Harry Jeremiah Parks

Harry Jeremiah Parks, also recorded in official Medal of Honor records as Henry Jeremiah Parks, was an American soldier whose military career stretched from the American Civil War to the Spanish–American War. Born on February 24, 1848, in Orangeville, Wyoming County, New York, he entered military service while still in his teens. By the time he performed the act for which he received the Medal of Honor, he was only sixteen years old, making him one of the youngest soldiers to receive the nation’s highest military decoration. Parks entered Union service from Orangeville and served as a Private in Company A, 9th New York Volunteer Cavalry. The regiment was an experienced cavalry organization that served with the Army of the Potomac and later with the Army of the Shenandoah. Its soldiers performed the difficult work expected of Civil War cavalry: reconnaissance, mounted screening, pursuit, raids, protection of communications, and direct combat against Confederate cavalry and infantry. The 9th New York Cavalry had already accumulated extensive combat experience before Parks’s defining action. The regiment served through campaigns in Virginia and participated in major cavalry operations associated with the Chancellorsville and Gettysburg campaigns. During 1864 it fought in operations connected with the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Sheridan’s raid toward the James River, Trevilian Station, and the Shenandoah Valley campaign. By the autumn of 1864, the Shenandoah Valley had become the scene of one of the most important Union campaigns of the year. Confederate forces under Lieutenant General Jubal A. Early had repeatedly threatened Union positions and communications in the Valley and had even approached Washington earlier in the summer. Major General Philip H. Sheridan was given command of Union forces with the mission of defeating Early and eliminating the Shenandoah Valley as a major Confederate military resource. On October 19, 1864, Union and Confederate forces clashed in the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia. Early’s Confederate army launched a surprise attack before dawn and initially drove much of the Union army from its positions. The situation appeared disastrous for the Federals, but Sheridan returned to the battlefield, reorganized his troops, and ordered a powerful counterattack. By late afternoon the Confederate army began to collapse. What had begun as a major Confederate success turned into a sweeping Union victory. Confederate soldiers, artillery, wagons, and supply vehicles withdrew southward through the Valley while Union infantry and cavalry pursued them. Private Parks was serving with Company A of the 9th New York Cavalry during this pursuit. As the Union cavalry pressed after the retreating Confederates, Parks moved ahead of his own unit in an attempt to cut off an enemy supply wagon. Operating alone and in advance of his comrades placed him in an extremely dangerous position. He had little immediate support if he encountered organized Confederate resistance. During the pursuit, Parks encountered a Confederate color bearer. Regimental colors carried enormous significance in Civil War combat. They were not merely decorative flags. Soldiers relied on them to identify their unit, maintain formation, and rally during the confusion of battle. Because colors were deliberately kept visible, the men who carried them faced exceptional danger. Capturing an enemy color therefore represented both a military achievement and a powerful symbolic victory. Parks engaged the Confederate color bearer and forced him to flee. He then captured the man and secured the colors. Rather than stopping after this success, Parks left his prisoner to the rear and returned toward the advancing front. He continued pursuing the retreating Confederate wagon train and succeeded in capturing three additional wagons along with their drivers. The official Medal of Honor citation preserves the essential facts of the action: while alone and ahead of his unit, Parks attempted to cut off the retreat of a supply wagon, fought and drove off a Confederate color bearer, captured him, and then returned to the front to capture three more wagons and their drivers. The action demonstrated precisely the qualities that cavalry commanders valued—speed, initiative, aggressiveness, confidence, and the ability to act independently in a rapidly changing situation. Parks did not wait for the rest of his company to reach him before taking action. He exploited the Confederate retreat and repeatedly turned isolated opportunities into captures. His age makes the action particularly remarkable. Parks had been born in February 1848, meaning he was only sixteen years old at Cedar Creek. Unlike many Civil War Medal of Honor recipients whose actions were not formally recognized until decades after the war, Parks received his medal almost immediately. His heroic action occurred on October 19, 1864. The Medal of Honor was presented to him on October 26, 1864, only one week later. The presentation was made by President Abraham Lincoln. This direct presidential presentation gives Parks’s award a particularly significant place in Medal of Honor history. According to the preserved account attributed to Parks himself, he met Lincoln and received the medal personally from the President. For the teenage cavalryman, the encounter with Lincoln remained one of the defining memories of his life. Because the decoration was issued in 1864, during the original Civil War Medal of Honor period, the correct database classification is Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1864. The Medal of Honor itself was still a comparatively new military decoration. Congress had authorized the Army Medal of Honor in 1862, only two years before the Battle of Cedar Creek. The United States did not yet possess the elaborate system of valor decorations and campaign medals that later generations of American soldiers would know. During the Civil War, the Medal of Honor became the primary national decoration for extraordinary military conduct. Parks’s award therefore belongs to the earliest generation of Medal of Honor recipients. No additional bar, clasp, star, oak leaf cluster, or other device has been verified for his Medal of Honor. His Medal of Honor should therefore appear as a single award with no additional attachment. After Cedar Creek, the 9th New York Cavalry continued serving in the Shenandoah Valley and subsequently participated in the final campaigns of the war. The regiment later