page_title: History of Randolph, Tennessee
section_title: Destruction
hierarchical_section_title: History of Randolph, Tennessee / Civil War / Destruction
caption_attribution_description: English: Inside of the powder magazine of Fort Wright (historical) in Randolph, Tennessee. I made the photo myself, feel free to use it.
context_page_description: Randolph is an unincorporated rural community in Tipton County,
  Tennessee, United States, located on the banks of the Mississippi River. The lands of the Mississippi River Basin were inhabited by Paleo-Indians and later Native American tribes of the Mississippian culture for thousands of years. The Tipton Phase people and the Chickasaw Indian tribe populated the Mississippi River valley near Randolph during the Mississippian period. In 1541, Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto crossed the Mississippi River at or near Randolph. French explorer Cavelier de La Salle built the first French fortification at or near Randolph on his 1682 canoe expedition of the Mississippi River.
  European settlers arrived in the area around 1800. The town of Randolph was founded in the 1820s as one of the earliest European settlements in Tipton County. The location of Randolph, on the second Chickasaw Bluff along the banks of the Mississippi River, just south of the lower mouth of the Hatchie River, provided for an ideal harbor for flatboats and steamboats and made the town an early center of river commerce in West Tennessee. Randolph shipped more cotton annually than Memphis until 1840.
context_section_description: In 1862, Union Army Major General William T. Sherman (1820–91) and his troops assumed control of the defeated Confederate stronghold of Memphis and the surrounding areas, including the region of Randolph, located about 25 miles (40 km) north of Memphis by land. While trying to keep the area under Union control, Sherman became increasingly "frustrated by the constant guerrilla activity in his sector". Confederate guerrillas from the Randolph area weakened the Union forces, raiding their supplies and firing at boats that delivered cargo to the invading forces along the Mississippi River.
  The Union supply ship Eugene was fired at by Confederate bushwhackers at Randolph while carrying supplies to Memphis in September 1862. Frustrated with raids by guerrillas and with the civilians who aided them, Major General Sherman ordered Colonel Charles C. Walcutt of the 46th Ohio Infantry to Randolph. He informed his subordinate officer that "the attack on the Eugene was by a small force of guerrillas from Loosahatchie, who by this time have gone back, and therefore you will find no one at Randolph; in which case you will destroy the place, leaving one house to mark the place." Union Army soldiers under Colonel Walcutt's command burned Randolph in retaliation for the guerrilla activities emerging from the area. To his superior officer, Major General Ulysses S. Grant, Sherman reported that he had "given public notice that a repetition [of guerrilla attacks] will justify any measures of retaliation, such as loading the boats with guerrilla prisoners where they would receive fire, and expelling families from the comforts of Memphis, whose husbands and brothers go to make up the guerillas." In 1869, Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85) would become the 18th President of the United States and William T. Sherman would become commanding General of the United States Army.
  Randolph was burned down a second time by federal soldiers in 1865.
caption: Inside view of the powder magazine at Fort Wright (2008)
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