department of Texas. When military rule in Texas ceased in 1870, Reynolds again returned to frontier garrison duty.

In the early and mid-1870s, Reynolds fought hostile Indians on the Great Plains. During the Black Hills War of 1876, he led an attack on Sioux warriors under the chief He Dog in the Powder River country. However, the campaign ended in failure, and Reynolds was subsequently court-martialed. He was found guilty of the charges and given a suspended sentence, and he resigned from the army on June 25, 1877[1].

Reynolds died in Washington, D.C. at the age of 77.

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Photographic History of the Civil War, Vol 10 pg 204

[edit] External links