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(1838 - 1903)
Home State: New York
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 57th New York Infantry
Before Antietam
He arrived in America from Ireland in about 1840 at two years old. On 3 July 1861, age 21 or 22, he enlisted in New York City and was mustered as Corporal, Company I, 57th New York Infantry on 14 August 1861.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in the left leg and/or left side in action at Antietam on 17 September 1862 during the assault on the Sunken Road:
The colors were borne by Sergeant [Alexander] Frazer of Company C, [and] Corporals Parks and Mesler. We had not been under fire two minutes before two of the color bearers, Frazer and Parks fell ...
The rest of the War
He was probably treated at a field hospital near the battlefield, then at a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD from 26 to 27 October, when he was sent to Washington, DC. He transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps on 15 January 1864.
After the War
Then living in Plainville, PA, he was killed in an accident when he "stepped in front of an electric streetcar near Inkerman crossing". Poor eyesight due to his age - about 64 - was blamed.
References & notes
Basic information from State of New York,1 which also has him as William Parks. Hospital and wound details from the Patient List2 and Nelson.3 The quote above from Capt. Gilbert Frederick's The Story of a Regiment (1895). His gravesite is on Findagrave. Thanks to G-G-Grandson Thomas Park, Jr. for the pointer to Corporal Park and details about him.
Birth
1838; Londonderry, IRELAND
Death
04/01/1903; Plainville, PA; burial in Forty Fort Cemetery, Forty Fort, PA
1 State of New York, Adjutant-General, Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of New York [year]: Registers of the [units], 43 Volumes, Albany: James B. Lyon, State Printer, 1893-1905, For the Year 1900, Ser. No. 26, page 102 [AotW citation 7802]
2 National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #432 [AotW citation 21133]
3 Nelson, John H., As Grain Falls Before the Reaper: The Federal Hospital Sites and Identified Federal Casualties at Antietam, Hagerstown: John H. Nelson, 2004, pg. 345 [AotW citation 21134]