John Henninger Reagan

Reagan as a freshman congressman

John Henninger Reagan was born in 1818 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to Timothy Richard and Elizabeth (Lusk) Reagan. His parents were primarily of Irish and English/Scots border descent; his middle name was for German ancestors.

He left Tennessee at age nineteen and traveled to Texas, which had become independent from Mexico the year before in 1836. Reagan worked as a surveyor from 1839 to 1843. He bought property and farmed in Kaufman County until 1851.[3] During the time he worked as a surveyor, he also served as a private tutor to the children of John Marie Durst.[4]

Reagan read the law, serving as an apprentice in an established firm, and was given a license to practice in 1846. He opened an office in Buffalo, Texas. The same year he was elected a probate judge in Henderson County. In 1847 he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, but was defeated for a second term in 1849. He was admitted to the bar in 1848 and practiced in both Buffalo and Palestine, Texas.[1]

Reagan was elected as a district judge in Palestine, serving from 1852 to 1857. His efforts to defeat the American Party (Know-Nothings) resulted in his election to Congress as a Democrat in 1857 from Texas's 1st congressional district.[1]

Reagan was a staunch supporter of slavery. He believed abolition would cause such social problems as to require Southern whites to "exterminate the greater portion of the [black] race."[5] He also believed in the federal protections of slavery under the U.S. Constitution as extensions of private property rights, therefore he supported the Union. But when it became clear that Texas would secede, Reagan resigned from Congress on January 15, 1861 and returned home to the state to defend it.[2]

He participated in the secession convention that met at Austin on January 31, 1861. Chosen as a member of the Provisional Confederate Congress, within a month Reagan was appointed by President Jefferson Davis to his cabinet as Postmaster General.

The original Confederate Cabinet. L-R: Judah P. Benjamin, Stephen Mallory, Christopher Memminger, Alexander Stephens, LeRoy Pope Walker, Jefferson Davis, John H. Reagan and Robert Toombs.

Reagan was an able administrator, presiding over the only cabinet department that was described as functioning well during the war. Despite the hostilities, the United States Post Office Department continued operations in the Confederacy until June 1, 1861, when the Confederate service took over its functions.[6]

Reagan sent an agent to Washington, D.C., with letters asking the heads of the United States Post Office Department's various bureaus to come work for him. Nearly all did so, and brought copies of their records, contracts, account books, etc. "Reagan in effect had stolen the U.S. Post Office," historian William C. Davis later wrote. When President Davis asked his cabinet for the status of their departments, Reagan reported he had his up and running in six weeks. Davis was amazed.

Reagan cut expenses by eliminating costly and little-used routes and forcing railroads that carried the mail to reduce their rates. Despite the problems the war caused, his department managed to turn a profit, "the only post office department in American history to pay its own way," wrote William C. Davis. Reagan was the only member of the cabinet to oppose Robert E. Lee's offensive into Pennsylvania in June–July 1863. He instead supported a proposal to detach the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to reinforce Joseph E. Johnston in Mississippi, in order to break the Siege of Vicksburg. Historian Shelby Foote noted that, as the only Cabinet member from west of the Mississippi, Reagan was acutely aware of the critical consequences of Vicksburg's capture and control of the river by Union forces.

When Davis abandoned Richmond on April 2, 1865, shortly before the entry of Army of the Potomac under George G. Meade, Reagan accompanied the president on his flight to the Carolinas. On April 27, Davis made him Secretary of the Treasury after George A. Trenholm's resignation. Reagan served in that capacity until he, Davis, and Texas Governor Francis R. Lubbock were captured near Irwinville, Georgia on May 10.[2]

Reagan was imprisoned with Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at Fort Warren in Boston. He was held in solitary confinement for twenty-two weeks.[3] On August 11, he wrote an open letter to his fellow Texans urging cooperation with the Union, renunciation of the secession convention, the abolition of slavery, and letting freed slaves vote. He warned that if Texans did not voluntarily adopt these measures, the federal government would likely impose military rule to enforce these policies. Abolition was underway and he knew that there was support for granting the vote to freedmen. He was denounced by Texans. After being released from prison later that year, he returned to his home in Palestine in December.[2]

Reagan in his later years

Reagan historical marker outside the Van Zandt County Courthouse in Canton, Texas

To those who felt that the Reconstruction was unduly harsh, Reagan's prescience was hailed—he became known as the "Old Roman," a Texas Cincinnatus. He was part of the successful effort to remove Republican Edmund J. Davis from the governorship in 1874, after Davis attempted to remain in office illegally after losing the election.

