Background
Ranald Slidell Mackenzie was an elder son of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie and Catherine Alexander (Robinson). He was born on July 27, 1840 in New York City.
Ranald Slidell Mackenzie was an elder son of Alexander Slidell Mackenzie and Catherine Alexander (Robinson). He was born on July 27, 1840 in New York City.
Mackenzie matriculated at Williams College with the class of 1859, but withdrew to go to West Point, where he graduated No. 1 in the class of 1862.
Assigned to the Corps of Engineers, Mackenzie went promptly to the front, taking part, as an engineer officer, in the battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and the subsequent campaigns, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and the siege of Petersburg (June-July 1864), and receiving during that time two wounds and four brevets for gallantry.
In July 1864, he was made colonel of the 2nd Connecticut Heavy Artillery Volunteers, with which he helped defend Washington against Early's raid. In command of a brigade during the Shenandoah campaign, he was wounded at Cedar Creek in October but returned to duty in time to take part in the siege of Petersburg, February-March 1865.
With the further brevets of colonel and brigadier-general, United States Army, and major-general of volunteers, he commanded a highly efficient cavalry division with the Army of the James during the Five Forks-Appomattox campaign in the spring of 1865, and was stationed in and about Appomattox while the details of Lee's surrender and the dispersion of the Army of Northern Virginia were carried out.
After the war, he was transferred to the South and Southwest in a lower rank, owing to the reduction of the military establishment. As colonel of the 4th Cavalry, he took the leading part in the campaigns of the early 1870's against marauding Indians in West Texas and along the Rio Grande, and was severely wounded (1871) while engaged in a cañon of the "Staked Plains, " Texas Panhandle.
In 1873, he crossed the Rio Grande, made a forced night march, attacked and destroyed an Indian camp, precipitating a situation which was finally settled by diplomatic exchanges with the Mexican government. As a result of these operations and his subsequent military supervision, large areas in Texas particularly the "Staked Plains" were opened to permanent settlement.
Mackenzie was then transferred to the Indian Territory, where he was equally successful in coping with the hostile Indians of that region.
When, after the Custer fight at the Little Big Horn, June 25-26, 1876, Gen. P. H. Sheridan, commanding the Military Division of Missouri, planned large-scale operations against the Sioux and Cheyennes, he relieved Mackenzie from command at Fort Sill, Indian Territory, and brought him with six companies of the 4th Cavalry up into Nebraska to form part of the Powder River Expedition.
Before starting on that campaign, Mackenzie, with his own companies, two from the 5th Cavalry, and a detachment of Pawnee Indian scouts, surrounded and disarmed the Red Cloud and Red Leaf bands on Chadron Creek, Nebraska, October 23, and then became the mounted column of Gen. George Crook's winter campaign into and up through an extensive district in Wyoming Territory.
Locating the Northern Cheyennes in the Big Horn Mountains, Mackenzie thoroughly defeated them in the battle of November 25, 1876, dispersing and breaking the fighting power of Dull Knife's formidable band. This campaign, with corresponding successes by troops operating in Montana under Col. Nelson A. Miles, led to the surrender of Crazy Horse without further hostilities in Wyoming. Transferred back to the Indian Territory in 1877, and thence again to Texas, Mackenzie completed the work of pacifying the region extending down to the Mexican border.
At the outbreak of the Ute disturbances in Colorado and Utah in 1879, he was sent into that district and was engaged for about two years in military operations and administration, with marked success. Later Indian troubles in Arizona and New Mexico required short tours of duty in both these territories.
After comparatively brief periods of command in the departments of New Mexico and Texas, he was retired on March 24, 1884, for disability incurred in the line of duty; already failing in health, he died on January 19, 1889, at New Brighton, Staten Island, New York.
Mackenzie had held the brevet rank of major-general of volunteers since March 31, 1865, for gallant and meritorious services during the Civil War. Fort Mackenzie located at Sheridan, Wyoming was named for General Mackenzie. Opened in 1899, after 1913, the fort was largely unused, and in 1918 it was abandoned by the military, but it was transferred to the Bureau of Health and opened as a mental health hospital starting in 1922 for veterans of World War I. It has continued as a VA hospital for mentally ill patients to the present. Fort Mackenzie High School is an alternative education high school in Sheridan. The name comes from the VA Hospital nearby, which was, as noted, originally a military fort named for General Mackenzie. Mackenzie Road is a major transportation artery aboard the Fort Sill training area. There is a Fort Mackenzie Lane in Laramie, Wyoming. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, FOB Mackenzie was named for him. Mackenzie Park in Lubbock, Texas is named for General Mackenzie. Mackenzie Middle School in Lubbock, Texas. Lake Mackenzie in Tule Canyon, near his base camp (1874) in Briscoe County, Texas, is named for him. The 1950 John Ford film Rio Grande contains some similarities to Mackenzie's action on the frontier. The 1958–1959 syndicated television series, Mackenzie's Raiders, starring Richard Carlson in the title role, is loosely based on Mackenzie's time at the former Fort Clark near Brackettville, Texas. Other actors in the series included Jack Ging, Morris Ankrum, Brett King, and Louis Jean Heydt. Mackenzie was mentioned in the sci-fi comic book Black Science, issue 33.
Mackenzie was slightly above medium height, very active, somewhat nervous, often impetuous and exacting; he had a reputation in the old army for being a severe disciplinarian, but his officers and men became much attached to and had complete confidence in him as a leader. Several times he was in the forefront of battle; one of the three wounds received in the Civil War resulted in the loss of fingers, which led the Indians to call him "Bad Hand. "
His particular interest was in the tactical handling of troops in the field, of which he was one of the acknowledged masters. He was, withal, a conserver of forces, and several times notably in the Dull Knife fight went through to the point of assured victory, without pressing an advantage at too great sacrifice.
His fame has been circumscribed by his temperamental aversion to publicity; all of the military operations under his command were followed by brief reports and immediate retirement to his station or other duties. No act of his ever brought censure from his superiors, and the only incident of his career resulting in controversy was his crossing of the Rio Grande with United States troops in 1873, and that was at least tacitly approved by the government.
Mackenzie never wrote for publication and was never married, but devoted all of his energies to the profession of a soldier.
Quotes from others about the person
"I regarded 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 [division] before its close. This he did upon his own merit and without influence. " - General Grant.
"I really classed him, " writes Capt. Robert G. Carter, who served under him in Texas, "as our best, most reliable and dependable Indian fighter. He had an indomitable will, wonderful powers of endurance, and unsurpassed courage. "
Mackenzie was never married.
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