Parker, Hilon A., 1841-1911
Rank:	Sgt., Lt.
Regiment:	10th New York Heavy Artillery Regiment (1862-1865)
Service:	1862 August-1865 June 23

Parker, Harvey M.
Rank:	1st Lt., Capt. (Oct. 1864)
Regiment:	11th Illinois Infantry Regiment. Co. A (1861-1865) 48th U.S. Infantry Regiment (Colored) (1864-1866)
Service:	1861 June-1865 July

Hilon Parker was born in a log cabin in Plessis, N.Y., on December 30th, 1841, the younger of two sons of Alpheus and Lucinda (Hitchcock) Parker. When Fort Sumter fell to Confederate forces in April, 1861, Parker was enrolled as a student at the Jefferson County Institute in Watertown. The diaries he kept during this time indicate that he held strongly patriotic, Republican views and had an avid interest in news of the war. Having graduated from school, on August 4th, 1862, Hilon enlisted as a sergeant in the 10th New York Heavy Artillery, despite advice from his brother, Harvey, a private in the 11th Illinois Infantry, and other relatives that one son in the military was enough for any family.

By the end of September, the several companies of the 10th Artillery were assigned to garrison forts in New York Harbor and on the perimeter of Washington, D.C. Parker's Company was assigned to Fort Meigs, Md., where they remained until the spring of 1864, when they joined Grant's army for the last day of the assault at Cold Harbor. Attached to Brook's Division, XVIII Corps, they were then transferred to Petersburg, where they led the advance in the failed assault of June 15th. Settling into the trenches, the regiment was assigned to the siege of the city and was in the reserve during the disastrous mine assault on July 30th. Shortly thereafter, Parker contracted a fever and spent most of the month of August in the hospital.

Parker rejoined his regiment at the beginning of September, 1864, while they were again assigned to Washington to counter the threat posed by Jubal Early's cavalry, but in October, they were transferred to the Shenandoah and placed under Sheridan's command. The 10th Artillery were involved in several small skirmishes during the Fall campaign, narrowly avoiding taking the brunt of Early's assault at Cedar Creek by having been withdrawn from the point of attack on the previous day. In December, the regiment was transferred to the Richmond front, where they performed duty on the right of the Bermuda Hundred line until April, 1865. They participated in the attack on Petersburg on April 1st and, entering the city on April 5th, remained there on provost duty until June 23rd when they were mustered out of service. The regiment returned to Sackett's Harbor to be disbanded.

Harvey M. Parker, Hilon's older brother, enlisted in the 11th Illinois Infantry in July, 1861, a regiment led by Lewis Wallace. After serving in Missouri, Parker was placed on detached service with the Ordnance Department in Cairo, Ill., from August, 1862, until September, 1863. Harvey's attitude toward soldiering was not exemplary, and he was particularly pleased to have been assigned to a position away from the rigors of campaigning. When considering the possibility that he might reenlist when his three years ended, he declining, suggesting "This love of country is sort of played out" (1862 December 29). In the end, Harvey had lost faith in the will of the civilians to support the war, in the ability of the Army of the Potomac and its generals (with the exception of McClellan), and in the will of the administration to fight the war to a victorious conclusion.

In August, 1863, Harvey had written that "the Nigger Sogers is all right. I wish to see a standing army of 500000 of them & under White officers. But I dont want any myself, no not any for me" (1863 August 24). In June, 1864, though, he accepted a Lieutenant's commission in the 48th U.S. Infantry (Colored). This regiment (until March of that year referred to as the 10th Louisiana Infantry, African Descent) were organized near Vicksburg and served there until February, 1865, when they were transferred to New Orleans. In April, they joined Steele's column that marched from Pensacola to Mobile to assist in the reduction of Fort Blakely and Spanish Fort. During the march, Harvey fell behind and did not arrive until a few days after the fall of Blakely, where his regiment suffered slight casualties.

After the war, Hilon Parker resumed his education at the Hungerford Collegiate Institute in Adams, N.Y., receiving his diploma in November, 1865. The following spring, he moved to Englewood, Ill., and accepted a position with a surveying party of the Rock Island Line. With the exception of one year, 1868-1869, when he worked as resident engineer for the Ft. Wayne, Jackson and Saginaw Railway, Parker remained with the Rock Island Line for the remainder of his life, rising through the ranks to become First Vice President and Member of the Board of Trustees in 1899. A life-long Republican, Parker was a two-term member of the Illinois General Assembly (1883-1885), and was selected to nominate John A. Logan as U.S. Senator in 1885.

Parker's personal interests included a very active participation in veterans' clubs, including the Englewood Union Veterans' Club (of which he was President), the Grand Army of the Republic, the Society of the Army of the Potomac, the Loyal Legion, and the Union League Club of Chicago. From the 1880's through the first decade of the 20th century, he delivered several Memorial Day addresses on the lessons of the war and on his personal experiences as a soldier, and he presented a grand lecture series on the war from Cold Harbor to Appomattox in July, 1884. He was a member and trustee of the Presbyterian Bethany Union Church in Chicago, and married twice, first, in 1872, to Mary Cunningham (1846-1891), whom he met at Hungerford Institute, and secondly to Grace Rowley, in 1894. He had two daughters, one with each wife. His other interests included a fascination with the culture of Native Americans. Though tinged with paternalism, Parker believed firmly in the intellectual equality of Native Americans with whites, and he supported their rights to land and education. Parker retired from the railroad in April, 1903, and remained in Chicago until his death in 1911.

