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Civil War Soldiers - Parsons

Parsons, Lewis B., brigadier-general, U.S. Army, was born in Genesee county, N. Y., April 5, 1818. He was graduated at Yale in 1840, studied law at Harvard, was admitted to the bar and settled in Alton, Ill., where for several years he held the office of city attorney. In 1853 he moved to St. Louis, Mo., where he became president and treasurer of the Ohio & Mississippi railroad, and early in the Civil war he was one of a commission appointed to examine into the administration of Gen. John C. Fremont in Missouri. He was appointed colonel of volunteers and assigned to the staff of Gen. H. W. Halleck, Feb. 19, 1862, with the charge of railroad transportation in his department, which was subsequently extended to include the entire country west of the Alleghanies, and in 1864 he was placed in charge of all railway and river army transportation in the United States. Perhaps his most noteworthy feat in railroad army transportation was that of transferring the army of Gen. John M. Schofield from Mississippi to Washington, D. C. This force, consisting of 20,000 men, was transferred a distance of 1,400 miles, in Jan., 1865, in an average time of eleven days, and in recognition of the service he was promoted brigadier- general of volunteers May 11, 1865. He was brevetted major-general of volunteers, April 30, 1866, and was honorably mustered out at that time.

Source: The Union Army: A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal States 1861-1865, Volume 8 Biographical, 1908
 


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