George Reynolds

George Reynolds was an Irish-born United States Army cavalryman and Medal of Honor recipient whose military legacy was established during the Third Battle of Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley on September 19, 1864. Born in Ireland in 1839, Reynolds later came to the United States and entered military service from New York City during the American Civil War. He served as a Private in Company M of the 9th New York Cavalry, a regiment that developed a distinguished combat record with the Army of the Potomac and later the Army of the Shenandoah. The 9th New York Cavalry was organized during the opening year of the Civil War. Company M drew recruits in part from New York City, along with other New York communities. The regiment entered Federal service in 1861 and soon became involved in mounted operations in the Eastern Theater. Initially assigned to duties around Washington, its soldiers were eventually equipped and organized for active cavalry service. During the years that followed, the 9th New York Cavalry participated in some of the Union Army’s most demanding campaigns in Virginia. Its wartime history included operations connected with Pope’s Virginia Campaign, the Army of the Potomac’s cavalry operations, the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns, and repeated fighting around northern and central Virginia. The regiment established a strong reputation during actions such as Beverly Ford, Brandy Station, and operations near Culpeper. By 1864 the regiment was deeply involved in Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant’s relentless campaigns against the Confederate armies in Virginia. It fought during operations associated with the Wilderness and Spotsylvania and subsequently participated in Major General Philip H. Sheridan’s cavalry raid toward the James River. The regiment later operated near Totopotomoy Creek and Cold Harbor before joining Sheridan’s Trevilian Station raid, one of the largest all-cavalry battles of the Civil War. These operations placed the 9th New York Cavalry within a rapidly changing style of cavalry warfare. Civil War cavalrymen were expected not only to conduct reconnaissance and screening duties but also to participate in large mounted charges, fight dismounted with carbines, raid enemy communications, protect army movements, and exploit breakthroughs on the battlefield. For George Reynolds, the historically correct Combat Achievement classification is therefore Armor / Cavalry rather than Infantry. During the summer and early autumn of 1864, Sheridan was given command of Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley. Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early had repeatedly threatened Union positions and communications in the region and had even advanced toward Washington earlier that summer. Sheridan’s mission was to defeat Early’s army and eliminate the Shenandoah Valley as a major Confederate base of operations and supply. The 9th New York Cavalry became part of this campaign. By September, Union and Confederate forces maneuvered around Winchester, Virginia. Sheridan eventually received intelligence indicating that Early’s army was vulnerable and decided to attack. On September 19, 1864, the resulting Third Battle of Winchester—also known as the Battle of Opequon—became the largest and one of the most important battles ever fought in the Shenandoah Valley. Union infantry advanced toward Winchester while large cavalry formations operated against the Confederate flanks. Fighting continued for hours and involved infantry, artillery, and mounted troops across an extensive battlefield. The Union cavalry played an increasingly important role as the battle developed. During the afternoon, Federal cavalry formations attacked the Confederate left and contributed heavily to the collapse of Early’s defensive position. Mounted soldiers moved aggressively against Confederate troops around the northern approaches to Winchester, and the Confederate army was ultimately forced into retreat. It was during this battle that Private George Reynolds performed the action that earned him the Medal of Honor. His official citation is extremely concise: “Capture of Virginia State flag.” Capturing an enemy flag in nineteenth-century warfare had significance beyond the possession of a piece of cloth. Military colors served as visible rallying points around which troops maintained formation and cohesion amid smoke, noise, and confusion. They also represented the identity and honor of the organization carrying them. Color bearers and the soldiers surrounding them were therefore frequently exposed to considerable danger, and attempts to capture an enemy flag often required entering extremely close combat. Reynolds succeeded in capturing a Virginia State flag during the fighting at Winchester. The surviving official citation does not provide a detailed narrative of precisely how he reached the flag, and unsupported dramatic details should not be added. What is firmly established is that his conduct was regarded as sufficiently exceptional to merit the United States’ highest military decoration. The Battle of Winchester ended in a decisive Union victory. Early’s Confederate forces withdrew south from Winchester toward Fisher’s Hill. The defeat marked the beginning of the destruction of effective Confederate control in much of the Shenandoah Valley. Only three days later, Sheridan defeated Early again at Fisher’s Hill, continuing a campaign that would dramatically reduce Confederate military power in the region. Recognition of Reynolds’s action came with unusual speed. His Medal of Honor action occurred on September 19, 1864, and the medal was presented on September 27, 1864—only eight days later. He was not a posthumous recipient; the decoration was awarded during his lifetime. The Army Medal of Honor itself was still a very young decoration. Congress had authorized the Army version in 1862 during the Civil War, following the authorization of the Navy Medal of Honor the previous year. During the conflict, the Medal of Honor became the principal national military decoration available for extraordinary battlefield conduct. Because Reynolds’s medal was issued in 1864, his award belongs to the original Civil War-era Army Medal of Honor period. For the project database, his verified decoration is therefore recorded as Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1864. No additional bar, clasp, star, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for Reynolds’s Medal of Honor. He received one Medal of Honor, and his final verified ribbon representation remains the plain medal without an additional attachment. The later Army Civil War Campaign Medal should not be added to Reynolds’s verified medal rack. Reynolds died on March 16, 1889, long before that campaign medal was established in the early twentieth century. Consequently, his Civil War service cannot be converted into a later campaign-medal entitlement. Under the project’s recipient-specific evidence rules, his final verified award remains the Medal of Honor alone. Reynolds’s postwar life developed in a direction very different from his military career. After leaving the Army, he became connected with the artistic community in Philadelphia. He studied art and became associated with the celebrated American painter and teacher Thomas Eakins. By the 1880s Reynolds was part of the circle of artists and students surrounding Eakins. His identity as a Civil War veteran remained an important feature of how he was perceived. Around 1885, Eakins painted Reynolds in the work now known as The Veteran (Portrait of George Reynolds). The painting presents Reynolds not as an idealized battlefield hero but as an older veteran decades removed from the war. The portrait is now held by the Yale University Art Gallery and has become an important artistic representation of the generation that survived the Civil War. Reynolds was also involved in the controversy surrounding Eakins’s departure from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. When students loyal to Eakins formed the Art Students’ League of Philadelphia in 1886, Reynolds became closely associated with the new organization and served as its first curator. His name appears among the students who supported Eakins and participated in the establishment of the independent school. This artistic phase of Reynolds’s life gives his biography an unusual dimension among Civil War Medal of Honor recipients. He was not remembered solely through military records and veterans’ organizations. Through Eakins’s portrait, his image became part of the history of American art as well as American military history. The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery also identifies Reynolds as the Civil War Union soldier portrayed in Eakins’s The Veteran. George Reynolds died in New York City on March 16, 1889. He was buried in the Cemetery of the Evergreens in Brooklyn, New York. His death came twenty-five years after the battlefield action for which he had received the Medal of Honor. George Reynolds’s legacy therefore connects two distinct chapters of nineteenth-century American history. As a Private in Company M, 9th New York Cavalry, he took part in the Union war effort and distinguished himself at Winchester on September 19, 1864, by capturing a Virginia State flag during one of the decisive battles of Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Only eight days later, the United States formally recognized his conduct with the Medal of Honor. After the war, he entered the world of art, became associated with Thomas Eakins and the Art Students’ League of Philadelphia, and was immortalized in Eakins’s portrait The Veteran. His final verified medal record remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1864, with no verified additional device or clasp.