Coatesville Man One of Forgotten Union Generals From Civil War

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John Grubb Parke
Image via Mathew Benjamin Brady, Public Domain.
John Grubb Parke.

While only a few are household names, there were more than 550 generals fighting for the Union against the Confederacy during the Civil War, including Coatesville native John Grubb Parke, writes Jonathan Burdick for Grunge

Born in 1827, Parke was an Army engineer who graduated from West Point. He was surveying the boundary between Canada and Oregon prior to the Civil War. When the war started, his surveying was put on hold. 

He started the war as a captain in the U.S. Army Corps of topographical engineers. After distinguishing himself in early campaigns under the command of General Ambrose Burnside, he was promoted to major general in charge of volunteers in 1862. 

He was then transferred to oversee a division of the Ninth Army Corps. He commanded Civil War soldiers during the Vicksburg siege and fighting in Jackson, Mississippi, and Knoxville, Tennessee. In the spring of 1865, he was transferred to the XXII Corps in Alexandria. 

Once the war ended, he finished his surveying job and went on to become superintendent at West Point. He died in 1900 in Washington, D.C. 

Read more about John Grubb Parke in Grunge.

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