William Watts Parker

"He attended school in Richmond and graduated from the Richmond Medical College in 1848. For more than a decade he practiced his profession in Richmond, interrupting it in 1854-55 for a tour of the hospitals of England and France. At the beginning of the Civil War he was mustered into service as second lieutenant in the Virginia Life Guard, a unit later designated Company B, 15th Virginia Infantry, and served with it in the Peninsular campaign."

"In the spring of 1862 he organized Parker's Battery, leading it through the Valley campaign ..."
(from Watts)

He led his battery in action in the "artillery hell" that was the plateau just east of the Dunker Church early on 17 September at Sharpsburg, and later on the high ground along the Boonsboro Pike above the Middle Bridge over Antietam Creek.

He led his battery through the campaigns of the ANV and was promoted to Major shortly before the surrender at Appomattox CH in April 1865.

He returned to the practice of medicine in Richmond. He was a charter member of the Medical Society of Virginia, and was elected its president in 1890.

Source: Watts On-line, family geneology newsletter, Issue 18, 3/7/1997. The photograph above is from one published by Krick1, credited courtesy of Nellie Parker Henson.

5/5/1824; Port Royal, VA

8/4/1899; Richmond, VA; burial in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA