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A Shropshire Lad in Ohio
By Robert Hancock
I was not sure what to expect when a plain cardboard box was laid in front of me in the Museum’s examination room. I was told that it contained the uniform of a young man from England who had served in the U.S. Army during the war. I admit I was skeptical.
Over the years I have grown cautious with my expectations when someone says he has a Civil War uniform. I have seen too many post-war veteran’s coats or National Guard uniforms which, after having been passed down for a couple of generations, had transformed into the uniform worn by great-great somebody at the Battle of Gettysburg or Shiloh or some other place. So it was with an impending sense of disappointment that I approached the box.
When I opened it, I was more than just a little pleased. There before me was a dark blue uniform jacket worn during the war. It looked as if the original owner had just taken it off without even bothering to clean the mud stains off the sleeves. Here was a little piece of history.
The soldier’s descendants – the people who had brought the box for examination and donation – not only had preserved the uniform carefully, but they had also gathered considerable documentary evidence on the their ancestor.
A.E. Housman “A Shropshire Lad” Poem III
William Henry Parker was born June 2, 1839 to Benjamin and Prudence Parker in the county of Shropshire, England. We know nothing of William’s formative years growing up in Shropshire or why he decided to leave, but in 1859, at the age of 20, he crossed the ocean to the United States and settled in Ohio. No letters or diaries of William’s are known to exist, so what we know of him comes primarily from his service records from his time in the army.
Parker enlisted for a period of three years on September 1, 1861, in Company B, 2nd Regiment Mounted Volunteers which later became the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry, U.S.A. He joined his regiment at Camp Bolles (named after the regiment’s colonel, William M. Bolles) located in western Virginia. Parker was 22 years old, 5 feet 10 ½ inches tall, with light hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion. His occupation is listed as laborer.
The regiment spent much of the first year of the war in what would become West Virginia (West Virginia did not become an independent state, separate from the rest of Virginia, until 1863) fighting bushwhackers and scouting for the army, riding back and forth through the state as far north as Williamsport near the Maryland border, to Lewisburg, and farther south to Princeton.
By all accounts, Parker was a good soldier; at least there is nothing is his service records to indicate otherwise. He was always present for duty and the only demerit that shows up in his records is that he “lost through neglect one hitch strap.” It does not say whether there was a stoppage of pay to replace it. By July of the next year, he was promoted to corporal – a rather empty, thankless rank in that you had very little real power compared to the sergeants who lorded over the company, and most of the privates below you (from whence you had just been promoted) tended not to take your new authority seriously. Regardless, Parker soldiered on.
On June 27, 1863, two companies of the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry, including Parker’s company, were scouting along the Kanawha River when he was taken prisoner by Confederate raiders at Loop Creek, about 30 miles southeast of Charleston. His captain, C.E. Hambleton, wrote a report of the skirmish. Hambleton, with 75 men, crossed the river at Loop Creek Landing where they halted at 3:30 in the morning. They unsaddled the horses to let them cool and take a short rest.
Parker’s Bible, wooden box, and Army discharge medal.
ACWM
Before daybreak, the men were preparing to move on when, according to Hambleton, “the rebels came dashing in, yelling and shooting, which was the first notice I had of their approach.” The men of the 2nd grabbed their carbines and revolvers and fired at the approaching Confederates. “But on they came; the first squadron dashed right through us….” The men scattered; some to the riverbank, others seeking cover in the woods behind them.
To add to the confusion, a few U.S. soldiers on the opposite side of the river opened fire on the Confederates as well. Several prisoners taken during the initial rush were able to escape their captors in the chaos. However, the Confederates were still able to make off with 29 prisoners, including Parker, and more than half of the horses and equipment. “The whole affair did not last more than fifteen or twenty minutes,” continued Hambleton. “That we did not allow the rebels to do all this without some resistance is evidenced by the fact that they left 1dead on the field … 5 of their horses were left dead and 3 wounded …. None deplore the result of this trip more than myself; and, while I consider it a disaster, I do not think it a disgrace.”
Parker was sent to Belle Isle prison camp in Richmond. Luckily, instead of enduring the famously harsh winter of 1863-1864, he was part of a prisoner exchange and by October he was back with his regiment.
The spring of 1864 found Parker away from his regiment for a second time, sick in hospital in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. He was later transferred to the General Hospital in Gallipolis, Ohio. During his convalescence, he married (May 23, 1864) 18-year-old Katherine Hogan, a New Orleans native. Nine months later their son, Charles, was born on February 17, 1865.
The first big engagement for Parker’s regiment occurred at the Battle of 3rd Winchester or Opequon (September 19, 1864) as part of Brigadier-general Averell’s cavalry division. According to family legend, Parker wore the jacket at the battle. However, his service records indicate that he was in a “dismounted” camp at Hagerstown, Maryland, probably waiting for horses. His enlistment time up, he was mustered out on November 29, 1864, receiving the thanks of the army and back pay amounting to $21.04.
During the course of the war, the 2nd West Virginia Cavalry lost four officers and 77 enlisted men killed or mortally wounded and 115 enlisted men by disease. While Parker was not among these casualties, the war nevertheless claimed him. He died April 6, 1867 at the age of 27 from consumption, which he contracted while in the army, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery in Ironton, Ohio.
A.E. Housman “A Shropshire Lad” Poem III
His widow, Katherine, remarried the next February and moved to Kentucky, and his son, after he reached his majority, applied for his father’s pension. The cavalry jacket, along with William Parker’s Bible, a small wooden box he carried with him, and his discharge medal, were donated to the Museum in memory of Parker’s great granddaughter, Ruth Parker Batteiger, and three great grandchildren, Keith B. Batteiger, Connie E. Lovell, and Curtis Batteiger.
Robert Hancock is the Museum’s Senior Curator and Director of Collections.
