Records here at the Society reveal that he was 21 years of age at the time of his death, and had “died of wounds received in Battle of Ball’s Bluff.” On the same page of the Death Register for Cedar Hill, is listed Joseph D. Sewall Randall was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, located on Frankford Avenue and Bridge Streets in Philadelphia. Comely, Esq.” Comely resided at the hotel on Main Street in Frankford, above Orthodox Street. D as having been recruited in Philadelphia, with Randall having enlisted on May 28, 1861, and “killed at Ball’s Bluff, Va., October 21, 1861.” Also, Randall’s obituary would appear in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, on November 9th of that year, stating how he had been “killed at the battle of Ball’s Bluff,” and invited relatives, friends, and “No.4, American Mechanics, and the Order in general,” to attend the funeral to be held “from the residence of Joseph H. Bates compilation, History of Pennsylvania Volunteers: 1861-5, Vol. “Neither ridicule nor reason could move him from this strange conviction” says Moore, adding how Randall went into action “as though he had received his death-warrant.”Ĭrossing the Potomac, Randall had only barely reached the top of the opposite bluff when he was shot by a Confederate bullet through his side. Moore recalls how Randall’s dream prior to the battle, made such a vivid impression upon his memory, that he related it to a fellow soldier, adding how he knew that it was an evil portent or omen of what was to come. Baker as well as Corporal Sewall Randall. Over nine hundred Union soldiers would be either killed or wounded during the engagement, including Col. However, the battle became a massacre, not for the Rebels but for the Yankee invaders. Abraham Lincoln, was given the task of demonstrating to the Confederates near Poolesville that the Union armed forces were ready and willing to defeat the rebellious enemy. Baker, a United States Senator from California and close friend of Pres. Moore states how Randall, “the night before the engagement had a singular dream.” The “engagement” he was referring to was the ill-fated conflict known as the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, fought in Virginia on October 21, 1861.Ĭolonel Edward D.
The 1861 edition of McElroy’s Philadelphia City Directory lists Randall as a carpenter. D, of the famed California Regiment or the 71st Pennsylvania Infantry. This account concerns Sewall (or Sewell) Randall, a soldier serving in Co. The belief that one is about to die is often referred to as a “death premonition” in folklore, but during the 19th century such personal experience narratives were often referred to as “presentments.” Frank Moore, an avid collector of Civil War accounts on a variety of subjects, published one such belief in 1889 within his famous work, The Civil War in Song and Story: 1860-1865. For the most part, such statements are common to men in battle, but enough well-documented and detailed narratives exist to convince any skeptic that such beliefs are not always figments of imagination or products of irrational fears.
Hundreds of such accounts exist for the Civil War era of United States history. For centuries, soldiers serving in various battles have believed and stated to their comrades-in-arms that they were about to die, or would within the near future.
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