Alanson Merwin Randol
Alanson Merwin Randol was a career United States Army artillery officer and graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point who served in the American Civil War. He was promoted multiple times for gallant and meritorious service in battle, rising during the course of the war from the rank of second lieutenant to brevet brigadier general of volunteers.
While Randol was a noted artillerist who served with the 1st U.S. Artillery in nearly every major land battle of the Eastern Theater of the Civil War, he also commanded the volunteer 2nd New York Cavalry Regiment in battle from December 1864 through April 1865, when he was present to witness General Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House.
At the end of the Civil War, Randol returned to the Regular Army artillery service; he commanded companies of the 1st U.S. Artillery in garrison duty across the United States from 1865 until his death from kidney disease at his brother's home at New Almaden, California in 1887.
Early life and career
Alanson Merwin Randol was born in Newburgh, New York, the fifth of seven children born to Alanson and Mary Randol. His mother died when Randol was eight years old in 1846, and his father was remarried in 1847. Alanson Randol, Sr. was an overseer at the United States Assay Office in New York and a prominent member of his local Methodist congregation.The 1850 United States Census listed Randol as living in Redding, Connecticut where he attended the Redding Institute, a private Christian liberal arts boarding school administered by Professor Daniel Sanford. In 1855 at the age of 17, Randol secured an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York upon the recommendation of New York State Judge Advocate General Elijah Ward.
His father committed suicide in 1859 during Randol's fourth year at West Point.
Randol finished the standard five-year course of instruction at West Point; his class began with 61 cadets in 1855 and ended with 41 cadets at graduation in June 1860. Prominent members of the Class of 1860 included Horace Porter, James Harrison Wilson, John Moulder Wilson, Stephen Dodson Ramseur, Alexander Cummings McWhorter Pennington Jr., and Wesley Merritt. Randol also associated in academy life with George Armstrong Custer and Morris Schaff. Randol maintained a generally-high academic standing throughout his West Point career and was ranked 9th in the Class of 1860.
Upon leaving West Point, Randol was initially commissioned as a brevet second lieutenant in the United States Artillery on July 1, 1860. He was transferred to the United States Army Ordnance Department to serve at Benicia Arsenal near San Francisco, California in October 1860, where he was promoted to the permanent rank of second lieutenant from November 22, 1860.
Civil War service
Return to the Eastern Theater
Following the siege of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Lieutenant Randol was ordered east from Benicia Arsenal to join the fighting in the Eastern Theater. On May 14, 1861, he was promoted to first lieutenant in the artillery service, and along the way to Washington, D.C. he served for a time with Major General John C. Frémont's Department of the West, commanding Battery L, 1st Missouri Light Artillery from August to December 1861.Upon arrival in Washington, D.C., Randol was ordered to join the artillery defenses of the Capital under Colonel George W. Getty's Second Brigade, Artillery Reserve of the Union Army of the Potomac. On January 1, 1862, he assumed command of Battery E, 1st U.S. Artillery in the absence of Captain Jefferson C. Davis, who remained on detached service in the Western Theater for the duration of the war. At the time he joined, the battery included subordinate section chiefs Lieutenants Samuel S. Elder, Lorenzo Thomas Jr., and Theophilus Bhyrd von Michalowski and was armed with four 12-pounder cannons and two 6-pounder howitzers. These pieces were soon replaced with six smoothbore Model 1857 light 12-pounder "Napoleon" guns.
Battery E was understrength, only recently refitted and rearmed following its return from Charleston, South Carolina, where it had been present for hard duty throughout the siege of Fort Sumter under Captain Abner Doubleday; on February 23, 1862, the unit was merged with a portion of Battery G, 1st U.S. Artillery. The remaining part of Battery G not merged with Randol's battery was transferred to Captain William M. Graham's Battery K, 1st U.S. Artillery, along with two of Battery E's officers, Lieutenants Thomas and von Michalowski; Lieutenant Elder was also transferred within two months' time to command of Battery K, the command of his vacant section in Battery E passing to veteran non-commissioned officer First Sergeant James Chester.
