Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/1215

Rh, Va., was born at that city September 18, 1839. At the age of seventeen he entered business life with his father, and was so occupied when the war of the Confederacy broke out. Thoroughly in sympathy with the South he sought to render the most effective aid to the cause for which he was fitted, and in 1862 was appointed to a clerkship in the quartermaster's department, a position for which his previous training peculiarly adapted him. His meritorious service in this department led to his promotion to the rank of captain in 1863. He was first stationed at Petersburg, and remained there until the latter part of 1864, when he was assigned to duty as quartermaster of a Georgia cavalry command, under Colonel Griffin, with which he served until the close of the war. On being paroled at Macon, Ga., he returned to Norfolk, and at once resumed business with his father, with whom he has since remained, being associated with him under the firm name of Charles Reid & Sons. He has other important business connections, and is a director of the Citizens' bank of Norfolk. In 1871 he was appointed vice consul at Norfolk for the government of Denmark. Mr. Reid was married in 1853 to Bessie C. Williams, daughter of Charles Williams, of Richmond. After many years of congenial companionship he suffered her loss by death, April 24, 1890. Charles Reid, father of the above, was born at Forfar, Scotland, April 4, 1800, the son of George and Elizabeth Taylor Reid, who brought him to the new world and settled at Norfolk, in August, 1801. Here he was reared and received his business training under the care of his uncle, Robert Soutter, one of the most successful of the early merchants of that city. When twenty-one years of age Mr. Reid embarked in business on his own account, and has now passed the seventy-seventh year of an honorable career as a merchant. The community with which he has passed this long period render him their universal esteem and respect. He has been honored on various occasions by the call to serve the city in the positions of magistrate, councilman, chief of the fire department, chairman of the board of harbor commissioners, and chairman of the school board, and in all these offices he has conscientiously served the public. He yet serves as a trustee of the First Presbyterian church, of which he is a devout and exemplary member, and as director of the Marine bank. On March 17, 1825, he was married to Lucretia, daughter of Cornelius Nash, of Norfolk, and they have reared eight children. Mr. Reid has lived to see the American republic, just recovering from the exhaustive struggle for independence, go through another encounter with the mother country, experience the brief but exciting war with Mexico, and survive the storm of the war of the Confederacy, that it may, reunited with a stronger patriotism, continue a growth and prosperity unexampled in the history of nations.

Philip Key Reily, who was among those citizens of Washington in the Confederate period who rendered devoted service to the Southern cause, was born in Washington in 1829, and was reared and educated at that city, where and in Maryland his family had long been residents. His grandfather, Major Reily, a native of Pennsylvania, was an officer of the Maryland line in the war of the Revolution. From 1856 until 1860 Mr. Reily was engaged in government surveys in the territory of the present State of