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Per historian Earl J. Hess’s research in “Civil War Logistics: A Study of Military Transportation,”“When supporting Grant’s Fort Donelson campaign, Parsons moved more than 10,000 men, over 5,000 horses and mules, 56 guns and caissons, thousands of tons of supplies, and 9,000 Confederate prisoners during one week in February 1862.”Thus, Parsons was a key figure in the first two major Union victories of the war and influential in Ulysses S. Grant’s rise through the ranks. He received notice of his own promotion to colonel in the regular army by April 10, 1862. He moved General Sherman’s army of 40,000 men, cavalry, artillery, and livestock
from Memphis to attack Vicksburg, helping the Union capture the last
key Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi and giving Parsons
greater ability to utilize the Mississippi and its tributaries for the Union war effort. He remained in charge of transportation in the West under a few different titles as the Union’s armies continued to evolve during the war, including as “Superintendent of Transportation in the Department
of the West,”“Master of Transportation,” and “Chief Quartermaster of River Transportation for the West” under various commanders and at times controlled as many as 350 steamboats and barges covering 20,000 miles of river navigation. Per Harry E. Platt in the article “Lewis B. Parsons: Mover of Armies and Railroad Builder,” in the fiscal year ending on June 30, 1863, Parsons arranged the transportation of some 245,000 tons of supplies along with 329,000 troops, 82,000 horses and mules, and 25,000 cattle. No small task. Parsons completed it while also limiting wasteful spending preventing unnecessary strain on the government precarious financial situation by negotiating rates and inviting competitive bids to drive down costs.
Despite his influential position, Parsons sought to join the fight
directly and to lead men on the battlefield, perhaps seeking additional advancement in rank or purely out of his patriotic fervor and wanting to
fight for the Union alongside the men he helped ship off to war, but he was turned down because he was too good at his job and too important to be needlessly killed. The New York Times on July 31, 1865, wrote:
“Gen. Parsons repeatedly solicited permission, during the war, to quit
the department he was in and go into the field. But his superiors, while admitting his eminent fitness for success in the field, would never consent to spare him from the position he filled. When every department of the public service during the war comes to have its true place in history, there will be few with a more brilliant and enduring reputation than Gen. Lewis B. Parsons.”
By early 1865, Parsons was receiving more of his due credit for his influential role supply the Union’s armies and moving them across vast spaces to win the war. Many influential friends wrote in support of his promotion to brigadier general, including David Davis, Lincoln’s friend from Bloomington, Illinois, who he appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862. Davis wrote of Parsons, “...the Govt has no more efficient, honest, & upright man of ability...” On March 9, 1865, President Lincoln wrote to the Secretary of War Stanton stating, “I have long thought Col. Lewis B. Parsons ought to be promoted, and this impression has been deepened by his great success in the recent matter of transporting troops from
the West to the East. Is there any legal obstacle in the way? If not let the promotion be made at once.” He wrote Stanton again on the 11th, adding “His long services and uniform testimony to the ability with which he has discharged his very responsible and extended duties render it but just and proper his services should be acknowledges...You will therefore at once promote Col. Parsons to the rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers, if there is a vacancy which can be given to the Quartermaster’s Department, and if not you will so promote him when the first vacancy occurs.” On May 12, 1865, Parsons wrote that he accepted the appointment to brigadier
general of volunteers. His promotion was not confirmed until February of 1866. He was one of the last Union officers to be promoted to brigadier general of volunteers and was certainly among the most deserving. He remained with the Army in the year following the war as Chief of River and Rail Transportation bringing hundreds of thousands of troops back home, received a brevet to major-general for meritorious service during the war, and finally mustered out himself on April 30, 1866. He had been asked to remain with the army but wished to return to civilian life.
Parsons returned to business in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri with banks and the railroads. He also spent two years in Europe, North Africa, Western Asia, and India and remarried again shortly after returning to the U.S. in 1869, this time to Elizabeth Darrah of New York. In 1875, he and two of his brothers founded Parsons College in Fairfield, Iowa, fulfilling the wishes
of their father (a bookend from the college is included). Parsons retired
to his farm in Flora, Illinois, the same year. In 1880, he was nominated for lieutenant governor on the Democratic ticket with Lyman Trumbull. He was a delegate for the Democratic National Convention that nominated Grover Cleveland in 1884. His third wife died in 1887. In 1893, he was appointed by Governor John P. Altgeld as the president of the board of trustees of
the Illinois Soldiers and Sailors’ Home at Quincy. His brother Philo died
at Winchendon, Massachusetts, in 1896. Brigadier General Parsons gave
a two-hour speech at Flora’s Grand Army Post on New Years Day in 1907 and died that March 16th. Many of his personal affects were sent by his daughter Julia to Parsons College.
CONDITION: Very fine. The stunning factory engraving, including the hand enhanced cylinder scene, the markings, and the historical presentation inscription to Colonel L.B. Parsons remain crisp. The barrel retains 40% original high polish blue finish. The cylinder retains strong original finish on the rebated section.
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