William Russell Parnell ..... what a life this soldier had !!
http://www.rootschat.com/links/02wr/ William Russell Parnell
Rank and organization - First Lieutenant, 1st U.S. Cavalry
Date and Place of Birth - Dublin, Ireland, 13 August 1836.
Entered Service at - Brooklyn, Kings County, New York
Battle or Place of Action - White Bird Canyon, Idaho.
Date of Issue - 16 September 1897
Citation - With a few men, in the face of a heavy fire from pursuing Indians and in imminent peril, returned and rescued a soldier whose horse had been killed and who had been left behind in the retreat
Born in Dublin, Ireland, on August 13, 1836 - Parnell enlisted in the Fourth Hussars of the British Army at the age of eighteen. He later transferred to the Lancers and fought in the Crimean War, participating in the capture of Sebastopol. He was one of the few survivors of the fabled Charge of the Six Hundred at Balaclava.
Parnell immigrated to the United States in 1860 - and soon after the start of the Civil War he enlisted in the Fourth New York Cavalry. Probably because of his military experience, his comrades elected him a first lieutenant. In 1861 and 1862 Parnell served with Blenker's Division in the Army of the Potomac in the Shenandoah Valley and West Virginia. He took part in the Battles of Cross Keys, Port Republic, Cedar Mountain, and Second Manassas. With the Cavalry Corps he fought in the Battles of Fredericksburg, Beverly Ford, Brandy Station, Stoneman's Raid, Aldie, and Middleburg. During the Battle of Upperville on June 21, 1863, Parnell fell into Confederate hands after leading an unsuccessful cavalry charge - but in August he eluded his captors and made his way to Petersubrg, West Virginia.
Reunited with his command - he continued to see action in the Battles of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Trevilian Station, Petersburg (Virginia), Lee's Mills, Winchester, and Cedar Creek, and in a number of less important engagements. Before being honorably mustered out on December 5, 1864, Parnell reached the rank of lieutenant colonel and earned one brevet, that of captain, for the gallantry he had displayed at Upperville. Two years after Appomattox, he received a second brevet for general gallantry and meritorious service.
Parnell applied for a commission in the Regular Army near the end of the war, and on February 23, 1866, he accepted an appointment as a second lieutenant in the First Cavalry, becoming a first lieutenant on October 15.
During the summer of 1867, Parnell joined his company from detached service and almost immediately received orders to march to California in order to participate in a campaign against a band of hostiles operating on the Pit River. Lt. Col. George Crook led the punitive expedition, which consisted of Company D of the Twenty-third Infantry, Company H of the First Cavalry (commanded by Parnell), and a group of Boise scouts.
Before long the force encountered a band of warriors on the south fork of Pit River. Entrenched behind boulders on a high and almost inaccessible ledge of rock, the Indians were difficult to reach. On September 26 Crook ordered an assault. Parnell led Company H and the Boise scouts up the south bluff, but the warriors drove them back and the troops returned to their camp at the base of the mountain shortly before dark. At daylight Parnell led a second charge. Under heavy fire, the attackers gained ground and were able to enter the stronghold. There they found only twenty dead hostiles, the rest having made their escape through a subterranean passage.
Crook recommended Parnell for another brevet for his part in the action, and he soon earned the right to be addressed as lieutenant colonel. During the next decade Parnell continued to serve in the Northwest and fought in a number of Indian campaigns. On March 14, 1868, he was wounded at the Battle of Dunder and Blitzen Creek in Oregon, and like the other officers under Perry's command he saw action in the Modoc War.
Parnell bore the marks of many hard campaigns. At Upperville he had been shot in the left hip, and the bullet had imbedded itself in the bone. His doctor had decided to leave the missile where it was, and the veteran officer still carried it with him.
