Gen. Daniel Harris Reynolds
From Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas, Vol II, pg 1083-1085
Gen. Daniel Harris Reynolds was born near Centreburg, in Knox County, Ohio, on December 11, 1832. He attended school at the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. Went from Ohio to Louisa County, Iowa, in 1854, and thence to Hardeman County, Tenn., in 1855, and thence to Somerville, in Fayette County, Tenn., in 1857. He taught school in Ohio and read law in Iowa, and in Hardeman County, Tenn., and in the office of Hon. John W. Harris, in Somerville, and was admitted to the bar there on May 8, 1858. He removed from Tennessee to Arkansas in May, 1858, and was admitted to the bar in Arkansas on June 8, 1858, and on June 15, 1858, located for the practice of law at Lake Village, in Chicot County, Ark., where he has since resided, and engaged in the practice, except during the time he was absent in the army and returning from it, i.e. from May 25, 1861, to June 15, 1865. He held no official position prior to 1861. His great-grandfather, William Reynolds, resided in Loudon County, Va., of which he was a native, his father having come from England. John Reynolds, son of the latter, was also a native of Loudon County, but died in Ohio about 1823, aged about seventy. He was a farmer and a justice of the peace, and noted for his literary attainments. Amos Reynolds, son of John, and father of Daniel H., was born in London County in 1801, moved to Knox County, Ohio, in 1812, married in 1824, and died in 1848 in the latter county. He was a farmer, and a man of upright conduct, who impressed the idea on his children that they should be self-reliant and independent. Sophia Houck, the mother of Daniel H. Reynolds, was born in [Muskingum County, Ohio, in 1809, the daughter of James Houck, a farmer and native of Baltimore County, Md., son of Jacob Houck, who was a native German. Her mother was Sarah Shadley, daughter of Daniel Shadley, of an English-German family.
Gen. Daniel H. Reynolds is the fourth son and child of a family of ten children, five sons, viz.: James H., (died sixteen years old), Sylvester S. (a physician at Centreburg, Ohio), Burr H. (deceased), Daniel H. (our subject), William N. and five daughters, viz.: Sarah A., Emily S., Caroline, Barbara H. (died five years old), and Mary (died in infancy). He married in Chicot County, November 24. 1868, Miss Martha Wallace, who was born in Holmes County, Miss., May 23, 1845, the only child of Jeremiah Wallace, of Scotch descent, a planter. Her grandfather was John Wallace. Mrs. Reynolds' mother was Eleanor Waddell, a native of Louisiana, daughter of Mr. Waddell, of the Methodist Church. Mrs. Reynolds was educated in Holmes County, Miss. They have five children, all born in Chicot County, viz.: Kate (born September 5, 1869), Robert Wallace (born November 20, 1874), Eleanor (born October 25, 1877), Ruth (born January 3, 1880) and Daniel Harris (born October 13, 1883). He became a Mason in 1853 in Hiram Lodge No. 18, Delaware, Ohio, and has taken all the Chapter Council and Encampment degrees.
On May 25, 1861, he, as captain of, and with the cavalry company, raised in Chicot County, known as the "Chicot Rangers," was ordered to Little Rock, and thence to Fort Smith, Ark., and was there on June 14, 1861, mustered into the military service of the Confederate States as part of Company A, of the First Arkansas Cavalry Regiment. The regiment served in Missouri ami Arkansas until latter part of April, 1862, when it, with a large part of the Trans-Mississippi army, was transferred to Memphis, and thence to Corinth, and with the Army of Tennessee fell back to Tupelo. Miss., and thence to East Tennessee, and from there into Kentucky, under command of Gen. E. Kirby Smith, and on retreat from Kentucky in fall of 1862, fell in with the Army of Tennessee, being part, of McCown's division, and remained with the Army of Tennessee until May 10, 1863, when the division was taken to Mississippi by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. In the fall of 1863 the brigade was ordered for a time to the Army of Tennessee, and engaged in the battle of Chickamauga, and then back to Mississippi, and then early in 1861 to Mobile, and to the Eastern Division of the District of the Gulf, and thence early in May, 1864, to Dalton. Ga., and there as part of the Army of Mississippi became united with the Army of Tennessee (Polk's corps), and remained with that army until its surrender in North Carolina in 1865. He was musterered [sic] in as captain on June 14, 1861; was elected major April 14, 1862; was elected lieutenant colonel May 1, 1862; was appointed colonel on November 17, 1863, to take rank from September 20, 1863, and was appointed brigadier-general on March 12, 1864, to take rank from March 5, 1864, and assigned to command the brigade (McNair's) of which his regiment formed a part, which was