Mosby Monroe Parsons was born on May 21, 1822, in Charlottesville, Virginia. At age 13 his family moved to Cole County, Missouri, and two years later to Jefferson City, Missouri. He volunteered to serve in the Mexican-American War and obtained the rank of captain. In 1856, he was elected to the Missouri legislature, and in 1858 to the state senate, where he served until the start of the Civil War.
During the secession crisis in Missouri, Parsons was appointed a brigadier general and placed in command of the Sixth Division of the Missouri State Guard. Parsons led his division in the battles of Carthage and Wilson’s Creek in Missouri and Pea Ridge in Arkansas.
Commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate army on November 5, 1862, he led an infantry brigade one month later at the Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas; on July 4, 1863, he participated in the attack on Helena, Arkansas, and assisted in thwarting Union General Nathaniel Banks’ Red River Campaign of 1864 in Louisiana.
At the war’s end, Parsons along with other Missouri Confederates chose to go to Mexico rather than surrender. On August 15, 1865, Parsons and five companions were captured and executed by bandits near Camargo, Chihuahua.
Image Courtesy Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield; WICR 30260
