Ely S. Parker, who was born on the Tonawanda Reservation in Indian Falls, New York, in 1828, took an indirect path to becoming military secretary to Union Army Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War.
His father, William Parker, was a chief of the Tonawanda Seneca and had fought in the War of 1812 for the United States.
Parker, whose tribal name was Hasanoanda, spoke fluent English and Seneca, which is an Iroquoian language. The Seneca Tribe is one of six in the Iroquois Confederacy. The others are Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Tuscarora and Mohawk.
As a young man, Parker worked in a law firm in Ellicottville, New York, before applying to take the bar examination. Denied due to citizenship laws of the time—later resolved by the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924—he headed down a new path.
A pivotal meeting with Lewis Henry Morgan, a lawyer and anthropologist studying Iroquois customs, led to a collaboration that ultimately secured Parker’s admission to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, for engineering studies.
As an engineer, Parker contributed to maintenance work on the Erie Canal and other projects.
Parker was commissioned in the Army in early 1863. He became chief engineer of the 7th Division during the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which occurred from May 18 to July 4, 1863. Grant, who had become a major general, was in overall command, and the Union Army prevailed at that siege.
Grant was pleased with the work done by Parker during that siege and made him his adjutant during the Chattanooga Campaign in Tennessee, Sept. 21 to Nov. 25, 1863.
Parker subsequently transferred with Grant and served with him through the Overland Campaign and the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia, from May 4 to June 24, 1864. At Petersburg, Parker was appointed as the military secretary to Grant, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He subsequently wrote much of Grant's correspondence.
Parker was present when Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, April 9, 1865. He helped draft the surrender documents.
At the time of surrender, Parker said that Lee "stared at me for a moment. He extended his hand and said, 'I am glad to see one real American here.' I shook his hand and said, 'We are all Americans.'"
Parker was brevetted a brigadier general on that day. Brevet is a former type of military commission conferred especially for outstanding service, by which an officer was promoted to a higher rank without the corresponding pay.
After the Civil War, Parker remained the military secretary to Grant. He also was a member of the Southern Treaty Commission, which renegotiated treaties with Indian tribes, mostly in the southeast, that had sided with the Confederacy.
Parker resigned from the Army on April 26, 1869.
After Grant was elected president of the United States, he appointed Parker to serve as commissioner of Indian affairs, a position he held from 1869 to 1871.Parker became the chief architect of Grant's peace policy involving Native Americans in the West. Under his leadership, the number of military actions against Indians were reduced, and there was an effort to support tribes in their transition to living on reservations.
Parker died in Fairfield, Connecticut, on Aug. 31, 1895.
He was portrayed in the 2012 film Lincoln." He's also featured in the and novels "Grant Comes East" and "Never Call Retreat."