Sailor, SpyJ Swashbuckler, Dentist! The Improbable Life of Henry Parr by Louis Arthur Norton enry Albert Parr, a genuine nineteenth-century man of mystery, was a Confederate spy, a pirate, a prolific inventor, and ... a highly regarded dentist whose patients included a former United States president. Born in 1843, at various times Parr claimed that he was born in Nova Scotia, Tennessee, or New York.1 His actual place of birth is unknown; records show that he did spend time in each location. Parr likely spent his teenaged years in Nashville and, judging from his adult occupations, someone in his family likely had a medical or pharmaceutical background. At nineteen he joined Colonel John Hunt Morgan's Second Kentucky Calvary, also known as "Morgan's Raiders," to fight for the Confederacy. 2 In 1862, Henry Parr was among a group of fifteen that Morgan selected for a clandestine nighttime raid on Nashville, Tennessee, on the Cumberland River. The band of raiders made their approach towards the state capital on a cold February night, reconnoitered the riverfront and found the steamboat Minnetonka tied to the quay. They made a plan to set fire to the ship, cut its mooring lines, set it adrift toward some Federal gunboats several hundred yards downstream, and hopefully torch the vulnerable Union vessels . They fa iled to notice, however, the complex web of chains and manila ropes that secured Minnetonka to her berth. The noise that accompanied their efforts made Federal sentries stationed nearby aware that something suspicious was going on near Minnetonka, and they sounded an alarm. The would-be raiders Bed the scene, but not 1
without the loss of one of their men. The remaining Confederate survivors safely returned to Morgan's headquarters. After this failed mission, Parr was inducted into the Confederate Secret Service
Henry A. Parr DDS with the rank of lieutenant.3 Parr's first undercover assignment was in Nash ville in 1863, where he posed as a clerk in W . F. Gray's drugstore. He was to recruit Union soldiers who might want to desert and then forge parole papers that would allow them to cross picket lines safely. Somehow his activities were exposed, and on 29 January 1863, the Union Army Provost in Nashville apprehended Parr. It is unclear how he avoided imprisonment, but there is no record of his being convicted of criminal activity. 4 Parr's next mission was as a participant in a bizarre plan with potentially serious
John M. H yson Jr. and Ben Z. Swanson Jr. "Portrait of a Confederate Secret Agent: Henry A. Parr, DDS." j ournal ofthe History ofDentistry, 1996 July, 44 (2) 53. 2 Record G roup 109, Wa r D epartment Collection of C onfederate Records, M 253, C onsolidated Index to Compiled Service Records of Confederate Service, roll 368, NA and US War D epartment. The War ofthe Rebellion: A Compilation ofthe Officia l Records of the Union and Confederate A rmies. 128 vol., Seri al l , vol 7. Wash ington Government Pr inting Office, 18 82, 433-34 3 Ph il ip Va n D o ren, Secret Missions of the Civil War (Avenel, NJ: W ings Books, 1959) 167. 4 Record G roup 109, War Department Collection of Co nfederate Records, M4 l 6, Union Provost M arshal's Fi le of Paper Relatin g to Two or M o re C ivili ans, H enry A. Parr, Statement, 29 Janu ary 1863, Office of the C hi ef of Police, Army of the C umberl and, roll 16, number 4274, National Archives . 5 Records indicate th at Brain traveled to Montrea l, Quebec C ity, and ultimately
22
international repercussions. The originator of the plot was an Englishman named John Clibbon Brain, a shady con man from rural G loucestershire, who served for a time as an able seaman aboard the steam-powered CSS Jamestown before joining the Confederate Secret Service. A skilled artist, Brain worked undercover as an illustrator for the publication Railway Guides, gathering rail-transportation intelligence for the Confederates. Brain seemed to ask too many questions, and was arrested. Pouring on his English accent and winning personality, he persuaded the authorities that he was a British citizen and should not be imprisoned. Not wanting to cause an international incident, the authorities simply deported him. He traveled extensively for a while before making his way back to Virginia, hoping to gain a Confederate Navy commission.5 Unsuccessful in his quest, he saw the opportunity to serve the Confederate cause as a privateer. Brain's first scheme was to seize the 460ton passenger steamship Chesapeake that sailed between New York and Portland, Maine. For this ambitious plan, Brain recruited Parr, whom he described as an "exdoctor" and "an apothecary's unemployed apprentice."6 Together with a band of Confederates and Confederate sympathizers disguised as passengers, Brain planned to take possession of the steamer by force once it was in international waters. The Chesapeake would be renamed and her appearance changed, and then Brain and his Confederate crew would sail south to Wilmington, North Carolina. From there, they would use the steamship as a Confederate privateer.7 Key to the plan was Cana-
to th e United Kin gdom before returning to the United States Faye Kert, Trimm ing Yan kee Sails: Pirates and Privateers of New Brunswick (Fredericton , N B: Goose Lane Editions, 2005) 68. 7 A letter of m arque o r reprisa l usually described the ship, own ers, officers, and the amount of deposited surety. Pri vateers brou ght captured vessels before Admi ra lty Courts th at decided if the letter of marque was vali d and if rhe vessel or its ca rgo belon ged to the enemy. If legally "condemned ," it cou ld be sold at auction, and the proceeds were then divided between the privateer's owner and crew. Du ring the early years of C ivil Wa r, the US charged Confederate privateers with piracy, declarin g their letters of marque inva li d since the Union did not acknowledge the brea kaway Confederacy as a sovereign nation. Laws govern ing privateerin g enterprises beca me murky. The Pari s Declaration of 1856 renounced privateerin g and , in effect, abolished privatee ring worldwide. Th e US, however, was not a signatory and reserved the ri ght to continue iss uing letters of marque.
6
SEA HISTORY 152, AUTUMN 2015