ored words to-day. Not only his munificent gifts, but his wise counsels and his lifelong devotion to the work at Olivet are gratefully remembered. And no less were these deeds of benevolence a grateful remembrance to Mr. Parsons himself. They were his glory and joy in his later years of illness. He found a rich reward in the satisfaction of building himself into institutions of education and religion. Olivet College grew dearer to him. His home church, the First Congregational Church of Detroit, grew dearer. His beloved pastor and his intimate friends at Olivet received frequent letters full of gratitude and joy for what he had been permitted to do, and full of trust and hope in prospect of a blessed immortality. In this spirit, he entered into rest. His death was literally a sleep. He slept on earth to awake in Heaven.

BREVET MAJOR GENERAL LEWIS BALDWIN 161 PARSONS.

General Parsons, b. Genesee Co., N. Y., April 5, 1818; Yale College, 1840; Harvard Law School, LL.B., 1844; Captain of Volunteers, October 31, 1861; Colonel and Aide-de-Camp to Major-General Halleck, April 4, 1862; Brigadier-General, May 11, 1865, by autographic order of President Lincoln, for special services; Brevet MajorGeneral, April 30, 1866; Democratic candidate for Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois in 1880 on the ticket with Judge Lyman Trumbull for Governor. Delegate to the National Democratic Convention which nominated Grover Cleveland for President in 1884. President Illinois Soldiers' and Sailors' Home, 1893-97; member G. A. R. and Army of the Tennessee, and Companion of Loyal Legion.

General Parsons's early years were mostly spent at school or in his father's country store at Gouverneur, St. Lawrence Co., New York. He entered Yale College in 1836. His father having suffered severely in the financial revulsions of 1837, he was obliged to struggle for an education under great difficulties, yet, by his energy and industry, he graduated with reputation in his class in 1840. In order to discharge

debts incurred in college, and obtain funds to enable him to pursue his professional education, he taught a classical school in Mississippi for two years, evincing those traits of energy and integrity which not only then met with a just reward, but which have characterized him through his successful life. Entering Harvard Law School, then presided over by Justice Story and Professor Greenleaf, in 1842, he pursued his studies till the spring of 1844, when, turning his steps westward, he landed in St. Louis in March of that year, with funds only sufficient to pay a drayman to take his baggage to a hotel, a good library, for which he owed $600; a determined will, and an honest purpose to succeed. Less than twenty years after, the same man had been the financial manager of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad— one of the greatest commercial arteries leading to the same city; and had been for years engaged in directing the transportation of great armies, with all their supplies, animals, and munitions, during a long war of the greatest magnitude-controlling, by his single will, under the general order of the Secretary of War, all the vast means and modes of transportation, not only of all the rivers and railroads of the West, but of the entire country-such are the changes of our country and time!

Mr. Parsons, soon after reaching St. Louis, went to Alton and became the partner of Newton D. Strong, an eminent lawyer and a brother of Judge Strong, of the United States Supreme Court. The firm did a large and successful business till Mr. Strong left the State, when Mr. Parsons formed a partnership with Judge Henry W. Billings. In 1853 Mr. Parsons left Alton and became the legal adviser of the great banking house of Page & Bacon, then engaged in constructing the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, at the same time purchasing the land on which he has since made the large farm on which he now resides. On the suspension of the banking house of Page & Bacon, Messrs. Aspinwall and associates took possession of the railroad, retaining Mr. Parsons as the general western manager. In the various positions of attorney, treasurer, manager, director, and president of this road for nearly a quarter of a century, he discharged his duties so as to secure the perfect confidence of all parties and the public in his integrity, energy, and capacity. In 1860 General Parsons resigned his official position with a view of rest and a European tour; but, perceiving the country was on the brink of a civil war, he resolved to stay at home and serve the nation. Soon after the commencement of the war General George B. McClellan, who, as vice-president of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, had known General Parsons

and his abilities, offered him a position under him in the East, which was at once accepted, and he proceeded thither.

