Parker and Grant in Galena

The customshouse that Ely Parker completed in 1859 is today a landmark in Galena, Illinois, testament to his engineering skills. His next federal post was in Dubuque, Iowa, but he often returned to Galena to visit friends, and that is where, in 1860, he met Ulysses S. Grant. Parker described Grant as quiet and shy, but he also said he was a lot like his Indian friends. " He didn't have much to say, but when you drew him out, there was a great deal of substance there."

"The two men had some things in common. They both had good educations. They both were military men (Parker from the NY Militia, Grant, U.S. Army,) people called them Captain Grant and Captain Parker. And they had similar personalities. The good story about their friendship is contained in a letter that Parker wrote to his brother Nic. He said he was walking by a tap room in Galena, and his friend Grant was involved in a fight. And he went in and the two men took defensive positions back to back and fought off all these attackers."

William Armstrong
Parker Biographer

Galena, Illinois

When the Civil War erupted in 1861, Grant left Galena to join the Union forces, and politics within the new Lincoln administration caused Parker to lose his federal post in Dubuque. He returned to Tonawanda, and for some time tried to gain employment.

"But soon he decided he wanted to get into the war. Apparently he went to Albany to ask for a commission. Now here's someone who has been a Captain in the New York Militia, who is trained in the law, who is trained in engineering, and they turned him down. But Parker, always one to assert himself, went to Washington. Went to the War Department. They turned him down. He turned then to Secretary of State William Seward, a New Yorker, who had spoken at some point in favor of Indians - and the story is that Seward told him flatly, 'This is a white man's affair. You can go back to the farm. We'll settle this amongst ourselves without any Indian aid.' So he went back to the farm, was there almost two years."

William Armstrong
Parker Biographer

"And after being turned down in nasty, racist terms by William Seward, Ely talks with his father. And he shows him a picture of the Union general staff. And his father points to Grant and he says, that man will be the great captain. If you follow that man, you too will become a great war captain."

Stephen Saunders Webb, Ph.D.
Maxwell School, Syracuse University

Some historians dispute whether that conversation between father and son ever took place, but Ely Parker's version of that story is documented. W.W. Wright, a New York State politician, published the following conversation he had with Parker in the early 1860s.

"I had almost forgotten him, till the first or second year of the Rebellion (Civil War), when I met him the streets of Rochester. I asked him where he had been, and whether he had abandoned the profession. He informed me that he had not, but left the service of the State to take a position under the Government on the Mississippi, and that he had located at Galena. After a pleasant chat, he asked me if I had ever known Captain Grant, and I replied in the negative…Col. Parker said he had become well acquainted of him, that he was going to rejoin the Army, and, he added in substance, 'I shall go with him. He is a most extraordinary man. We are about to enter upon the most gigantic war of modern times. This country has many experienced and able military leaders, and most of them will be found on the Union side, but not one of them will be found capable of dealing successfully with this terrible Rebellion unless it be this Captain Grant. Now recollect my prophecy: He will come forth as the great central figure of the loyal States, and will win a name and fame which has no parallel in modern times." Writing from recollection of this casual conversation, I can hardly do justice to the manner and matter of Parker's singular estimate of the coming hero. But in view of Gen. Grant's subsequent career and achievements, I never forgot this prediction, which, if not inspired, deserves to be recorded as a singularly correct estimate of those qualities required in the great leaders of the Union armies, and the discovery that they were all to be found in this then obscure ex-army Captain."

Hon. W.W. Wright
Letter to the Utica Observer
June 15, 1885

Ely Parker's determination to join Grant and the war effort was unwavering. And despite his frustrations, he kept his sense of humor. The following 1862 letter is addressed to his "Dear Friend Rupill, alias U.S. Marshall," and in it, Parker reminisces about Galena friends, poker games, and farming, and he adds a sexist reference to marriage.

"You who live in busy cities have little or no time to think of absent friends, their fortunes or misfortunes. I or we, who live in forest retreats, away from the busy scenes of commercial and political life, away from books and printing offices, away from churches and school houses, away from everything but trees, hurling and babbling brooks and big stones, strong winds and gentle zephyrs. I, say we, who enjoy the last named luxuries, have an abundance of time for reflections and philosophy. You know I am one of nature's noblemen and hence I am fulfilling that first great command given to fallen humanity, to earn their bread by the sweat of the brow. Now in obeying this divine and just command, it is not necessary to exercise much headwork, and therefore while my hands labor, my mind floats away to other scenes and holds silent converse with absent friends. You cannot imagine how often during the past summer, while plodding after the plow, my mental hands have held two-pair against your everlasting "fulls" or "phoars." With Black John (John Rawlins, who became Grant's Civil War Chief of Staff) I have had many good and glorious times, spiritually I mean. God bless and preserve the old boy.

My friend, "Jordan" is a hard road to travel, and so is farming. I have spent all my money and wasted a large proportion of my energies in farming, and it does seem that I have cast seed upon stony ground, for I get no returns, nor is there much prospect of any getting anything back very soon. I do believe it costs more to run a farm than it does a Mississippi steamboat. However, I am stuck, and must remain so until I can get out. I wish I had a rich father, grand father or uncle, or some other rich body who could help me out. Duty and necessity however binds me to stay and not to give up the ship.

One thing I do need very much. It seems to be an indispensable article in operating a farm. Why it is so I cannot tell, but the claim is laid, and as a farmer I feel bound to do as farmers do. The article I refer to is a wife. If a wife therefore is an indispensable luxury in farming, I suppose I ought to have one. In farming she might be useful, but should I at any time abandon farming, what am I to do with the article? I suppose you would say, set her up as a parlor ornament. Well, I should think twice before doing so violent an act to my sense of proper usefulness. Do you know, among your extensive list of female acquaintances, a good, strong, healthy, double-breasted woman, who would like to be a farmer's wife? If so, recommend me."

Ely S. Parker
Tonawanda Reservation, 1862
Transcribed with permission from:
The American Philosophical Society