instruction for heavy artillery", and at the Ordnance Board in Washington, D.C. He was promoted to first lieutenant, in 1853, and sent to conduct a road survey from the Big Sioux River to Mendota, Minnesota. When he returned to Washington, he married Mary Blanes Cross, and the couple had five children, two of whom had notable achievements of their own: Conrad Reno became an attorney and writer of note in Boston, Massachusetts, and Jesse W. Reno graduated from Lehigh University and invented the first working escalator. Reno's next assignment was as ordnance officer at the Frankford Arsenal, northeast of Philadelphia, where he spent the next few years. In 1857, Reno was assigned to go with Brigadier General Albert Sydney Johnston (later a senior Confederate general in the Western Theater) as chief of ordnance on a two-year expedition to the Utah Territory. Civil War When he returned from Utah in 1859, Reno was promoted to captain for fourteen years of continuous service. Captain Reno then took command of the Mount Vernon Arsenal near Mount Vernon, Alabama, in 1859. At dawn on January 4, 1861, Reno was forced to surrender the arsenal to troops from Alabama, a bloodless transfer ordered by the governor of Alabama, Andrew B. Moore. Alabama seceded from the Union a week later. Upon leaving Alabama with his small force, Reno was temporarily assigned to command the Fort Leavenworth Arsenal until he was appointed brigadier general of volunteers in the fall of 1861. He transferred to Virginia, took command of the 2nd Brigade, Burnside Expeditionary Force, and soon had organized five regiments. The 2nd Brigade fought in Major General Ambrose Burnside's North Carolina Expedition from February through July 1862. Reno became a division commander in the IX Corps, which had become part of the Army of the Potomac. In the Northern Virginia Campaign, Reno actively opposed his friend and classmate Stonewall Jackson during the Second Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Chantilly. Reno was appointed a major general on August 20, 1862. (This promotion was confirmed posthumously on March 9, 1863, with date of rank established as July 18, 1862.) Burnside became commander of the Army of the Potomac's right wing for the start of the Maryland Campaign in September, elevating Reno to command of the IX Corps from September 3. Reno had a reputation as a "soldier's soldier" and often was right beside his troops without