Randol's newly combined batteries formed an amalgamated artillery company known thereafter as Battery E & G, 1st U.S. Artillery or, colloquially, "Randol's Battery."
Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days Battles
On March 10, 1862, Battery E & G, 1st U.S. Artillery joined Major General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac as it embarked upon the Peninsula Campaign on Virginia's York-James Peninsula. The battery was attached to the Artillery Reserve under Colonel Henry Jackson Hunt. Traveling by sea and landing at Fortress Monroe, Battery E & G joined the Siege of Yorktown, then moved westward with the Army of the Potomac to the Chickahominy River. Following the Battle of Fair Oaks, the battery was stationed by the Woodbury Bridge near McClellan's headquarters at Savage's Station until June 29, 1862. After General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia shook McClellan's confidence with a string of heavy blows opening the Seven Days Battles at Beaver Dam Creek/Mechanicsville and Gaines' Mill, the Union commander ordered his bloodied V Corps to return south of the river and follow the rest of the Army of the Potomac on a retreat toward the perceived safety of the banks of the James River near Harrison's Landing. This massive redeployment was undertaken from June 29–30, 1862.Battle of Glendale
In the afternoon of June 29, 1862, Battery E & G, 1st U.S. Artillery was ordered to proceed from the camp of the Artillery Reserve in the White Oak Swamp to temporary duty attached to Brigadier General George Archibald McCall's Third Division, V Corps. Battery C, 5th U.S. Artillery of McCall's division was badly mauled at Gaines' Mill and Randol's battery was tasked with supporting the remaining Pennsylvania state volunteer artillery units of McCall's division. The Third Division, fully-composed of volunteer infantry regiments and artillery companies of the Pennsylvania Reserves, sustained heavy losses in the previous two battles north of the Chickahominy and was no longer fit for a prolonged fight; one historian of the division wrote, "most of the men were fitter subjects for the hospital than for the battle-field." Randol's battery joined Colonel William Averell's 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry and Captain Henry Benson's Battery M, 2nd U.S. Artillery, U.S. Horse Artillery Brigade alongside McCall's division late in the afternoon of June 29 as it marched from the White Oak Swamp toward its overnight objective: the defense of the critical junction of the New Market and Quaker Roads at Glendale, where the whole of the Army of the Potomac would be required to pass on its route across Malvern Hill and onward to the James River.McClellan recognized that Lee's likely objective would be the bisection of the Army of the Potomac while it was in transit and most vulnerable—failure to protect its flank would spell certain disaster. McCall's Third Division, combined with elements of the divisions of Generals John Sedgwick, Joseph Hooker, Philip Kearny, Henry Slocum and William Smith, would deploy along a north-to-south line from the White Oak Swamp to Malvern Hill, parallel to the Quaker Road, in order to check against any Confederate advance in the vicinity until the Army was safely past.
The division became lost along the road overnight: Randol's battery, following McCall's three brigades, managed to overshoot the junction of the roads at Glendale in the heavy darkness, marching approximately west of their objective. Meade discovered the error around midnight on June 30, when Averell and Benson's advanced pickets met Confederate skirmishers moving in the opposite direction. Randol's own cannoneers reported encountering Confederate sentries in the dark approximately west of their guns, then-deployed in an open field north of the New Market Road.
At approximately 4:00 AM on June 30 the battery moved east with McCall's column while it retraced the path to Glendale, the vanguard of the division arriving after dawn and believing it had proceeded safely beyond Federal lines. McCall's men waited for orders until approximately noon, unaware that they were, in fact, representing the extreme western flank of the Union Army while the Confederate main force under Major Generals James Longstreet and Ambrose Powell Hill were rapidly approaching to assault the crossroad. It was not until Meade and Seymour personally reconnoitered the trees to the west of the open field in which the division was bivouacked that they discovered there was practically nothing standing between the approaching rebels and McCall's line. They immediately alerted McCall, who deployed his brigades for battle.
Battery E & G was attached to Meade's Second Brigade, forming the extreme right flank of McCall's line overlooking a wide open field to the west sloping downward for toward McDowell's Creek and a line of heavy pine trees. To Randol's right, McCall's division met Kearny's; to his immediate left stood two batteries of the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery deployed along McCall's center; on the far-left, two more batteries of the 1st Battalion, New York Light Artillery, also on loan from the Artillery Reserve.
