**Note: The spelling of the surname, Reider, is spelled 2 different ways in this newspaper article. And further research has located his tombstone (Mr. Reider died 11/3/1930) — the surname on the gravestone is spelled, Reider.** 

Source: Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) Tuesday, March 29, 1927 - page 3 

Gregory Man, Mayor There Ten Years, Is Last Living Guard of Jeff Davis.

Gustave Reider, Born in Germany in 1846, Was Soldier During Civil War.

Also Fought Indians in South Dakota — Had Many Exciting Experiences.

By Special Correspondent 

Gregory, March 29. — Gustave Rieder, for ten years Mayor of Gregory, having given many years of military service to the United States, mostly in Indian wars, is a good example of a foreign immigrant coming to this county and becoming a substantial and honored citizen. 

Born in Germany, June 3, 1846, he came to this country when he was 18 years old and soon joined the federal army as one of Scofield’s cavalrymen and then went down to the easter boundary of the southern Confederacy till they met Sherman coming up from Savannah. When Jeff Davis, president of the southern Confederacy, was held a few days as prisoner, Mr. Rieder was among those detailed to guard him and thinks he is the last of those guards living. 

Shot By Indian

It was while Mr. Rieder was on a campaign with Gen. Miles in Kansas and northern Texas in the early 70’s that he was shot by an Indian. He was a cavalryman and riding out alone to guard the transfer of a group of horses, he was overtaken by two Indians and as he raced across a small stream, one Indian shot him with an arrow, which lodged in the back of his hip above the saddle. He says he was so excited he did not know it but thought he had shaken the cork out of his canteen and the water was running down his leg. When he came into camp his companions laughed at him going around with an arrow sticking into him and blood running down from the wound. They took him to the company surgeon and he cut out the arrow and all the dressing he gave the wound was to paste a sticking plaster over it. This took place in the great canyons of the Red River, in Texas.

He was later transferred to the Dakota Territory and should have joined Custer at Fort Lincoln, now Bismarck, N.D., but missed connections which stopped him in Omaha, where he was delayed two days when he heard Grant was to be there. 

Sees Active Service

When he came on to Yankton by railroad, he found the ice was running in the Missouri and he could not get passage to Fort Lincoln as the boats were pulling out of service for the winter. Then he joined a cavalry detachment at Fort Randall and saw active service. They were out nearly all the time with no tents, no overshoes, light cotton gloves and small caps. One particularly cold trip was after the Custer massacre, when all the ponies were taken from the Indians and a report came to them at Fort Randall that a group of halfbreeds were smuggling a bunch of horses to the Indians. 

In the morning before daylight, with the thermometer registering 40 degrees below zero, they were ordered out to intercept the band. Mr. Rieder and a companion were going about a mile ahead of the detachment doing scout duty when they saw the horses and their drivers on a distant flat near where Wagner is now. They lay down in the snow about a foot deep and waited for the troop to come. He remembers this as a very cold experience. They captured the horses and took them all back to Randall and turned them over to the Fort officers.

Another time, before the government had given permission to white men to live in the Black Hills, the cavalry detachment to which Mr. Rieder belonged, caught Fred Evans and his freight train crossing the White river and took him and his entire outfit as prisoners to Randall. A little later Evans was released and the troop frequently bought supplies from him when his warehouse was the only building standing where Rapid City now stands.

After Mr. Rieder had served his time with the military, he secured a ranch right from the government on the reservation and operated that till 1909, when Fort Randall was discontinued. He was located just west of Fort Randall and had a contract to supply the Fort with milk, wood, hay and beef.

Mr. Rieder retired from business a few years ago and since he was first elected to the office of Mayor of Gregory, he delights to give all his time to the office; and the people of Gregory think of no one else but Rieder for Mayor.

REUNION OF ODD FELLOWS HAS HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE. 

FT. RANDALL, S. D., Aug. 12 — (AP) — A picnic gathering of members of all branches of the Odd Fellows Fraternity and their families, designated as the First Annual Homecoming will be held Sunday, August 21, at Ft. Randall. The event is of historic significance as well as of fraternal interest, as Echo Lodge No. 2, instituted at Ft. Randall, February 7, 1872, was the second Odd Fellow lodge in Dakota Territory. With the abandonment of the fort, the lodge was disbanded and the charter surrendered to the Grand Lodge of South Dakota, but to maintain the historic connection, no other lodge in the jurisdiction has been chartered as No. 2. 

Several persons of historic connection with incidents at Ft. Randall will attend the homecoming celebration. Among them will be Gustave Rieder, Mayor of Gregory, who was initiated as an Odd Fellow in the Ft. Randall lodge, November 9, 1876; Zina Pichey, charter member of Dakota Lodge, No. 1, Yankton, who has not missed a grand lodge session in Dakota since its organization in 1874; George W. Snow, Springfield, former lieutenant governor, and veteran member of the order and James Connell of Burke, the first white child born in Dakota Territory. Mr. Connell was born at the military station of Ft. Randall, where his father was stationed as a part of the military force. 

~Unknown newspaper publication & date