DAVID HENRY PARKER
David Henry (Henry) Parker was born in Fayette County, Tennessee, in 1842. He was the son of Mary Barrett by her second husband, John R. Parker. Mary was the first cousin of John D. G. Whitten, and of Ellen Whitten, wife of M. A. McCrory.
Henry moved to Texas with his mother and father at the age of three, and they settled in Houston County, Texas, near his grandparents. By 1855, they had moved to Madison County, where Henry was listed on the 1855 school census and on the 1860 U. S. census.
Henry was nineteen when he enrolled at Montgomery in Captain R. F. Oliver's company I of the Ninth Texas Infantry (Nichols'). This six-month regiment was ordered by General H�bert to be formed at Galveston. The men were to build fortifications for defense of the coast due to a threatened invasion by Union forces.
Henry is present on the muster rolls of December 1861 and February 1862. On his muster-out roll on April 24, 1862, there is a notation that he was absent, “Reenlisted, Absent on Furlough.”
On April 16, 1862, when Henry was twenty, he enlisted in the Texas Lancers under Captain S. D. Wooldridge. He was mustered in at Hempstead, Texas, along with his half-brother, James McCarley.
Henry was ill at the time of the muster roll of August 28th, when the troops were stationed in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. He was reported to be absent sick. It is possible that he was in the hospital. A few weeks before, the troops had arrived in El Dorado, Arkansas, where they received the order to dismount and to send their horses home.
Henry recovered enough to rejoin his regiment at Ft. Hindman. He may have been in the hospital at the time of the Battle of Arkansas Post on January 11, 1863; in any case, he was captured along with all the other men of the 24th Regiment.
Gratiot Street Prison, St. Louis
He was sent to Gratiot Street Prison at St. Louis, one of the worst of the Union prisons. There he was admitted to City General Hospital on the 26th of January.
The above documents are extracts from the Federal rolls of prisoners.
Federal Burial Certificate
Henry died on the eighteenth of February of “typhoid pneumonia,” just two days before the death of his half-brother, James McCarley, at the same hospital.Henry was buried the same day that he died, in Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri, in Plot # 21-0-5069. He is buried under the name of Henry Parker.
Thank you to Scott McKay for sharing this photo of the marker of David Henry Parker. Scott researches the Tenth Texas Infantry, which was brigaded with the 24th Cavalry through most of the War.
You may view Scott McKay's other photos of Jefferson Barracks markers for men of the 24th Regiment Texas Cavalry.
You may view photos of the cemetery on the Civil War St. Louis website.
For further information and records of all Confederate soldiers of Montgomery County, Texas, as well as histories of the regiments they served in, see Montgomery County, Texas, CSA by Frank M. Johnson. The book may be purchased by visiting Frank's website at frankmjohnson.net or by contacting Frank at [email protected].
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Karen McCann Hett
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Counter June 14, 2007
