Major-General John Fulton Reynolds was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on 20 September 1820. Reynolds was the son of a newspaper editor, as well as the good friend of James Buchanan, also of Lancaster, who would become our nations fifteenth president. Attending West Point in 1837, Reynolds graduated twenty-sixth in the class of 1841.

Following his graduation, Reynolds spent the next five years serving in the army on garrison duty in Texas. During the Mexican War he received brevetted promotions of captain and major and served in the Mexican War and in the Rogue River Indian and Utah expeditions.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commandant at West Point, but with the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers took active part in the operations of the Army of the Potomac from August 1861.

Reynolds commanded a brigade of the Pennsylvania Reserves, which was merged in the First Corps, Army of the Potomac. He went with McDowell to the Department of the Rappahannock, but returned to the Army of the Potomac at the head of the brigade in the Fifth Corps, for the move to the James.

He was taken prisoner at Glendale, but was exchanged. The brigade joined the Third Corps, Army of Virginia, where Reynolds commanded a division.

Against, with the Army of the Potomac, Reynolds was given the First Corps on 29 September 1862, and later was made major-general of volunteers.

On the first day of Gettysburg, 1 July 1863, he was killed by a Confederate sharpshooter. Reynolds' loss was most keenly felt in the Federal army. As he was placed in an ambulance and taken from the field of battle, his men who passed by to victory, saw his body and were saddened that he had not lived to enjoy the ultimate achievement he had helped to create.