A Confederate artillery barrage signaled to the Federals that an assault was imminent. Soon afterward, the cannonry stopped and heavy fighting took place as Confederate units emerged from the woods opposite McCall in piecemeal fashion, offering probing attacks along the whole line. The difficulty of the terrain and poor communication prevented the combined assault envisioned by Lee, which allowed the Federals to focus on repulsing isolated attacks as they occurred. Opening the fight, a massive infantry assault made by Brigadier General James L. Kemper's brigade emerged on the Union left flank; this sudden attack caused McCall to shift the majority of his First Brigade reserves to the left, away from the right and center just prior to a second Confederate assault made against the center-right by Colonel Micah Jenkins' brigade supported by regiments of Brigadier General Cadmus M. Wilcox's brigade.
Randol stood on the extreme right of McCall's line, north of the New Market Road, when Jenkins' brigade assaulted the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery batteries to his left. He shifted his battery's arc of fire from west to south, done in order to rake Jenkins' advancing regiments with murderous enfilading crossfire as they charged the two batteries south of the road. This traversing movement was successful, but two of Wilcox's Alabama infantry regiments suddenly broke from the woods along the northwestern edge of the field and appeared upon Randol's newly exposed right flank: Randol immediately ordered his battery traversed back to the west and met the first wave of Wilcox's advancing 8th Alabama Infantry Regiment, repulsing two consecutive infantry charges with canister shot, supported by Kearny's artillery under Captain James Thompson in parallel to his right.
Randol's cannoneers might have successfully repelled a renewed third Confederate infantry charge, but at the moment when the 8th Alabama's second charge against the guns broke, some of Randol's infantry support rose and charged after the rebels to the front of the battery, obscuring the cannons' field of fire. The Pennsylvanian infantrymen advanced for a short distance until encountering the second of Wilcox's regiments, which met them with a massed volley of riflery and advanced with bayonets. The Pennsylvanians broke and routed directly toward the face of the battery, masking Battery E & G's fire until it was too late to act. Though Randol's cannoneers managed a single discharge of double-shotted canister in their own defense, Confederate infantry swarmed the battery and overran his guns, driving the gunners from their posts at the point of bayonet and back to his line of ammunition caissons.
Meade was wounded during the fighting, his last order given before leaving the field for Randol to "fight your guns to the last, but save them if possible."
Indescribably brutal hand-to-hand and bayonet combat ensued, recounted by McCall as "one of the fiercest bayonet fights that perhaps ever occurred on this continent." After a desperate struggle with nightfall fast approaching, Randol was able to rally a company of infantry with the help of McCall and Magilton. They stormed his captured guns and retook them following a brief, intense melee fight; nevertheless, 38 battery horses had been killed and Randol's cannoneers were unable to drag the heavy 12-pounder Napoleon guns from the field before Wilcox returned in a renewed assault made with the assistance of two additional brigades under Brigadier Generals Lawrence O'Bryan Branch and Roger Atkinson Pryor. The party successfully rescued Randol's mortally-wounded section chief Lieutenant E.B. Hill, but all six 12-pounder Napoleons were necessarily abandoned to the Confederates after darkness fell when Randol could not convince Brigadier General Samuel P. Heintzelman to spare men to retrieve them for fear of sparking a renewed nighttime battle after fighting had generally ceased.
At the close of the battle, Randol's Battery E & G was no longer a functional artillery company. Arriving at Malvern Hill in the early hours of July 1, Randol reported to Colonel Hunt his battery's losses: two men killed and nine wounded, 38 horses killed, all of his six 12-pounder Napoleons lost, and but two caissons and four limbers abandoned to the enemy.
Randol's six 12-pounder Napoleon guns were removed by the rebels and employed in the service of the Confederate Washington Artillery of New Orleans until recaptured in 1864. Given their relative service histories, it is therefore likely that Randol was fired upon by his own captured artillery pieces on at least one occasion.