Charles Parker

The gravestone of Charles Parker sits among other gravestones in Gettysburg National Cemetery.

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Significance:

Private with the 3rd United States Colored Troops.

Place of Birth:

Near Biglerville, PA

Date of Birth:

1847

Place of Death:

Near Biglerville, PA

Date of Death:

July 1876

Place of Burial:

Section I, Row B, Site #115

Cemetery Name:

Gettysburg National Cemetery

Section I, Row B, Site #115

Private Charles Parker was born in 1847 in Adams County, Pennsylvania, and grew up north of Gettysburg near modern-day Biglerville. On December 7, 1864, at the young age of seventeen, Parker enlisted as a private in the 3^rd United States Colored Troops (USCT). While in the army, Parker was shot in the right knee. He later fell ill with pneumonia. He was mustered out the army in October 1865 and returned to Adams County where he married and raised a family of four children. Sadly, though, Parker never truly recovered from the pneumonia he developed while in the army and in July 1876, he died at the much too young age of 29. His remains were first buried in a cemetery near Biglerville, Pennsylvania, but in 1936, they were exhumed and reburied in the Gettysburg National Cemetery.