Joseph J . 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 . Early life and career . Reynolds was born in Flemingsburg , Kentucky . He 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 left 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 . Civil War . After receiving a colonel ' s commission from Governor Oliver P . Morton , Reynolds was placed in command of 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 with orders to build a depot and field works in Carthage , Tennessee , 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 of Mexico , 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 then commanded VII Corps in Arkansas . He was the brother - in law of Brevet Brigadier General Jules C . Webber . 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 { 5th Military District } . 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 . At the Battle of Powder River on March 17 , 1876 , Col . Reynolds attacked a village of mostly Cheyenne Indians , whose principal chief was Old Bear . The Sioux contingent there numbered between 20 and 30 , the most notable of whom was He Dog , who was riding a horse belonging to Crazy Horse . The principal warrior chief was Two Moons , a Cheyenne . However , the campaign ended in failure , and Reynolds was subsequently court - martial ed for his premature retreat . He was found guilty of the charges and given a suspended sentence , and was allowed to resign from the army on June 25 , 1877 . Reynolds died in Washington , D . C . , and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery .