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Charles Carroll Parsons was born in Elyria, Ohio in 1838. His father and mother Jonathan and Mary Parsons settled in Elyria in 1837. A few months after he was born, his father died and he was raised in the home of his mother’s brother Dr. Griswold of Elyria. He was educated at the public high school in his town. In 1857, he was appointed a cadet at the United States Military Academy at West Point, by his cousin, Judge P. Bliss, a congressman from Ohio and later Dean of Law in the State University of Missouri, at Columbia, Missouri. In June of 1861, Parsons graduated thirteenth in his class.
When he graduated the Civil War had already erupted on the American landscape when Confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard fired on Fort Sumter in April of that year. All the cadets from the South had already left West Point and headed home. His entire class reported for duty in Washington, D. C. the day after graduation. On June 24, 1861, the United States government appointed Parsons a second lieutenant in the Fourth Artillery and on that same day he was promoted First Lieutenant. He was assigned to Battery “H.” After being assigned to Battery “H,” he immediately went to work training volunteer soldiers in Washington. On July 14, he joined the Army of West Virginia. On January 6, 1862, he was transferred to the Army of the Ohio and took command of Company H, Fourth Artillery.i.
He was engaged in the movement to Nashville and Pittsburg Landing in Tennessee and fought in the battle of Shiloh on April 7, 1862 and participated in the advance upon and siege of Corinth, Mississippi from April 10 to May 30, 1862. During the campaign against Corinth, he became ill and was on sick leave from June 3 until July 15. During his leave of absence, he married Celia G. W. Lippert, of Brooklyn, New York.
Returning to duty, he arrived at Louisville, Kentucky in July of 1862 and offered his services to the general commanding at Louisville. In September of 1862 the Federal government reorganized the Army of the Ohio and added newly recruited infantry regiments to the army, but the army quickly realized there was a shortage of artillery batteries. Lieutenant Charles C. Parsons was detached from the 4th U.S. Regular Artillery and assigned to command a new artillery battery. Brigadier General William R. Terrill, who was very recently a battery commander in the 5th U.S. Artillery, assigned Lieutenant Parsons command of the new artillery battery. Parsons was assigned five 12 pound Napoleon guns, two 12 pound field howitzers, and a Parrott rifle. He was also assigned a hundred horses, all the harness, sixteen limbers, and eight caissons; everything he needed, but there was one major problem. There were no men assigned to the newly organized battery.
In late September, one hundred men of the newly-recruited 105th Ohio Infantry Regiment were detailed to the battery. Soon after, twenty-four men from Battery D and twenty men from Battery G of the 1st Ohio Light Artillery who were in Louisville, because their batteries, along with all their guns and equipment, had been captured at the battle of Munfordville, Kentucky. Those men, now paroled, were assigned to join Parsons’s battery under the command of Nathaniel M. Newell of Battery D. The forty-four men operated Parsons’ two 12pdr field howitzers on the left of Parsons’ Improvised Battery. Newell’s section were the only members of the battery who had ever operated a cannon before. Another section of the battery was commanded 2nd Lieutenant William H. Osborn of Company I, 105th Ohio. The far right section of two Napoleons were commanded by 1st Lieutenant Henry Harrison Cumings of Company D, 105th Ohio Infantry. Of the 136 men who made up Parsons’s battery, ninety of the men were from the 105th Ohio Infantry.
On October 1, 1862, the Army of the Ohio marched out of Louisville and arrived in the town of Perryville. On October 8, 1862. At 1 p.m. Union General James S. Jackson, commander of the division, with Union General William Terrill, commanding the Thirty-third brigade, and Lieutenant Parsons and his 136 men arrived on the field. Parsons set up his battery on an open knob. Albion Tourgee of the 105th Ohio Infantry watched Parsons’ battery set up position on the open knob. He wrote that an order came “for the battery to go to the front. How we envied the eager comrades as they swung themselves into their saddles and dashed forward at a sharp trot! The sun was hot and the horses’ flanks were covered with sweat from the day’s march, but they were in fine fettle, and one did not wonder at the flush of pride on the gallant Parsons’ face as the guns filed past him and took their way along a narrow country road toward the left front.”ii By 2 p.m. Parsons opened fire with round shot and shell. The 123rd Illinois Infantry formed on the right and angled toward the rear of the battery. Soon after the battery was in position, the 105th Ohio Infantry, under Colonel Hall, arrived and took a position to the left and rear of the battery and the 80th Illinois, under Colonel Allen, came up later and formed in the valley near the edge of the woods. iii
Parsons had only fired a few rounds when rifle shots came from below in the woods to the front and Confederate troops advanced and came into sight in the edge of the woods in front of the Union troops and his battery. As soon as Parsons and General Terrill, who were directing the artillery, saw the Confederate troops, they decided to change the direction and range of the fire. Within ninety yards, Parsons fired into the Confederate flank with grape. The artillery fire stopped the advance of the Confederate troops at a rail fence, after a few more rounds they changed front and faced a battery, which was now flanking their left. At 2:50 pm, General Terrill order for the 123rd Illinois to charge three Confederate regiments, led by Major Perkins. The 123rd Illinois stormed down the hill in confusion to their right front, moving toward the 6th and 9th Tennessee, the fence and the trees. Halfway between Parson’s battery and the fence, the Illinois troops fired one volley before the Confederates fired a point blank volley, in return, which sent the Illinois troops back up the hill. The 123rd lost a quarter of their men on the eastern slope of the hill. Terrill and James Jackson were standing on the left of Parson’s guns and tried to have the 123rd Illinois stand their ground as they fell back up the hill. Jackson remarked to Captain Samuel Starling: “Well, I’ll be damned if this is not getting rather particular.” As he turned to Major Connelly of the 123rd advising him to dismount, two Confederate bullets hit Jackson’s right breast below Jackson’s nipple killing him instantly. His staff officers immediately removed his body from the crest of the hill for about fifty yards to a lane, to await an ambulance that would never come.
While the 123rd Illinois was repulsing the Confederate attack, Turner’s Confederate battery opened fire from the Confederate right and enfiladed Terrill’s line. At a distance of eighty yards, in an open field, Parson’s battery and the 105th Ohio, on Terrill’s left flank, delivered a “most terrible and destructive fire” into the Confederate lines. In return, the Rebel enfilading battery and Maney’s brigade concealed in the woods returned fire. Four Confederate regiments, including the 6th, 9th , 1st, 27th Tennessee, threw down portions of the fence and headed up the eastern slope of the hill. According to Captain Thomas Malone, adjutant general for General Maney, he rallied the 9th Tennessee Infantry and raised his hat and gave a yell. “Every man was instantly at his feet, and I don’t suppose that twelve hundred men ever gave such a yell before. With bayonets at charge, they ran as fast as they could run right through the guns and over the enemy’s lines.”iv Terrill also ordered another bayonet charge. The 105th Ohio surged forward as Captain H. H. Cummings fired two rounds of double canister from his section of guns under Parson’s battery and then abandoned his guns and moved to the rear. The Federal line broke and the Confederates took all of Parson’s battery except for one howitzer. Albion Tourgee, of the 105th Ohio, wrote: there was a clang of bayonets. The left companies surged forward to the front of the battery. Captain H. H. Cummings, ours, fired the two right guns, double shotted with canister, full in the faces of the enemy, then almost at the muzzles of the pieces, and with his few remaining men dashed through our ranks to the rear under cover of the smoke.v Two thirds of all the men of Parsons’s battery had been killed or wounded. With the battery disabled and the Confederate artillery fire on Hall’s flank, his position became indefensible. The 105th Ohio Infantry’s lines collapsed and the men ran down the hill.
General Terrill spiked the gun nearest to him and ran down the hill with the rest of the 105th Ohio, 123rd Illinois and 80th Illinois and Garrard’s detachment. All of Parsons’ guns were captured except one 12pdr Field Howitzer. The gun was taken off by William N. Gaylord, one of the drivers. Three of his horses were badly wounded while he was removing the gun. Charles Stearns, a driver on one of the caissons, had two of his horses killed and one wounded while trying to get to the rear. Gaylord and Stearns were both Battery D men. The left section of Parsons’s Battery was manned by the men of Battery D and G, First Ohio Volunteer Light Artillery. The far left two guns, which were 12 pound field howitzers, including the one that was brought off the field, was operated by “Newell’s Section,” Lieutenant Nathaniel M. Newell, 1st Ohio Light Artillery, Battery “D,” along with a few men of Battery “G”.
When the 105th Ohio Infantry broke and ran down the hill and Cumings fired the last round of canister shot, Albion Tourgee of the 105th Ohio wrote that the “men of the battery deserted Lieutenant Parsons while he was trying to bring one of the guns to bear on the enemy. It may be true; but it must be remembered that those men had only had their horses two weeks and their guns only ten days. They had never fired a shotted gun, and hardly a hundred blank cartridges until that day. So fierce was the attack that there was only time to change direction of part of the guns, the others remaining as at first posted, trained to the northward. Yet they stood by their guns until they lost almost forty per cent of the whole number engaged. It will not do to asperse the manhood of such men.” vi
According to Major Huntington, of the Fourth Artillery, wrote that forty of Parsons’s men had been killed or wounded and the rest were driven back, leaving the guns unprotected. “Sword in hand, his face to the foe, Parsons stood by his guns alone. The enemy was rapidly advancing upon him, but no shot was fired at the one-man battery. At this moment his capture seemed inevitable. Fortunately, General McCook who had observed his conduct, which at first he could hardly comprehend, realized that it was Parsons’s intention to stick to his guns to the end. So soon as he had fully perceived this, Gen. McCook dispatched a huge cavalryman of approved strength and courage to the rescue and absolutely dragged away in the arms of this giant, Parsons left the field. I am weaving no romance as I write this, for Gen. McCook’s report distinctly says “that no blame should be attacked to Lieut. Parsons for the loss of his gun, which he only left when removed by force.” vii
Another account of the same incident was written twenty years after the battle. A veteran wrote that as the Confederate line swept up the crest of the hill where Parsons’s battery was located, only Parson and one non-commissioned officer were left at the guns. “As though appreciating that there was no hope of life, the point of his uplifted sword descended to the ground before the leveled muskets of the enemy, and he came to the position of “parade rest” beside one of the pieces, as if to say, it were the same to him to die upon the field of Perryville, as to play soldiers upon the plain of West Point. His bravery was seen and appreciated by a Captain in the Confederate ranks, and the muskets of those who were ready to fire upon this single officer were struck up by his sword, with the exclamation “That man is too brave to be killed.” In the confusion of a drawn battle, the Colonel and his Sergeant made good their retreat.” viii
After the battle of Perryville, Lieutenant William Turner’s battery, of Smith’s Mississippi Battery, wrote that during the night he received orders “from Captain M. Smith [chief of artillery] to send my horses and limbers to the front, and withdraw some of the enemy’s guns which had been captured, the enemy having taken off most of their limbers with their horses. I brought off all I could find (excepting two caissons, which were disabled), amounting to five 12-pounder Napoleon guns (brass), one 12-pounder howitzer gun (brass), and one 6-pounder Parrott gun (steel), with two limbers and two caissons, without limbers, filled with ammunition for the Napoleon guns. During the night, I exchanged my two 6-pounder guns for two of the Napoleon guns, together with the ammunition, and the next morning, on our leaving for Harrodsburg, my men, by order of Captain M. Smith, dismantled the guns which we were unable to take with us.” In 1914, Mr. E. Guthrie, a Civil War veteran, was walking Germantown, Pennsylvania and looked at the memorial honoring the Civil War dead. A captured Confederate 12 pound gun had the inscription “Color bearer A. T. Mitchell, (Confederate Stars and Bars) 1st Tenn. Vols. Brig. Gen. George Maney’s Brigade. Killed at Perryville October 8, 1862” on the lower portion of the cannon. According to Captain Carnes, who also had a battery that fought at the Battle of Perryville, he stated that the cannon belonged to Parsons’s battery and was one of the guns that Lieutenant Turner kept after the battle. He mentioned that at the battle of Missionary Ridge, Turner may have lost the cannon to Union forces.ix
