Hugh Thompson Reid

HUGH THOMPSON REID, born October 5, 1811, near Liberty, Union County, Indiana. Died August 21, 1874, at Keokuk, Iowa. Educated, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and Lane Seminary, near Cincinnati, Ohio. Degrees, A. B. and A. M. Occupation and position, attorney at law. District Attorney of Iowa Territory. Visitor to the West Point Military Academy. Member of the Society of the Army of the Tennessee. Colonel of the 15th Regiment Iowa Volunteers. Brigadier-General of Volunteers, (1861-65). President of Des Moines Railroad Company, Keokuk, and of Hamilton Bridge Company. General Reid was in many battles, during the civil war. At the battle of Shiloh, he received a wound in the neck, which induced paralysis and Bright's disease, of which he died, — at the battle of Corinth, Mississippi. Had command of Post Bolivar, Tennessee; Cairo, Illinois; Lake Providence, Louisiana, and the battle there, and also, at Hatchie. He gave information to Admiral Porter, which led to the capture of Yazoo City, Mississippi. When commanding the port at Columbus, Kentucky, he caused the arrest of the Knights' of the Golden Circle. General Reid was a successful prosecutor and land lawyer. He was the attorney employed in defending Joseph Smith, the Mormon leader, when he was assassinated. General Reid may be said to have been the builder of the railroad, from Keokuk to Fort Dodge, (near 250 miles). He was also, a vestryman in St. John's Episcopal Church.

SOURCE: Theophilus Adam Wylie, Indiana University, Its History From 1820, When Founded, To 1890, p. 178-9