Battery I, 1st Regiment of United States Artillery was a field artillery battery of the United States Army between 1821 and 1901 that notably served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
The company was organized in June 1821 at Fort Constitution, New Hampshire under the command of Captain Fabius Whiting.
It was posted at various East Coast installations in garrison through 1836, when the company was deployed to Fort Mitchell, Alabama and was sent into the field during the Creek War of 1836.
Shortly thereafter, the company was deployed to Florida, where it joined the campaign during the Second Seminole War from 1836 until 1838.
Equipped as a field artillery battery, the unit participated in the Mexican–American War from 1847 until 1848, joining the campaign under the command of Captain John Bankhead Magruder during the siege of Vera Cruz and engaged at the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Mexico City.
In 1850, Battery I was ordered to the Pacific Coast to take post at San Diego, California; the unit remained in California through 1855, when it was ordered to join the United States Boundary Survey en route to Texas.
In 1857, the company returned to the Atlantic Coast, where it was stationed at Fort Adams in Rhode Island.
The battery was ordered to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, along with much of the rest of the U.S. Army in 1859, where it remained until January 1861 before moving to Washington, D.C. to defend the national capital from Confederate Army attack during the American Civil War.
Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, Captain Magruder resigned his commission and joined the Confederacy. Command of Battery I was given to Captain James B. Ricketts, who led the battery at the Battle of Bull Run; Ricketts was severely wounded in action and captured, and command soon passed to Lieutenant Edmund Kirby Jr., who led the battery through the Peninsula Campaign, Antietam, and Fredericksburg before he was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville.
Lieutenant George Woodruff led the company at the Battle of Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he was killed in action. Lieutenant Tully McCrea briefly commanded the battery after Gettysburg, and was replaced by Lieutenant Francis "Frank" Sands French.
In October 1863, Captain Ricketts, who was absent since July 1861, was replaced with Captain Alanson Merwin Randol; Randol, who had commanded Battery E & G, 1st U.S. of the Horse Artillery Brigade since 1862, trained and refitted Battery I as a horse artillery battery, and in April 1864 it was merged with Battery H, 1st U.S. to create Battery H & I, 1st U.S.
Battery H & I served for the remainder of the war as a horse artillery battery, typically attached to the Cavalry Division. It was present during the Wilderness Campaign of 1864, including the Battle of Cold Harbor in June 1864.
Captain Randol left the battery for West Point in August 1864, and later accepted a volunteer commission; for the rest of the war, the company was commanded by its lieutenants.
After the Civil War's end, the battery was posted on garrison duty at a variety of bases across the United States: at Fort Brown, Texas from 1865 to 1869; at Fort Trumbull, Connecticut from 1869 to 1870; at Fort Delaware, Delaware in 1870; at Fort Wood, New York from 1870 to 1872; at Key West Barracks, Florida from 1872 to 1875; and at Fort Warren, Massachusetts from 1875 to 1881.
In November 1881, the company was transferred to the Department of the Pacific: it was posted at Fort Canby, Washington Territory, 1881–1882, Fort Stevens, Oregon, 1882–1883, Fort Canby, Washington Territory, 1883–1884, Fort Alcatraz, California, 1884–1886, the Presidio, California, 1886–1890.
In 1890, the battery returned to the Atlantic Coast: it was posted at Fort Hamilton, New York, 1890–1896, Fort Monroe, Virginia, 1896–1898, and Fort Morgan, Alabama, 1898–1901.
The company was commanded by Captain William Montrose Graham from April 1872 until July 1879, Captain John C. White from July 1879 until October 1883, Captain Richard Shaw from October 1883 until June 1896, and Captain Robert Patterson from June 1896 until February 1901.
In February 1901, the regimental artillery service was dissolved and reorganized as the United States Artillery Corps: Battery I, 1st U.S. was converted to the Eighth Company, Coast Artillery.
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.
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Battery "K" 1st Regiment of Artillery was a light artillery battery that served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
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This article contains text from a text now in the public domain : Dyer, Frederick H. (1908). A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Des Moines, IA: Dyer Publishing Co. 