JOHN H. REED, LCDR, USN

John Reed '63

Date of birth: August 3, 1841

Age: 27

Naval Academy Register

John Henry Reed was admitted to the Naval Academy from Michigan on September 28, 1859 at age 18 years 1 months.

Loss

John was lost on January 11, 1868 when the launch he was aboard capsized while attempting to cross the Yodo River near Osaka Bay, Japan. He and several others were on board USS Hartford (1858) and had been waiting for several days to cross. The water was freezing cold. John was trying to save a sailor that could not swim and both drowned.

Other Information

From Find A Grave:

Lieutenant Commander Reed drowned with Rear Admiral Henry H. Bell. … They were first buried at Hiogo, Japan, and then the remains were brought back to the United States. A procession brought his remains to his father John’s house at 126 Cass Street, and the service was at the Church of St. James.
Reed was a graduate of the US Naval Academy Class of 1863. Previously, he was a member of Chicago's recreational military drill team - the (Elmer) Ellsworth Zouaves - who later toured in 1860. Reed is buried between his mother Jane and his brother Horace. His sister Mary is buried next to her father. Their father was described as "a man of wealth, enterprise, and business integrity" (Prairie Farmer, vol 21, 5/30/1868) upon the opening of the Reynolds, Reed (John and Horace) & Bowen Brothers woolhouse at 19 & 21 Randolph.

From "Dangers of Naval Life" by Arthur H. Dutton, former Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, in the January-June 1909 issue of "The Overland Monthly":

On January 11, 1868, Rear-Admiral Bell and his Flag-Lieutenant, John H. Reed, were drowned by the capsizing of their boat while proceeding up the Osaka river, Japan.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

John was baptized on November 21, 1841 in the Baptist Trinity Church in Geneva, New York.
He served in the engagement with the natives at the Island of Formosa in June 1867 in which Lieutenant Commander Alexander S. Mackenzie (Class of 1859) was killed.
Classmate Lieutenant Commander Cotton wrote a letter to his wife in Detroit explaining the details of the drowning of John and Rear Admiral Henry Bell. From The Waukegan Weekly Gazette, March 28, 1868, in part: “on the forenoon of Saturday, January 11th, about 9:30, Admiral Bell and Lieut. Commander John H. Reed, left the “Hartford,” also lying off Hioga, to go to Osaka, about a mile from the mouth of the river. There is a sand bar lying across the mouth of the river, which, with a west wind, makes breakers from the sea. The Admiral's barge was about midway of the surf, when it was thrown upside down by a heavy sea. Boats were dispatched from the vessels of the fleet, one of which was taken charge of by Lieut. Commander Cotton. Four of the unfortunate boat's crew were saved, but the Admiral, poor Reed, and ten of the seamen perished in the serf. The bodies of the two officers and six of the men were recovered in the afternoon, and on Tuesday, January 16th, were buried ashore – both the English and American chaplains, officers and sailors assisting on the melancholy occasion. So perished two brave and promising officers, one in the maturity, and the other in the prime of life – sleeping with their humbler companions, within sound of the sea, on a foreign soil.”

John was born in Geneva, New York and is buried in Chicago.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Acting Midshipman, 28 September, 1859. Ensign, 25 November, 1862. Lieutenant, 22 February, 1864. Lieutenant Commander, 25 July, 1866. Drowned 11 January, 1868.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

1861 – on frigate Potomac and ship Roanoke of the blockade squadron off Charleston, S.C.

Also in 1861, on USS Hartford, Mississippi River campaign. When New Orleans was captured, he was the third man on shore, and he lifted the flag at the Mint.

1863 - Executive officer on monitor Weehawken which helped pound Fort Sumter to rubble during two separate bombardments on 23 August and 1–2 September. It later sunk in December due to heavy ammunition in its forward compartments.

1865 - Lehigh

1866 – 1868 – USS Hartford

From Naval History and Heritage Command:

With the fall of Richmond imminent [in 1865], Rear Adm. David Dixon Porter ordered Comdr. William Ronckendorff (Monadnock) to send an expedition up the James immediately, to clear the river of torpedoes all the way to the city.
Ronckendorff charged Lt. Comdr. Ralph Chandler (Sangamon) to carry out the mission. Pairs of boats from ten ships, including Lehigh, formed a line in echelon across the river equipped to drag for torpedoes, while parties of armed Sailors kept just ahead of the boats to cut torpedo wires encountered along each river bank. Lt. John H. Reed from Lehigh led the party on the northern shore. The armed steamer Commodore Perry covered the expedition that took place on 3 April.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.