That year Reagan was elected to the Congressional seat he held before the war, and he served one term, from March 4, 1875, to March 3, 1887. In 1875, he was a delegate to the convention that wrote a new state constitution for Texas. In Congress, he advocated federal regulation of railroads and helped create the Interstate Commerce Commission. He also served as the first chairman of the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads.

Elected by the Texas State Legislature to the US Senate in 1887 (serving March 4, 1887 to June 10, 1891), Reagan resigned to become chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas at the behest of his friend, Governor James Stephen "Jim" Hogg. He chaired it until 1903, continuing to serve under governors Charles A. Culberson and Joseph D. Sayers. Hogg had run on a platform of state regulation of railroads.[2][1]

John H. Reagan State Office Building

Conscious of the importance of recounting and interpreting history, Reagan was a founder of the Texas State Historical Association. He also attended reunions of Confederate veterans in his state. He wrote his Memoirs, With Special Reference to Secession and the Civil War, published in 1905. Later that year, Reagan died of pneumonia at his home in Palestine, the last surviving member of Jefferson's cabinet in the government of the Confederacy. Reagan was buried in East Hill Cemetery in Palestine, Texas.[2]

• Historian Ben H. Procter included Reagan in his list of the "four greatest Texans of the 19th century," along with Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, and James Stephen Hogg.
• Reagan County, Texas is named in his honor.[2]
• Several schools were named for him, including John H. Reagan Elementary School in Dallas, and Reagan high schools in Houston and Austin.

In the 21st century, given demands of social justice, some public school systems have renamed schools that memorialized men associated with the Confederacy and the effort to continue slavery. Reagan High School in Houston was renamed in 2016 to Heights High School by the Houston Independent School District, one of seven schools in the district that were renamed for this reason.[7] In 2019 Reagan Early College High School in Austin was renamed as Northeast Early College High School. [8]

• The John H. Reagan State Office Building on the Texas State Capitol grounds was named in his honor.
• Reagan is commemorated by a statue on the University of Texas at Austin campus. On August 21, 2017, in recognition that such Confederate monuments are controversial in today's society, which is still seeking racial justice, Reagan's statue in Austin was taken down. Plans were announced to add it to the Briscoe Center for American History on the east side of the university campus.[9]
• A park in his hometown of Palestine, Texas was named for him. A statue of Reagan was installed on the grounds.[9]

• List of United States Senators from Texas

• John Nathan Anderson. "Money or Nothing: Confederate Postal System Collapse during the Civil War," American Journalism, 30 (Winter 2013), 65–86.
• Peter A. Branner. The Organization of the Confederate Postoffice Department at Montgomery. Montgomery, Alabama: The Author, 1960.
• August Dietz. Confederate States Post-office Department. Richmond, Virginia: Dietz Press, 1962.
• August Dietz. The Postal Service of the Confederate States of America. Richmond, Virginia: Dietz Printing, 1929.
• John Henninger Reagan. Memoirs, With Special Reference to Secession and the Civil War. New York: Neale, 1905. (Reprinted subsequently)
• Ben H. Procter. Not Without Honor. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962.
• Theron Wirenga, editor. Official Documents of the Post-office Department of the Confederate States of America. Holland, Michigan: The Editor, 1979. Two volumes.

• United States Congress. "John Henninger Reagan (id: R000098)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2009-03-19

• John Henninger Reagan from the Handbook of Texas Online
• "John Henninger Reagan". Find a Grave. Retrieved March 19, 2009.
• John H. Reagan lineage — Smokykin.com