The Twenty - Five Things That Made Genesee County Famous
Number 14
Charles Rand
On January 19, 1839 in a home at 4 Liberty Street a son was born to Angeline Rutland and James Rand. The son, Charles Franklin Rand, was destined to become Genesee County’s most decorated Civil War soldier.
As a young man, Rand moved to New Orleans and became a reporter for the Picayune. With the looming war between the north and south, Rand returned to his Batavia home in late 1860.
On April 15th, 1861 following the Battle at Fort Sumter, Rand was at the Eagle Hotel on Main Street in Batavia. A crowd gathered and a telegram came announcing that President Abraham Lincoln had called for volunteers.
Village resident, Maj. Henry Glowacki, said that something must be done without delay. According to Rand, “He appealed to a small group of young men and asked who would be the first to volunteer. I stepped forward and said I would be the first and my name was placed at the head of the list.”
With that, Batavian Charles Rand became the first volunteer of the Civil War. Rand was assigned to Company K, 12th New York with other Genesseans. The 12th New York traveled to Washington D.C. Their first engagement occurred on July 18, 1861 in the small town of Blackburn’s Ford, Virginia. The Battalion of 500 men came under fire and the commander ordered them to retreat. The whole battalion ran from the field, except for Rand who refused to retreat and stood his ground. For this action he received the Medal of Honor.
Rand fought with his unit until a battle at Gaines Mills, Virginia on July 27, 1862. During the fight he was wounded when a musket ball crushed his right shoulder. He pushed a clod of dirt into the wound to stop the bleeding and continued to fight. After the battle Rand was brought to a field hospital where he was taken prisoner by the Confederate Troops.
Rand spent three months in Libby Prison, Richmond, Virginia until he was released in a prisoner exchange. He went to an Army Hospital in Philadelphia where he fell in love with the nurse who was caring for him. The nurse was a nun who left the order and the two eventually married.
Rand never returned to combat, but served in Washington D.C. and eventually was promoted to Captain. After the war, he served in the Army as a Freedman’s Bureau Agent in Texas where his wife died.
Captain Rand left the Army in 1870 and attended the Georgetown Medical Society and graduated in 1873. Following graduation he returned to Batavia and practiced medicine. He married Louise Wheeler on October 24, 1889 and upon the death of Rand’s mother, the couple settled in Washington D.C.
Rand died on October 13, 1908 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
How Did He Make Genesee County Famous?
Charles Rand received a medal, called The Order of the First Volunteer, from the State of New York in the 1890s recognizing him as the first volunteer from the State of New York. Other people claimed to be the first volunteer and his claim has been attacked, but Rand is still considered to be the first volunteer in not only New York, but the entire Union.
Rand gained considerable publicity at the turn of the century for having the distinction of being the first volunteer of the Union. In Major General St. Clair Mulholland’s book, Military Order Congress of the Honor Legion of the United States (published in 1905), Rand’s picture is on the first page of the book and his biography is five pages long. The book was sent to state and university libraries around the United States. Rand was proud of the fact that somebody researching the Civil War would know his story. He wrote, “millions of people will read the history of a boy born in Batavia, NY which town sent him out as the first offer of sacrifice in the preservation of the Nation.”
Links:
Charles Rand's Citation at the Home of Heroes Website
Congressional Medal of Honor Society
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