Rutherford, Friend S.

Born: 1820-09-25 Schenectady, New York

Died: 1864-06-20 Alton, Illinois

Flourished: 1856 to 1864 Alton, Illinois

Friend S. Rutherford was a lawyer, prison official, and army officer. Rutherford read law in Troy, New York, before moving west. He married Letitia V. Sloss in September 1849 in Alabama. The couple had at least five children. Rutherford established a law practice in Alton, Illinois, in 1856 and practiced until the American Civil War. He was appointed superintendent of the Illinois State Penitentiary in 1857, and he remained in this position through at least 1860. A Republican, Rutherford enlisted in the Ninty-Seventy Illinois Infantry in September 1862 and served as its colonel. He resigned in 1864 due to poor health and died soon thereafter. Rutherford received a posthumous promotion to Brigadier General.

John H. Eicher and David J. Eicher, Civil War High Commands (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 467; W. T. Norton, ed., Centennial History of Madison County, Illinois and Its People 1812 to 1912 (Chicago: Lewis, 1912), 1:420; Alabama, U.S., Marriage Index, 1800-1969, 18 September 1849, Lauderdale, (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, 2006); James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds., “Rutherford, Friend Smith,” Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York: D. Appleton, 1888), 5:356; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 17 March 1857, 3:1; 25 March 1859, 2:2; “Superintendent’s Report,” Reports Made to the General Assembly of Illinois, at its Twenty-second Session (Springfield, IL: Bailhache & Baker, 1861), 1:311-20; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 4, Alton, Madison County, IL, 172; Illinois Civil War Muster and Descriptive Rolls, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Gravestone, Alton Cemetery, Alton, IL.