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M.M. Parmenter

M.M. Parmenter

Federal (USV)

Private

Marcus Morton Parmenter

(1839 - 1862)

Home State: Massachusetts

Branch of Service: Sharpshooters

Unit: Massachusetts Sharpshooters, First Company

Before Antietam

"On 12 Nov 1849, Marcus was age ten, of Holden, Massachusetts, and was entered into an indenture contract by his father to one Thomas H. Parker, a prominent citizen of Shirley. The agreement specified that in return for board, adequate clothing and eight weeks of yearly schooling, Marcus was indentured as a farm laborer to the Parker family until twenty-one years of age. The 1855 census for Shirley lists Marcus as one of nine residents of the Parker "Valley Farm."

"On 2 May 1860, Marcus was released from his indenture contract and by terms of the agreement received $75 and three suits of clothing." At the US Census of June 1860 he was a 21 year old farm laborer living with Dr James Otis Parker in Shirley, MA.

He was still a farmer living in Shirley when he enlisted as a Private on 10 March 1862 in Lowell. He was assigned to Captain John Saunders' (First) Company, Massachusetts Sharpshooters from the Recruit Depot on 28 March.

On the Campaign

His Company was attached to the 15th Massachusetts Infantry on the Maryland Campaign, and he was killed in action on 17 September 1862 "from head and stomach wounds, likely from a friendly fire incident."

The rest of the War

His body was not identified on the field after the battle and he may have been buried as an unknown at the Antietam National Cemetery.

References & notes

His service from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts1 and his Compiled Service Records. 2 Further details from Harnwell3, source of the quotes above, and from family genealogists; his birth place also seen as Princeton, Sudbury, and Shirley in various sources. His memorial is on Findagrave. His photograph kindly provided by Ralph Parmenter Bennett from an original in the Shirley Massachusetts Historical Society.

Birth

05/02/1839; Holden, MA

Death

09/17/1862; Sharpsburg, MD

Notes

1   Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Adjutant General, Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War, 8 Vols, Norwood (MA): Norwood Press, 1931-35, Vol. 2, pp.†211 - 213  [AotW citation 2718]

2   US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Soldiers who served in US Volunteer organizations enlisted for service during the Civil War, Record Group No. 94 (Adjutant General's Office, 1780's-1917), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927  [AotW citation 27887]

3   Harnwell, Susan, The 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War 1861 - 1864, Published 1997, first accessed 01 January 1999, <http://www.nextech.de/ma15mvi/>, Source page: /Roster/p86.htm#i13720  [AotW citation 27888]