GEN. HUGH T. REID

REID, THOMPSON, JOHNSON, VANDERBERG, LEROY, CALHOUN, GLOVER, JOHNSTONE, PERRY, BIGGER, WYLIE, BROWNING, WILLIAMS, HALL, GRIMES, STARR, STOCKTON, HODGE, MILLS, EDMUNDS JR, FREMONT, BELKNAP, GRANT

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 4/4/2020 at 19:48:06

GEN. HUGH T. REID, the subject of this sketch is a native of Union County, Indiana, and is of Scotch-Irish descent. His parents were natives of Abeville District, South Carolina the birth-place of John C. Calhoun. His grandfather, Hugh Reid, who was a soldier in the war of the Revolution entered a large tract of land in the Northwestern territory, which he gave to his son James Reid, the father of the General, giving him the choice between lands in the wilderness and slaves in Carolina. Even at that early day, and forever afterwards, he was conscientiously opposed to slavery, and in 1810 removed with his wife, whose maiden name was Thompson, traveling in wagons over the mountains to his lands in what was afterwards Union County, Indiana. He settled in the beech woods and opened a farm where, on the 18th of October, 1811, General Reid was born and grew up to manhood, assisting his father in the labors of the farm. When war raged upon the frontiers in 1811 and 1812 his father volunteered as a soldier in the company of Captain Glover, stationed at the stockade fort of Connersville. In 1833, General Reid was sent to the Miami University at Oxford, Ohio, where he spent three years, and finally graduated at Bloomington (Indiana) College with high honors, under the presidency of Dr. Wylie, after spending the senior year at that institution. It was the desire of his grandfather and his uncle, George Reid, an eminent Presbyterian Minister of South Carolina, that he should become a minister of that church. But his inclination was for the law, in which profession he was destined to be distinguished. He studied law in the office of Judge James Perry, of Liberty, Indiana, and was admitted to practice by Judge Bigger, afterwards elected Governor of the State, in the spring of 1839. In June of that year he came to Fort Madison and commenced the practice of his profession, and in the spring of 1840 formed a co-partnership with Hon. Edward Johnstone, which continued nearly ten years, during which period the firm were engaged in all the important land suits involving the title to the half-breed tract, which resulted in the final establishment of the Decree Title.

From 1840 to 1842 he was prosecuting Attorney for the counties of Lee, Des Moines, Henry, Jefferson, and Van Buren, the then most populous counties in the southeastern part of the State. As a land lawyer he stood in the very front rank of his profession at the bar, then boasting of such eminent jurists as Cyrus Walker, O. H. Browning, and Archibald Williams, of Illinois, who then practiced in our courts, and the two Judges Hall, Senator Grimes, and Henry W. Starr, of our own State. As a public prosecutor he was the terror of evil-doers; he gave no quarters, and rarely failed to convict, no matter what the subterfuges or evasions set up for the defense by the great criminal lawyers of that day.

In a legal argument he was forcible, pointed and profound; in criminal prosecutions he was accused of being relentless and vindictive, for with his sanguine temperament he threw his whole soul in the effort to convict. He was employed while L. D. Stockton was prosecutor to prosecute the two Hodges for the murder of Miller and Leiza in the spring of 1845. This was the most atrocious murder ever committed in the State, the Hodges being part of the gang of Mormon Bandits. They took a change of venue to Burlington, and were ably defended by Judge Hall, Major Mills and Judge George Edmunds, Jr., and after a lengthy trial of several days, were found guilty, and afterward hanged. The defense attempted to establish an alabi but most signally failed. General Reid spoke for three hours to the jury, the Court House being crowded with spectators, and was listened to throughout with breathless attention, his speech on that occasion being the most able and brilliant effort of his long and successful career at the bar. He was employed to defend Jo. Smith, the Mormon Prophet at the time he was assassinated at Carthage, Illinois, in the spring of 1844. He removed to Keokuk in 1849, soon after retired from the practice and engaged in building the Des Moines Valley Railroad, of which he was President for four years. During his connection with that road, it was built to Fort Dodge, over two hundred and fifty miles, passing through the great financial crisis of 1857.

When the war of the rebellion of 1861-5 broke out, he was commissioned by General Fremont to raise a regiment, the Fifteenth Iowa Infantry, of which General Belknap, Secretary of War, was Major, and afterwards Colonel. He went to the field in April, 1862, was engaged in the battle of Shiloh on the 6th of April, 1862, in which his regiment lost over two hundred men in casualities in two hours and twenty minutes. He was severely wounded in this action, being shot through the neck. He fell from his horse, which also received several wounds, one through the chest, none of which proved fatal. In less than ten minutes he remounted, and was the last field officer of the two regiments, the Fifteenth and sixteenth Iowa Infantry who continued on horse back to the end of the fight. On an examination of his field glass, pistol holsters, and brass mounting of his saddle, they were found to be literally battered with bullets. He was in the seige of Corinth and battle of Iuka and Corinth in 1862. On the 13th of April, 1863, he was made Brigadier General by President Lincoln; had command of Lake Providence, La., during and after the seige of Vicksburg, having, during that time, several skirmishes with the enemy who appeared in force driving them away by a successful strategy with only a few hundred men, by showing a long skirmish line and bold front, leading them to believe he had a large force. When here he gave important information to Rear Admiral Porter of the Mississippi Squadron which led to the capture and destruction of millions of dollars worth of property belonging to the rebels at Yazoo City. When General Grant was looking for an officer to command at Lake Providence, which was a great shipping point for cotton, one of his staff officers who knew his reputation for integrity said, send General Reid there, and he will see that nobody steals any cotton from the Government! After the fall of Vicksburg he was assigned to the command of the Fort at Cairo, Illinois, and subsequently the District, with Head Quarters at Columbus, Kentucky, which embraced in its limits part of Missouri, and the States of Tennessee and Kentucky.

While here he obtained important information of the secret organization of the “Knights of the Golden Circle,” which led to the capture of its leaders and the circumvention of the disloyal conspiracies of that dangerous society plotting for the destruction of the Government in the interest of the rebellion. General Sherman offered him an important command in the operations of his army before Atlanta and march to the sea, which he declined, as the war was near its close, and in April, 1864, resigned and came home, his private business, so long neglected, requiring his personal attention.

Since his resignation he has been engaged in building the Des Moines Valley Railroad, and was President of that magnificent structure, the railroad and passenger bridge over the Mississippi at Keokuk till its completion.

He was first married to Miss Charlotte A. Johnson, at Fort Madison in 1841. She died in 1842, leaving no children. He was married to his present wife, Miss Mary Alexine LeRoy, daughter of Major Alexis LeRoy, and Elizabeth, the daughter of Judge Henry Vanderberg. One of the first Judges of the Northwestern territory, appointed by Washington, his marriage taking place at Burlington, Iowa, on the 5th October 1846. He has three sons living. General Reid is six feet in height, and his hair, which in his early years was of a dark, sandy hue, is now very white. He has for some time suffered from paralysis, caused by his wound at Shiloh, and has retired from active public business. He has been a man of iron constitution, active temperament, and great decision of character, and is widely and favorably known as one of the representative men of the State.

Source:
Illustrated Historical ATLAS of Lee County, IOWA
A. T. Andreas
Chicago, ILL.
1874

Transcription by Mary H. Cochrane, Volunteer