joined the operations that culminated in the Appomattox Campaign and the collapse of the Army of Northern Virginia. The 9th New York Cavalry was finally mustered out in July 1865. Parks returned to civilian life after the Civil War, but his military career was not finished. More than three decades later, the outbreak of the Spanish–American War brought him back into active military service. By that time he was no longer the teenage Private who had ridden ahead of his company at Cedar Creek. He returned as an experienced veteran and officer. In 1898, Parks served as Captain of Battery A, 1st Colorado Volunteer Artillery. This later service establishes Captain as his highest verified military rank. It is important to distinguish that rank from the rank connected with his Medal of Honor. At Cedar Creek in 1864, he was a Private. During the Spanish–American War in 1898, he served as a Captain. Battery A was mustered into federal service on July 1, 1898. The unit initially served at Fort Logan near Denver, Colorado. On August 12, the battery was ordered east and transferred to Fort Hancock, New Jersey, where it arrived several days later. Fort Hancock guarded the approaches to New York Harbor and formed part of the nation’s coastal-defense system. Parks and his battery remained in the United States throughout the conflict. The unit did not deploy to Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Philippines. It remained on stateside duty until it was mustered out on November 7, 1898. For this reason, a Spanish Campaign Medal has not been added to Parks’s verified medal record. That decoration required qualifying overseas campaign service, while Parks’s verified 1898 service with Battery A was confined to the United States. A Spanish War Service Medal also has not been included in his final verified rack. Parks’s stateside service occurred during the qualifying wartime period, but under the project’s evidence rules, apparent eligibility cannot be treated automatically as proof that the individual personally received or was formally issued a medal. No recipient-specific issuance record for Parks has been verified, so the decoration remains HOLD / DO NOT ADD. The same standard applies to the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. Parks survived long after the Civil War and was still alive when the Army Civil War Campaign Medal was created in the early twentieth century. His Civil War service was unquestionably real and substantial. Nevertheless, surviving into the period in which the medal existed does not itself prove recipient-specific issuance. No verified medal roll, named surviving campaign medal, individual issuance record, or equivalent authoritative evidence has been established showing that Parks personally received the Army Civil War Campaign Medal. It therefore remains HOLD / DO NOT ADD. His final verified medal rack consequently remains deliberately limited to the Medal of Honor. Parks continued to receive recognition as a Civil War veteran during his later life. Federal pension records provide particularly strong confirmation of his identity because Congress recorded him under the name Harry Jeremiah Parks and specifically identified his Civil War service as Company A, 9th New York Volunteer Cavalry. In 1912, Congress authorized an increased pension for him, listing Harry Jeremiah Parks by name and confirming his veteran status. This record is important because Medal of Honor sources frequently use the name Henry Jeremiah Parks, while other federal and burial records use Harry Jeremiah Parks. The matching birth details, unit, service history, and Medal of Honor action establish that these names refer to the same man. During his later years, Parks moved west and eventually lived in California. Records from the end of his life identify him as a retired rancher. He spent part of his final years in Alpine, California, in the San Diego region. Local historical material preserved memories of the elderly Medal of Honor recipient and his recollections of his wartime experiences. Parks lived long enough to witness enormous changes in the United States military. When he first entered service during the Civil War, cavalry still fought on horseback, battlefield communications were primitive, and the Medal of Honor was only a newly created decoration. By the time of his death, the United States had fought additional overseas wars and had become a major international military power. His life therefore connected two very different generations of American military history. Harry Jeremiah Parks died on October 19, 1927, in San Diego, California. The date carried extraordinary historical significance: it was exactly sixty-three years after his Medal of Honor action at Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864. His death occurred at the Naval Hospital in San Diego. He was seventy-nine years old. After his death, Parks was returned east for burial at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where his grave is recorded among the Civil War Medal of Honor recipients buried in the national cemetery. His burial at Arlington provided a fitting final connection to the military service that had shaped so much of his life. He had entered the Union Army as a teenage cavalryman, earned the Medal of Honor at sixteen, received the decoration personally from President Abraham Lincoln, returned to military service more than thirty years later as an artillery captain, and lived into the twentieth century as one of the surviving veterans of the Civil War. The defining moment of his career remained October 19, 1864. During the Confederate retreat from Cedar Creek, Private Harry Jeremiah Parks rode ahead of Company A, 9th New York Cavalry, alone. He confronted and captured a Confederate color bearer, then returned toward the front instead of remaining safely behind his own lines. He subsequently captured three additional wagons and their drivers. One week later, President Abraham Lincoln presented him with the Medal of Honor. His final verified profile therefore records his Medal of Honor action rank as Private and his highest verified rank as Captain. His primary combat specialty for the heroic action is Armor / Cavalry. His verified decoration remains Medal of Honor 1862–1895 Army — 1864, with no verified device or clasp. The Army Civil War Campaign Medal and Spanish War Service Medal remain excluded from the final rack without recipient-specific issuance evidence, while the Spanish Campaign Medal is not applicable to his verified stateside Spanish–American War service.