Scope and contents:

Hilon Parker wrote regularly to each of the members of his family during the Civil War, as witnessed by the presence of 46 letters to his sister, Thirza, 93 to his father, Alpheus, 16 to his mother, Lucinda, and 26 to his family in general. There are also 32 letters from Harvey Parker to Hilon written during the war, 8 from Alpheus to the family at home (written while he was visiting Hilon in Virginia), 3 from Thirza to Hilon, and six letters to Hilon from soldiers in the 35th N.Y. Infantry, 123rd Ohio Infantry, and 10th N.Y. Heavy Artillery. Parker also regularly kept a diary throughout the war years and for several years afterward. The war years are contained in five pocket-sized diaries.

Parker's Civil War letters can be divided into four main categories: those written during the period that the 10th Artillery were garrisoning Fort Meigs outside of Washington; those written during the Petersburg Campaign of 1864, those written during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, September-December, 1864, and those written while the regiment was posted south of Richmond during the final months of the war. While far from devoid of military content, the Parker papers provide more insight into the non-combat experiences of soldiers.

In at least two ways, the sense of community that emerges from the Parker Papers is an unusual one. Like many soldiers, Parker wrote home about the health and well-being of soldiers from Plessis and the vicinity, and he kept abreast of news from home through letters from his parents and sister, as well as from letters sent to his fellow soldiers. But for Parker, this sense of community was enhanced by the fact that his father visited him at the front for extended periods of time on at least two occasions, physically uniting the home community with the community of soldiers. Further, the community was extended geographically by the presence of his brother, Harvey, in an Illinois regiment, and by relatives and friends in other New York regiments, Ohio regiments and in a Michigan regiment, all of whom sent regular accounts of their activities. In effect, the "community" extended well beyond Plessis, and in some ways, Plessis extended to the front.

Other highlights of the collection include some informative and particularly detailed letters written while Parker was performing garrison duty at Fort Meigs, a fine series of six letters written during the siege of Petersburg (June and July, 1864), and five letters written during the Shenandoah Campaign (October and November, 1864). The letters written at the very end of the war are somewhat less interesting, though they contain some useful accounts of a skirmish at Fort Brady in January, 1865, and on military activities between Petersburg and Richmond. Among other interesting incidents is Parker's encounter with a 17 year-old freedman who, when seeking a pass to go into Richmond, was told there was no employment there. Not knowing whether he should return to his master and serve as a slave again, Parker eventually asked the man whether he wished to accompany him to New York and work with his. The man apparently agreed, though it is uncertain whether he actually made the journey. Among other miscellaneous Civil War items is a notebook kept by Parker during the war that includes poetry on war-related themes, autographs he collected, and some nicely rendered pen and ink drawings, one of Fort Meigs and four technical drawings of cannons, howitzers, and mortars.

The bulk of the post-war period correspondence consists of 50 letters from Parker to his wife, and 51 letters from his wife to Parker, all written between 1865 and 1871. The remainder contains miscellaneous correspondence from politicians and railroad executives, but does not provide a comprehensive picture of Parker's activities in these spheres. Finally, there are 11 political speeches delivered during Parker's runs for office in 1882-85 and 15 addresses given before veterans' organizations in the 1880's and 90's.

Parker's correspondence with Mary Cunningham, later to become his first wife, begins shortly after their meeting at the Hungerford Institute, and provides a dense, thorough documentation of the development of their relationship up until their wedding in 1872. During this time, Parker traveled extensively in the midwest on railroad business, spending most of his time in Indiana and Iowa, and it is fair to say that he was, for much of this time, ambivalent at best toward the idea of marrying. He finally broached the subject with Mary's father in March, 1870, and was given a lukewarm acceptance, with reservations surrounding Parker's unfamiliarity to the family and his job that took him to the west and "to those places & that company which strongly tempts to profligacy." On balance, the letters provide a picture of the growing intimacy between the couple, despite their contiual separation, and their value as a resource for the study of interpersonal relationships is enhanced by being a complete representation of both sides of the correspondence for the entire pre-marriage period. Parker's letters also offer fine descriptions of the places he visited during his travels and of his work as an engineer. Unfortunately, Parker's personal correspondence effectively ends at the time of his first marriage, though there are 24 letters of condolence written following the death of Mary in December, 1891, and other, scattered letters.

Finally, the post-war letters include a few items relating to Parker's interest in Native American education. There are two TLsS from Richard Henry Pratt, Superintendent of the Carlisle School, and letters of transmittal from A. H. Heinemann and A. E. Woodson, sending articles and speeches on the capacity of Native Americans for education. Among the most notable items is a series of about 50 drawings and 13 letters by Native American children (mostly Kiowa) sent to Parker to thank him for arranging a train ride for them. The collection also contains Parker's post-war scrapbook, containing clippings relating to his work with veterans' associations and his political career, and a box containing miscellaneous biographical materials.

Separation report:

Several photographs associated with the Parker Papers are housed in the Photographs Division, including:

• 1/6 plate daguerreotype of Lucinda Hitchcock Parker and Thirza Jane Parker, ca.1850 (D.4.8.7)
• 1/6 plate daguerreotype of Isaac Leverett Hitchcock, ca.1850 (D.4.8.8)
• 1/6 pl. ambrotype of Derrinda Parker Tanner, ca.1860? (D.4.8.9)
• 1/6 pl. ambrotype of the Parker & Fairman Store, Plessis, N.Y., ca.1858 (D.4.8.10)
• Oval albumen portrait of Hilon and Harvey Parker in uniform, ca.1862
• Platinum print portr. of Hilon A. Parker, ca.1895

Provenance:

The Parker Papers were acquired in part through the generous donation of the family of Tagsold Parker, a descendent.

M-1355
Cat. 12/92 rsc

Subject index to the Hilon A. Parker Papers

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