and Texas Governor Francis R. Lubbock were captured near Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10. Reagan was imprisoned with Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at Fort Warren in Boston. He was held in solitary confinement for twenty-two weeks. 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. Return to public life 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 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. 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 Davis' cabinet in the government of the Confederacy.