Alexander W . Reynolds Alexander Welch Reynolds ( April 1816 or August 1817 – May 26 , 1876 ) was a career United States Army officer who served in the Mexican - American War and a Confederate Army brigadier general during the American Civil War , primarily fighting in the Western Theater . After the conflict he served as a staff officer in the Egyptian Army . Early life and career . Alexander W . Reynolds was born in either 1816 or 1817 in Frederick County , Virginia . He entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1833 , and graduated five years later , standing 35th out of 45 cadets . He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 1st U . S . Infantry on July 1 , 1838 . Reynolds was promoted to first lieutenant on June 11 , 1839 , and was the 1st ' s Regiment al Adjutant from October 19 to March 1 , 1840 . During the Mexican – American War , Reynolds was a captain in the U . S . Army , serving as the Army ' s assistant Quartermaster beginning August 4 , 1847 . He was at this rank on March 15 , 1848 , when he vacated his line commission . Reynolds was dismissed from the U . S . Army on October 8 , 1855 , following the disappearance of $ 126 , 307 USD from Reynolds ' office . When the funds were later accounted for , he was restored to his previous rank of captain as of March 29 , 1858 . Civil War service . During the American Civil War , Reynolds chose to follow his home state and the Confederate cause . He went AWOL from the U . S . Army and entered the Confederate States Army in 1861 . He was appointed a captain in the Confederate Infantry on March 16 , 1861 and promoted to colonel of the 50th Virginia Infantry on July 10 , 1861 . His soldiers called him " Old Gauley . " Reynolds first served under Brigadier General John B . Floyd in western Virginia . In March 1862 , Reynolds was sent to the Western Theater . He joined Edmund Kirby Smith ' s command in the Army of Kentucky throughout the rest of 1861 and most of 1862 . After the Kentucky Campaign failed in its object , Smith ' s army joined General Braxton Bragg ' s Army of Tennessee in a reorganization of Confederate forces in the Western Theater . On December 16 , 1862 , Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered the transfer of Major General Carter L . Stevenson ' s division to Lieutenant General John C . Pemberton ' s army . Reynolds utilized the political connections of his brother - in - law , Virginia Delegate Mason Mathews , to lobby for his promotion to general officer with Secretary of War James Seddon . General Reynolds , commanding a brigade in Stevenson ' s division , went with his troops to Vicksburg . Vicksburg . Unlike the other three brigades of Stevenson ' s division , Reynolds ' brigade suffered only lightly at the Battle of Champion ' s Hill . During the Siege of Vicksburg his brigade held a portion of the southern - most sector near the " Salient Work " . His brigade lost 14 killed , 25 wounded , and 14 missing during the siege . Reynolds ' brigade was part of the garrison that surrendered on July 4 , 1863 . Reynolds was taken prisoner . Chattanooga . Reynolds was exchanged on October 13 , 1863 , and promoted to brigadier general to rank from September 14 , 1863 . Reynolds led a brigade in Maj . Gen . Simon Bolivar Buckner ' s division during the Chattanooga Campaign . After Confederate President Davis ordered Lt . Gen . James Longstreet to recapture Knoxville , Tennessee , Buckner ' s division was sent as a reinforcement . When the Union army attacked Bragg on 23 November , Reynolds ' brigade was still waiting to board the trains that would take them to Knoxville . Detached from its parent division , Bragg sent it into the fight . In the Battle of Missionary Ridge , Bragg and corps commander John C . Breckinridge probably committed a serious tactical blunder in placing the troops of Reynolds and other brigades in a first line of breastworks at the base of the ridge . In case of a Federal attack , the two generals intended for Reynolds ' men to fire a single volley and fall back to a position on the crest where a gap was deliberately left . To compound the error , Bragg ordered Reynolds to move his brigade back to the top of the ridge early in the afternoon . Coincidentally , his men began pulling back just as the main Union attack began . This encouraged the attacking Federals and demoralized nearby Confederate troops in the first line . Reynolds ' troops were winded by the time they reached their empty position on the crest . When Union soldiers broke through the next brigade to the north , his exhausted men put up a brief resistance before retreating . Atlanta . Reynolds continued in brigade command in the Army of Tennessee during the Atlanta Campaign of 1864 . He served in Stevenson ' s division of Lt . Gen . John Bell Hood ' s Corps . He fought at the battles of Rocky Face Ridge , Resaca , and Adairsville before being wounded in the Battle of New Hope Church on May 27 . Upon recovery from his wounds , Reynolds was appointed assistant Inspector General of the District of Georgia in 1865 until the end of the war . He was paroled at Athens , Georgia , on May 8 . Postbellum . Reynolds entered the service of Egypt in 1869 as a colonel in the Egyptian Army . Egyptian chief of staff , Charles Pomeroy Stone assigned Reynolds to serve as Quartermaster , Commissary officer , and paymaster general . He and his wife ( whom he referred to as duchess ) , and his son Frank , and Frank ' s wife and son took up residence in Alexandria , Egypt . They became friends with a small circle of American expatriates that included Stone , William W . Loring , and Raleigh E . Colston . Tragedy struck the Reynolds family in 1875 . The previous year Frank Reynolds had returned to the United States with his wife and son to buy Remington rifles for the Egyptian government . In 1875 , Frank became sick and died in Ilion , New York . After this , Mrs . Reynolds returned to Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , where she soon died . At this time , Reynolds lost his support group of expatriates when most of the American officers left for the war against Ethiopia . With his pay from the Egyptian government in arrears and owing his creditors money , he was forced to move into a seedy boarding house . He died in bed there on May 26 , 1876 . According to gossip , alcoholism was a contributing factor . The exact whereabouts of Alexander W . Reynolds ' s remains are not known ; they could be in an unmarked grave in Alexandria or in the Patton Tomb located in Lewisburg , West Virginia , at the Old Stone Presbyterian Churchyard . In Reynolds ' s memory a cenotaph was erected in St . James the Less Cemetery located in Philadelphia .