thereafter known as Reynolds' Arkansas brigade. The brigade was then composed of the First, and Second Arkansas Cavalry (mounted riflemen), dismounted, the Fourth. Twenty-fifth and Thirty-first, Regiments of Arkansas Infantry, the Fourth Arkansas Battalion of Infantry and the Thirty-ninth Regiment of North Carolina Infantry, which was subsequently, on May 25, 1864, exchanged for the Ninth Regiment of Arkansas Infantry, and thus it remained until the close of the war. Other commands were at times temporarily attached to or acting with the brigade, but not a part of it. Gen. Reynolds was engaged in the following named battles: Oak Hills, Mo. (Wilson's Creek), August 10, 1861; Elkhorn, Ark., (Pea Ridge), March 7 and 8, 1862; Farmington, Miss., May 9, 1862; Richmond, Ky., August 30, 1862; Jackson, Miss., July 10-16, 1863; Chickamauga, Ga., September 19 and 20, 1863; Resaca, Ga., May 13, 14 and 15, 1864; New Hope Church, Ga., May 29 to June 3, 1864; Kenesaw Mountain, Ga., June 17 to July 3, 1864; Moore's Mill, Ga., July 19, 1864; Peach Tree Creek, Ga., July 20, 1864. At and near Atlanta, Ga., July 21 to September 2, 1864, i.e. Poor House or Ezra Church, near Atlanta, July 23, 1864; Lovejoy Station, Ga., August 20, 1864; Jonesboro, Ga., August 31, 1864; Moon Station, Ga., October 3, 1864; Franklin, Tenn., November 30, 1864; Nashville, Tenn., December 15 and 16, 1864; Sugar Creek, Tenn., December 26, 1864 and Bentonville, N. C., March 19, 1865. Besides the above-named engagements, he was in many skirmishes. His regiment was at Murfreesboro, Tenn., while he was on leave in Arkansas. The First and Second Regiments of his brigade were at Dug Gap, Ga., on May 8, 1864, and repulsed the attack of the enemy. Murfreesboro and Dug Gap were the only engagements in which his command participated in which he was not present. He was slightly wounded at Franklin, although not reported, and remained on duty. At Bentonville he lost his left leg - was wounded by a cannon ball passing in his horse's right breast and out under his left leg, shattering it below the knee badly, rendering amputation above tbe knee necessary. During the Kentucky campaign in 1862, as lieutenant-colonel, he was in command of his regiment, the colonel being absent sick; and as a compliment to the regiment for its gallantry at Richmond it was selected as the first to enter Lexington. At Chickamauga, on the evening of September 20, the brigade was on the extreme left of the Confederate line when the Federals undertook to turn the Confederate left, and after a desperate contest, the brigade when its ammunition was almost expended, made a charge and succeeded in driving back the Federal right, and when the brigade sent up its shout of victory it passed along the whole Confederate line, and the firing ceased, the Federals retiring while the shades of evening covered the field of this great battle. At Moore's Mill, July 19, 1864, the Fifteenth Mississippi Regiment was attached to his command for a time, and he was in command of all the Confederate forces there engaged. At Lovejoy Station, August 20, 1864, he was in command of the Confederate forces engaged (part of his brigade, and the Forty-eighth Tennessee Regiment), and the Federals under Gen. Kilpatrick were defeated. His command formed the rear guard of the army in its retreat from Kentucky, in 1862, and from Atlanta, on September 2, 1864. At Nashville, on December 16, 1864, his brigade was taken from the line to try and check and keep the Federal right from extending around the Confederate left, and on its way it had reached a point in front of the Gap to the east of Granny White Pike, when the Confederate line gave way. The brigade held the enemy back until Cheatham's corps (Hardee's old corps), passed through this gap, and then covered the rear of the army, until it reached Franklin. After the army crossed Duck River, retreating out of Tennessee, in December, 1864, at Columbia, eight brigades - Reynolds', Ector's, Quarle's, Strahl's, Maney's, Smith's, Palmer's and Featherston's - were selected and placed under command of Gen. Walthall as a rear guard of infancy. At Sugar Creek, with the brigades of Reynolds, Ector, Strahl and Maney, a part of Ross' cavalry, Gen. Reynolds punished the enemy severely and made him cautious; and from there to the Tennessee River the brigades of Reynolds and Ector, under his command, were the rear guard, and were the last to cross the Tennessee River, on the morning of December 28, 1864. Gen. Reynolds was elected to the Arkansas State Senate from the counties of Ashley, Chicot and Drew, in 1866, and served until the Legislature was disbanded by military order in 1867, under the Reconstruction Acts of Congress, since which time he has not sought or held official position. Such men, noble by the gift of God and courageous under all circumstances, never fail of the love of the brave in war, nor of the pure in peace.