Life of Mosby Monroe Parsons
Mosby Monroe Parsons was a prominent officer in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He was born on May 21, 1822, in Charlottesville, Virginia, moving with his parents and seven siblings to Missouri in 1835 (King Jones, 2020). In 1844 he was accepted into St. Charles College in St. Charles, Missouri, where he studied law. From 1853 to 1857, Parsons worked as attorney general of Missouri and became a senator in 1858. He was also an active follower of the Democratic Party and supported the plans of the Democratic Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson to force Missouri to join the Confederacy.
Mosby Monroe Parsons in the Civil War
During the Civil War, Mosby Monroe Parsons supported the South and fought against the North and its agenda. As an experienced army commander who fought in the Mexican-American War, Parsons was given the command of the Sixth Division of the Missouri State Guard (King Jones, 2020). Under his leadership, the division participated in several battles Carthage, Wilson’s Creek, and Lexington. During the campaign in Carthage on July 4, 1861, Parsons forced Colonel Franz Sigel to retrieve his forces back to Springfield, standing the grounds of the Southern armies. Under the higher command of General Price, Parsons was involved in the siege of Lexington in September of 1861.
The Battle of Wilson’s Creek
The battle of Wilson’s Creek was one of the most prominent campaigns of Parsons’s military carrier. It took place 10 miles south of Springfield and was the first significant engagement of the opposing armies in Missouri (Spurgeon, 2020). On August 10th, 1861, unionist forces under the command of Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon and Colonel Franz Sigel attacked the confederate army to secure their position in the divided state. Both Lyon and Sigel made grave mistakes in the positioning of their forces, which eventually led to their defeat. Parsons’s led the attack on Lyon’s units on the Bloody Hill, forcing the latter to retreat. Overall, the battle of Wilson’s Creek was the first major win for the Confederates in the Civil War.
Mosby Monroe Parsons’ Last Years
In 1862 Parsons participated in the battles of Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove, receiving the rank of brigadier general in November of the same year. In 1963 he was primarily involved in campaigns in the state of Arkansas, where he commanded troops in several actions, including the battles of Helena, Red River, and Pleasant Hill. In the same year, he suffered a defeat at Jenkins’ Ferry and Missouri Raid. In 1865, like many other Confederates, Parsons was arrested and forced to surrender his command to the Unionist government in Louisiana, marking the overwhelming defeat of the Confederation. Later, Mosby Monroe Parsons ran to Mexico, where he was killed on August 15, 1865.
References
King Jones, K. (2020). Mosby Monroe Parsons (1822–1865). Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Web.
Spurgeon, I. (2020). Battle of Wilson’s Creek. Civil War on the Western Border. Web.