25th of April, he was promoted to Colonel of the 4th United States Cavalry. On the 31st of August, he was commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers. Serving on the Peninsula, he won by his valor a brevet as Brigadier General in the regular army, dating May 31, 1862, and in the following March, was nominated and confirmed as Major General of Volunteers, to rank from July 4, 1862. He was particularly noted for his skill and courage at Yorktown, Fair Oaks, Savage Station, Glendale and Antietam. He was one of the very best officers in the army, distinguished for his bravery, modesty, kindness of heart and manly integrity. His officers and men were very strongly attached to him, and he never disappointed their trust and affection. Had he remained as General of the Ninth Corps, he would doubtless have endeared himself as strongly to the soldiers of his new command, as to those who had previously been under his direction. But his stay with it was very brief. He only remained long enough for the Corps to claim his record as a part of its own honorable history. He was transferred to the command of the sixth corps on the 5th of February, 1863, and Major General William F. Smith was assigned to the position which he had vacated. General Smith was a native of Vermont, and a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point in 1845. He was the fourth in rank in a class of forty-one. He was appointed a brevet Second Lieutenant in the corps of Topographical Engineers, July 1, 1845. He was acting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at West Point, from November 6, 1846, to August 21, 1848. He was promoted to Second Lieutenant, July 14, 1849. In common with other members of the corps, he served on the plains and among the mountains of the far West. The Pacific Railroad Survey found in him one of its efficient engineers and explorers. At the commencement of the war, he was a Captain, and at the time of his. assignment to the Ninth Corps, he was on the eve of his promotion to be Major. He was commissioned Brigadier General of Volunteers, August 13th, 1861, and Major General, March 9, 1864, served with some distinction on the Peninsula, under General McClellan, and at the battle of Fredericksburg, where he was in command of the sixth corps. He afterwards, by direction of General Hooker, exchanged places with General Sedgwick, when the Ninth Corps was transferred to Newport News. He continued in command until March, 1863, when he was relieved by Major General John G. Parke. General Parke was an old companion in arms of the corps to the command of which he was now assigned. He had won great distinction in North Carolina, as has already been set forth in these pages. A very dear and trusted friend to General Burnside, he became chief of staff to that officer both when the Ninth Corps, the left wing, and the entire army of the Potomac were placed in his charge. At different periods in the history of the Corps, General Parke was in command, and always acquitted himself in the best and most creditable manner. He is a man of singular excellence of character, and has ever inspired the confidence and esteem of those with whom he has been associated to a remarkable degree. John G. Parke was born in Pennsylvania, in 1827, and graduated, second in his class of forty-three members, at the Military Academy at West Point, in 1849. He was appointed brevet Second Lieutenant, July 1, 1849, in the corps of Topographical Engineers. As a member of this corps he had performed, previous to the rebellion, distinguished services in different parts of the country, particularly in the west and south-west. He had acted as Secretary of the Light House Board and of the River and Harbor Improvement Board. He had also been active in the operations upon the plains of the West, in New Mexico, in the Boundary Commission, and the Surveys of the routes of the Pacific Railroad. In 1851, he prepared a map of New Mexico, which is declared to have been " a careful compilation of all the available and reliable information in relation to New Mexico which could be obtained at that date from trappers and hunters, as well as from actual survey. It was prepared by Lieutenant Parke, while in that country, by order of brevet Colonel John Munroe, United States Army, commanding Ninth Military Department."* During the same year he accompanied Captain Sitgreaves on an exploring expedition from Santa Fe to San Diego. In 1853, he assisted Lieutenant R. S. Williamson in a survey through the passes of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range. The expedition occupied three months' time, and in the course of it, Lieutenant Parke conducted an independent expedition to Los Angelos, the San Gabriel and Santa Anna valleys. In 1854, Lieutenant Parke made a successful reconnaissance for a railroad route between Punas Village and El Paso. He left San Diego on the 24th of January, with a party of twentythree men and an escort of twenty-eight dragoons, under Lieutenant Stoneman, and made a careful examination of the country, from the Gila River to the Rio Grande, travelling by way of Tucson, San Xavier, Rio San Pedro, Chiricahui Mountains, and Fort Fillmore. The report of the expedition is published in the second volume of the Pacific Railroad Reports, and is a very valuable statement respecting the characteristics of the country through which the journey was made, and its facilities for the construction of the proposed road. Advanced to his next grade, July 1, 1856, Lieutenant Parke became, in 1857, the Astronomer of the Northwest Boundary Commission for establishing the line between the United States and British AmeriIn all these positions, he was distinguished for the patient fidelity, modest, yet manly bearing and firmness in the discharge of duty which have characterized him in later years. In his early professional life, he laid the foundations of a solid, substantial reputation, which has never been weakened, but has continually strengthened in his subsequent career. ca. Lieutenant Parke's maps, contained in the eleventh volume of the Pacific Railroad reports, are models of accuracy and clearness of delineation. He had richly deserved his promotion to a captaincy in his corps, which he received on his arrival at Washington, his commission dating September 9, 1861. Reports of Explorations and Surveys of Pacific Railroad. Vol. xi,, p. 60. 9 |