John F. Reynolds, Lancaster, Lancaster County

A quick congratulatory shout-out to my pal the Hometown Historian, who just reached 1,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel. So proud of you, Jon, keep up the great work!

As I write this, there's just a little more than two months separating me from Zenkaikon, my annual gift to myself. Each year (except when things like a global pandemic prevent it) I travel to beautiful downtown Lancaster to join my fellow nerds from all over in a long weekend of costumes, pageantry, and general mayhem as we celebrate all the different forms of media we love. It's very important to me.

This year, I'm deeply gratified to be able to say that I've become kind of an official and permanent part of the convention, in my own way. At last year's closing ceremony, during the feedback session, an out-of-town participant suggested that the con staff create a sort of primer about Lancaster's history. And since they already have someone right in their midst who will take any opportunity to ramble about history in Pennsylvania, they knew just who to call. About Lancaster City went live on the convention website earlier this week and I'm so happy that they welcomed my unique contribution to the program. Many thanks to the con staff, and especially vice-chair Adam, for giving me this opportunity.

Well, since I was already immersed in the history of the Red Rose City, it seemed only natural that this week's post should continue in that direction. The story of this gentleman begins in Lancaster and ends in Gettysburg, but there are some who claim that his story still continues to this day. 

The marker stands at 42 West King Street,
in front of what was the Reynolds home

John Fulton Reynolds was born in Lancaster on September 21, 1820. He was the fifth child of John and Lydia (Moore) Reynolds, who lived at 42 West King Street. (There was originally a marker indicating the house, but the marker in this post has replaced that one.) John the elder was the owner of the Lancaster Journal newspaper, which started in the same year that young John was born and closed its doors in 1834.

Of John and his eleven siblings, nine survived childhood; among them were James Reynolds, who became Quartermaster General of Pennsylvania, and Will Reynolds, a rear admiral in the United States Navy. The family could trace their father's lineage back to County Antrim, Northern Ireland, from which young John's great-great-grandfather had immigrated to Lancaster around the time of the American Revolution.

At seventeen, John was nominated to the United States Military Academy by then-Senator James Buchanan, who was a friend of his parents. He graduated in 1841 and was assigned to Fort McHenry as a second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Artillery, and also served in Florida and South Carolina. In 1845 he was sent to Corpus Christi, Texas, to fight alongside Zachary Taylor in the Mexican-American War, during which he received two promotions. He continued to collect honors and commendations after the war, including serving as an instructor and the Commandant of Cadets at West Point from September 1860 to June 1861.

Here's where John's biography takes a turn for the romantic, so if you enjoy a tragic love story, this one's for you. After leaving West Point, he returned to Lancaster and conducted a secret courtship with Catherine "Kate" Hewitt. Why secret? Well, John was a Protestant and Kate was a Catholic, so her parents weren't likely to be on board with it; that was a big deal back then. Not "you can't rule England if you marry a Catholic" levels, but still a difficult obstacle to overcome. Meanwhile, the Civil War began, and John was being considered for a few different posts. Before he left his beloved Kate, he asked her to marry him; as a token of the engagement, he gave her his West Point class ring. She accepted the proposal and presented him with a ring inscribed with the words "Dear Kate" and a medallion, which she wanted him to wear to keep him safe. They agreed that if he returned from the war, they would break the news to their families and marry. If he never came back, she vowed to become a nun.

John was promoted to the rank of brigadier general and, after a couple of hiccups in his orders, was assigned to the newly minted Army of the Potomac. He was soon in command of a brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserves, and took control of Fredericksburg, Virginia. From there his brigade went to Mechanicsville, where they assisted in holding the defensive line during the Battle of Beaver Dam Creek; John received a letter of commendation for his heroism. At one point he was taken prisoner while sleeping, and the Confederate general to whom he was brought turned out to be an old Army friend from his pre-war days, D. H. Hill, who welcomed him and treated him kindly until he was released in a prisoner exchange in August 1861.

Now in command of the Pennsylvania Reserves Division, John led a defiant stand in the Second Battle of Bull Run, where he and his men were able to hold off the advancing Confederate army long enough for the Union soldiers to organize their orderly retreat. Many historians believe that this courageous display probably saved the Union army from being outright destroyed. He missed the Battle of Antietam because Governor Andrew Curtin had him oversee the Pennsylvania Militia for a few weeks, but returned to the Army of the Potomac, participating in the Battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. He had a private interview with President Lincoln on June 2, 1863; it's speculated, though unproven, that Lincoln may have asked him to become commander of the Army of the Potomac. Whether or not there is truth to this, Lincoln instead decided to give the position to General George Meade.

The image at left can be seen in the museum at the Gettysburg National Military Park. On July 1, 1863, the morning of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, John was directing multiple units of the Army of the Potomac to join the cavalry division occupying the borough. Gettysburg's importance to the war may seem a little odd to a modern reader; but there were, and are, ten roads leading into and out of Gettysburg, some of which were vital for trade. If it fell to the Confederates, they would bottleneck supplies for the Union as well as seize control of the rich farmlands in the area. I won't go into a lot of detail about the battle here, though, since it has its own markers and I'll be talking a lot about it in a future post.

John, on horseback, was supervising the placement of some newly arriving troops. I wonder who it was that recorded his final words: "Forward, men, forward for God's sake!" He had barely finished shouting this encouragement when he suddenly fell from his horse, shot in either the neck or head, and died a few minutes later. He was one of the first casualties of the Battle of Gettysburg, and the highest-ranked officer to be killed there.

Exactly who shot him has never been confirmed. Many scholars believe that he was brought down by a sharpshooter, hiding in a tree or possibly a nearby barn, but the identity of the shooter remains a mystery, and some think it was simply a random shot that happened to hit one very valuable target. It doesn't help that, after the war, multiple different men tried to claim that they were responsible for his death.

Though they didn't have much time to devote to him at the moment he fell, John was deeply mourned by many in the Army of the Potomac; he was well loved by his men, and respected by other officers, even among the Confederates. There remains not a single record of any negative comment about him by anyone. Unlike most others who died in the battle, John's body was removed from the field as soon as possible. Almost immediately he was taken back to Lancaster, accompanied by a few members of his personal staff. In Lancaster they were met by two of John's sisters, Eleanor and Jennie, to whom they related the details of his passing. They were soon joined by the heartbroken Kate, who finally confessed the secret engagement. She kept vigil beside John's body throughout the night before his funeral, which was held in the Fulton Opera House. John was buried on Independence Day, the day after the battle which claimed his life ended with the Union victory, in Lancaster Cemetery next to his parents. Later, when the Gettysburg National Military Park was created, he was further honored with no less than three memorials within the grounds; this includes the one I photographed in the National Cemetery, seen at right. He also has a statue outside of Philadelphia City Hall.

Technically, John's story ends here. But there's another element to it. Kate, in keeping with the promise she had made before John left, went to Maryland and joined the St. Joseph Central House of the Order of the Daughters of Charity. She fully intended to spend the rest of her life as a nun. Instead, she was dismissed from the convent after a time; she was deemed "unsuitable for community life" due to her continued grief for a man who was neither family nor her husband. She relocated to Stillwater, New York, where she worked as a teacher, and died there of pneumonia in 1902 - still unmarried, still faithful to her John.

Kate's endless mourning, it is said, kept John's spirit from resting in peace. Some residents and visitors in Lancaster have reported feeling unseasonable chills in the air just outside of John's childhood home on West King Street; others have reported sightings of a tall man in anachronistic clothing, following the old city sidewalks between the Reynolds home and the Fulton. They say he's searching for his fiancée, trying to fulfill the promise he made to marry her all those decades ago. 

Whether you can see him on the streets of Lancaster or not, one place where you definitely can "see" John is in the Lancaster City Visitor Center. As I mentioned in my posts about Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Demuth, John (seen at left) is one of the figures encountered in the portrait hall who can sometimes be induced to interact with one another. It's not quite as exciting as a ghostly encounter, but it's a lot more guaranteed.

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Sources and Further Reading:

The Reynolds Family Genealogy. Original deleted; archived file courtesy of the Wayback Machine

Nichols, Edward J., and John F. Reynolds. Toward Gettysburg: A Biography of General John F. Reynolds. Literary Licensing, LLC, October 2011.

Harding, Jeffrey J. Gettysburg’s Lost Love Story – The Ill-Fated Romance of General John Reynolds and Kate Hewitt. The History Press, 2022.

Hartwig, D. Scott. "Romances of Gettysburg: Who Shot J.R.?" Part one, part two, and part three. From the Fields of Gettysburg, the blog of Gettysburg National Military Park, December 2011 and January 2012.

"unchartedadam" (real name uncertain). "Haunted Lancaster: The Ghost of General Reynolds." UnchartedLancaster.com, October 2019.

John F. Reynolds at FindAGrave.com (Please note: there is a second record for him in the Gettysburg National Cemetery, but that one is only what's called a cenotaph; he's actually buried in Lancaster.)

John F. Reynolds at the Historical Marker Database

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Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.