B. F. Reed

Who was B. F. Reed?

Benjamin Franklin Reed or B. F. Reed, as he was commonly known, was a captain in the Illinois Volunteers in the American Civil War. He raised his own company and then led these volunteers for two years in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. Prior to the war he was a speculator in farmland in central Illinois, near the town of Tuscola, and while away with the army he corresponded with his real estate partner, Charles Welliver. Reed was a courageous soldier but his real distinction was literary. His letters to Welliver show character development from his initial status as a businessman who happened to be in uniform to a toughened soldier with a strong sense of civic responsibility. The letters contain an especially vivid description of the Battle of Murfreesboro, including accounts of the behavior of individual soldiers from his company. His last letter, from the Battle of Chickamauga, is filled with foreboding, probably because he could see Longstreet gathering his forces opposite his position. He was mortally wounded the next day, September 19, 1863, and died in a Confederate field hospital.

The American Legion Post in Tuscola, Illinois, is named after B. F. Reed, as is a room of Civil War memorabilia in the Douglas County courthouse. Original copies of Reed's letters are deposited at the University of Illinois library.