After the battle of Perryville, Parsons received two brevets for his heroism. He rejoined his command and in a few weeks he was in command of an eight gun battery, made up from Batteries “M” and “H” of the Fourth Artillery. He was hoping to wipe away what he saw as the disgrace of losing his guns at Perryville. He would soon get his change at the Battle of Stone’s River, also known as Murfreesboro, Tennessee. During the battle, he was on the right of Palmer’s Division, which occupied the Federal left, across the Nashville road and railroad. On December 31, the Confederate forces pushed back to the Federal right and Sheridan and Negley’s divisions were exhausted. Parsons’s battery was in the center of the broken Union line in the edge of some cedar woods. Confederate General Polk’s troops attacked the angle. His eight guns fired at close range and Polk’s advanced was brought to a halt. His battery repelled six Confederate charges. He won a brevet as major for his actions at Murfreesboro. General William Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, at the Battle of Stone’s River, wrote in his report: Lieutenant Parsons, commanding Companies “H” and “M” Fourth United States Artillery, in the battle of Stone’s River, has always managed to get under the heaviest fire. He was in the affair at Cotton Hill, in Western Virginia, and at Shiloh in Mendenhall’s Battery, which was specially mentioned in General Crittenden’s report. At Perryville he behaved like a hero. His battery was especially distinguished in the battle of Stone’s river, on the day of the 31st of December, and on the morning of the 2nd of January. He is respectfully recommended for a Major’s brevet.
After the Civil War, Parsons was on frontier duty and in 1867 the United States Army appointed him chief of artillery in General Winfield S. Hancock’s Indian Expedition, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1868, he became a professor at West Point. During that same year, in 1868, he met Bishop Charles Quintard, who had served as a Confederate Chaplain in the Army of Tennessee. His friendship with Quintard influenced Parsons decision to quit the army in 1870 and become a clergyman in the Episcopal church and became a deacon in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis, Tennessee. On March 5, 1871, he was ordained a priest. Both of his ordinations were performed by Quintard. He was rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Memphis. In 1872, General George Custer visited Memphis as part of his entourage accompanying the Russian Grand Duke Alexis. While in Memphis, he decided to visit his friend Charles Parsons and his wife. Custer insisted they come as guests to the Grand Ball arranged at the Peabody Hotel for the Grand Duke. According to Charles Parsons, he wrote to his wife Elizabeth that the Grand Ball had been “the first time they had been “in company” since they left West Point at the end of 1870.” Parsons had given up a comfortable salary at West point to become a priest. With his meager salary, he and his wife were not able to attend parties and balls. Rev. Charles Parsons and his wife moved to New York and became rector for St. Mary’s at Cold Spring, New York. He later transferred to Stevens’s Memorial Church in Hoboken, New Jersey. His wife died while he was at Hoboken. After his wife’s death, he returned to Memphis and became rector at St. Lazarus Church which combine with Grace Church.
In 1877, he married Margaret Britton of Mississippi. The following year in 1878, a huge yellow fever outbreak reached Memphis. Charles Parsons sent his wife and his two children to live in her old home. He stayed behind ministering both as clergyman and nurse to strangers and friends. He also became ill and died on September 6, 1878 at the age of forty. He was buried Elmwood Cemetery, in Memphis, Tennessee. In 1985, at the Triennial Conference of the United States Episcopal Church in Anaheim, California, Charles Parsons and his fellow martyr priest Louis Schuyler, plus four Sisters of the Community of St. Mary were officially placed on the Calendar of the Lesser Feasts and Fast of the United States Church.
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