Ranald mackenzie biography of williams

Ranald Slidell Mackenzie was born on July 27, 1840 in Westchester, New York to Alexander Slidell Mackenzie (1803 – 1848) and Catherine Alexander Robinson Mackenzie (1814 – 1883). He was the oldest of their five children. His father was the son of John Slidell and Mary Mackenzie but his father had adopted the name of Mackenzie (his mother’s maiden name) in 1837. The explanation for the name change was that it was a condition set out in order for him to claim an inheritance from an uncle, his mother’s late brother. Alexander Mackenzie had served for many years in the United States Navy after entering as a midshipman in 1815. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1825 and commander in 1841.

Alexander and Catherine were married in 1835 and all of their children carried the last names of Slidell Mackenzie, sometimes showing Slidell and Mackenzie hyphenated. All but one of their five children lived to be adults. Their surviving children included one daughter and three sons. The daughter, Harriet Duer Slidell Mackenzie, never married. Unfortunately, her obituary does not tell much about her personal life. The three sons each had long careers in the United States military. Ranald served in the Army, Alexander was a career naval officer and died in the line of duty in 1867 while in Taiwan, Morris Robinson retired from the Navy at the rank of admiral.

Ranald attended Williams College until he received his appointment to the United States Military Academy. He graduated from West Point in 1862, ranked first in his class. About thirty of his classmates served in the Army during the Civil War with Mackenzie reaching the highest rank, having received a brevet promotion to major general. At that time, he was the youngest major general of the volunteers. Mackenzie was wounded a number of times including being shot in the hand resulting in the loss of two fingers and also being struck in the chest by a spent artillery shell in one of his first battles. The los

Union army general (1840–1889)

Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, also called Bad Hand, (July 27, 1840 – January 19, 1889) was a career United States Army officer and general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He was described by General Ulysses S. Grant as its most promising young officer. He also served with great distinction in the following Indian Wars.

Early life and education

Mackenzie was born in Westchester County, New York, to CommodoreAlexander Slidell Mackenzie and Catherine Alexander Robinson. He was the nephew of diplomat and politician John Slidell and the older brother of two United States Navy officers: Rear Admiral Morris Robinson Slidell Mackenzie and Lieutenant CommanderAlexander Slidell MacKenzie. His grandfather was John Slidell, a bank president and a political power broker in New York City.

He initially attended Williams College, where he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Society, and then accepted a nomination to the United States Military Academy, where he graduated at the head of his class in 1862. He immediately joined the Union forces already fighting in the Civil War.

Civil War military career

Commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, Mackenzie served in the battles of Second Bull Run, Antietam, Gettysburg, and through the Overland Campaign and Petersburg in 1864. He was wounded at Bull Run, Gettysburg and Jerusalem Plank Road. His wounding at Jerusalem Plank Road during the siege of Petersburg cost him the first two fingers of his right hand and was the probable cause for his nickname, "Bad Hand". By June 1864, he had been brevetted to lieutenant colonel in the Regular Army due to bravery.

In July 1864, he was appointed colonel of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery. He moved with the VI Corps when it opposed Early'sWashington Raid at the battle of Fort Stevens. He was again wounded at Opequon. He was given command of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, VI Cor

By Roy Morris Jr.

The young captain of engineers who discovered the dangerous bulge in the “Mule Shoe” salient at Spotsylvania, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, would go on to make a name for himself during the Civil War and the subsequent Indian campaigns out West. Indeed, no less a judge than Ulysses S. Grant considered Mackenzie “the most promising young officer in the Union Army.” Had it not been for suddenly encroaching mental illness, Mackenzie might well have become commanding general of the U.S. Army. Instead, he was destined to live out the final years of his life in complete obscurity, far from the blazing battlefields of his youth.

Mackenzie, who came from a prominent New York family, attended Williams College before entering the United States Military Academy at West Point. He graduated first in his class in June 1862 and was commissioned a lieutenant in the engineering corps. At the Second Battle of Manassas that August, he suffered the first of several serious wounds when he was hit in the shoulder by a .52-caliber musket ball.

Subsequently, Mackenzie saw action in most of the major battles in the eastern theater of the war. Promotions and wounds seemed to follow him wherever he went. In all, he was wounded six times in the war, losing two fingers to a Confederate bullet at Petersburg and once becoming temporarily paralyzed when he was struck in the chest by a spent artillery shell. Along the way, he was commended seven times for gallantry and became at age 24 the youngest brevet brigadier general in the Regular Army and the youngest major general of volunteers one year later.

Following the Civil War, Mackenzie went out West, where he served under his old Civil War mentor, Phil Sheridan. His relentless tactics and tireless campaigning won him the admiring nickname “Bad Hand” from his opponents—both for his missing fingers and his uncanny ability to capture his foes. Mackenzie decisively defeat

On the morning of January 20, 1889, the New York Sunday Times carried an account of the elaborate preparations for the Yale Junior Promenade. On other pages were discussions of the prospects of the Harvard and Cornell crews for the coming rowing season. The balance of the paper bore foreign and domestic news of no startling importance. But tucked away in the obituary column there was a brief notice: [Died] M ACKENZIE —At New Brighton, Staten Island, on the 19th January. Brig.-Gen. Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, United States Army, in the 48th year of his age.

This was all the attention given to the death of a man who was one of our greatest Indian fighters and about whose Civil War services U. S. Grant had written: “I regard Mackenzie as the most promising young officer in the Army. Graduating at West Point, as he did, during the second year of the war, he had won his way up to the command of a corps before its close. This he did upon his own merit and without influence.”

Renown is often won by fickle and devious fortune. George Armstrong Custer gained immortality by spectacular failure, for his sudden and violent departure for Valhalla with all his men has made him, next to Grant and Lee, probably the best known of all our army officers of the nineteenth century.

How different is the fame of Mackenzie, a cavalry contemporary of Custer’s, who fought many more Indian actions and never suffered defeat. Custer graduated from West Point at the bottom of his class in 1861 and Mackenzie at the top of the class of 1862. Both men became major generals of volunteers during the Civil War before they reached the age of 25. Custer was brevetted five times for gallantry and wounded once; Mackenzie, with a year less of service, was brevetted seven times for the same reason and wounded sis times; later he received another wound from the Indians which made his life a daily agony. Custer met disaster and death in his second major Indian engagement, but Mackenzie