Early satisfied that the field and the West best suited his taste, Gen. Parsons obtained an order to report to St. Louis, with the view to raising a regiment. On arriving there, General Curtis, commanding the department, placed him on a commission with Captain, now Lieutenant-General, Sheridan, to investigate the affairs connected with General Fremont's administration, which soon led to the celebrated Holt-Davis commission of greater civil powers. In the mean time, General Halleck having taken command, and finding nothing but disorder and confusion in the transportation service that it was conducted utterly regardless of system or economy-was inefficient and the source of endless complaints by the railroads, who neither knew whose orders to obey nor how to obtain compensation due them, learning of General Parsons's experience and abilities, obtained an order from the Secretary of War placing him on his staff as aide-de-camp, with rank of colonel, and gave him entire charge of the railroad and river transportation. General Parsons accepted the situation with a cheerful confidence, which was amply vindicated by the results, and which soon brought order and harmony out of chaos and confusion. Introducing a few simple, well-defined rules, combining uniformity with responsibility, and efficiency with economy, a revolution was at once effected most satisfactory to the Government officers and the railroads performing service, so that they, as well as all river navigation, became part of a single, central system, acting not only with power and efficiency, but with unsurpassed economy. Such success gained the entire confidence of the Government, and General Parsons's authority soon became complete and coextensive with the valley west of the Alleghanies, extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Indian wars, two thousand miles up the Yellowstone, as also the Upper Mississippi. In 1863 the Secretary of War ordered General Parsons to Washington, but revoked the order on his tendering his resignation rather than leave the West. In 1864, however, on an imperative order of the Secretary, he took charge of the Rail and River Transportation of the entire country, and in a brief period perfected a complete organization and introduced rules, regulations, and forms, which were made the permanent basis of action for that important department.

It is a singular fact that, though so successful in all respects, General Parsons twice tendered his resignation in order to raise a regiment for active field service, which was,

as it should have been, imperatively declined by the Secretary of War. Happening to be present at the first attack on Vicksburg, he tendered his services and acted as volunteer aid to General Sherman, and subsequently acted in like capacity on General McClernand's staff, at the battle and capture of Arkansas Post, where he was among the first to enter the fortification, and for which he received special notice from the commanding officers. Soon after the surrender of Lee, General Parsons tendered his resignation, his private business imperatively requiring his attention, but was detained by the Secretary of War for many months to aid in important service. The same firmness, energy, and economy have distinguished General Parsons equally in public and private life, and evinced his superior organizing and administrative abilities.

There is upon record abundant evidence from the highest authority-from such men as President Lincoln, Generals Grant and Sherman, Judge David Davis, E. B. Washburne, and others of most meritorious service, all agreeing that General Parsons's administration saved millions to the Government.

As early as September 13, 1863, that most able and excellent officer, General Robert Allen, then Colonel Parsons's superior, in writing the Secretary of War, asking for Colonel Parsons's promotion, among other things, said: "Having had charge of that most important branch of the service, steamboat and railroad transportation, his duties have been arduous, and highly responsible, and he has discharged them with signal success and ability. His administration of this branch of the department has been eminently satisfactory. No military movement in the West has failed or faltered for lack of transportation or supplies of any kinds. The wants of armies in the field have been anticipated and met with alacrity and dispatch. If industry joined to capacity, and integrity to energy, all possessed and duly exercised in the same person, entitled him to advancement, then I may safely claim promotion for Colonel Parsons."

"It is to General Parsons's matchless combinations that must be attributed much of the efficiency and success that almost invariably marked every military movement in the West. When the climax of General Grant's Western renown was reached in the battles before Chattanooga, and he was transferred to the command of all the armies, with headquarters at Washington, he lost no time in bringing General (then Colonel) Parsons to Washington to direct from that centre the machinery that he had become so