John Parke

John Parke

John Grubb Parke (September 22, 1827 – December 16, 1900) was a U.S. Army engineer and a Union general in the American Civil War.

Parke was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1849 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. As an engineer, he determined the boundary lines between Iowa and the Little Colorado River, surveyed routes for a railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, and was the chief surveyor of the party charged with the delineation of the boundary of the northwest United States and British North America, 1857–1861.

At the start of the Civil War, Parke was appointed brigadier general of volunteers and commanded a brigade in the operations on the North Carolina coast in early 1862. He served as chief-of-staff to Ambrose Burnside during the battles of Antietam and Fredericksburg. He assumed command of the IX Corps and was sent to the Western Theater for the Vicksburg Campaign. He was chief-of-staff in the Army of the Ohio in the defense of Knoxville and chief-of-staff to Burnside during the Overland Campaign and beginning stages of the Siege of Petersburg. After the Battle of the Crater, Burnside was relieved of command and Parke assumed command of the IX Corps. In 1865, while Army of the Potomac commander George G. Meade was in a conference, Parke being senior officer was acting commander of the army during the Battle of Fort Stedman until Meade returned to the field. He led the IX Corps through the fall of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign. In 1865 he was brevetted major general and retired from the Army in 1889.

Parke died in Washington, D.C. He is buried at the St. James the Less Episcopal Churchyard in Philadelphia.

Preceded by Wesley Merritt	Superintendents of the United States Military Academy 1887–1889	Succeeded by John Moulder Wilson