BIO: Richard Parker HENDERSON, Cumberland County, PA

  Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Joe Patterson
  OCRed by Judy Banja

  Copyright 2004.  All rights reserved.
  http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/copyright.htm
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  >From Biographical Annals of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania,
  Chicago: The Genealogical Publishing Co., 1905, p. 21-22
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  RICHARD PARKER HENDERSON, son of Col. William M. and Elizabeth (Parker) 
  Henderson, was born at "Oakland," the family homestead near Carlisle, 
  Oct. 5, 1838, and all his lifetime knew no other home. His youth was 
  spent upon the farm, and his education was obtained in the public 
  schools of Carlisle and in Dickinson College. Upon reaching manhood he 
  en-

  22	CUMBERLAND COUNTY.

  gaged at farming and milling with his father and brother, and was 
  entering upon a successful business career when the war of the Rebellion 
  broke out. Upon the commencement of hostilities he enlisted, April 21, 
  1861, becoming a private under his brother, Capt. R. M. Henderson, in 
  Company A, 36th Pennsylvania Infantry (7th Reserves). Soon after the 
  organization of the company he was made corporal; subsequently he was 
  promoted to second lieutenant and later to first lieutenant, which rank 
  he held June 16, 1864, when he was mustered out of service. On March 13, 
  1865, he was brevetted first lieutenant, United States Volunteers, "for 
  gallant conduct at the battle of Gettysburg." On the same date he was 
  brevetted captain "for gallant conduct at the battles of the Wilderness 
  and Spottsylvania Court House," and major "for gallantry at Bethesda 
  Church, Virginia." On Jan. 11, 1882, he was elected a member of the 
  Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, in Class 1, 
  Insignia 2290, and his record as a companion of that order discloses the 
  services which earned for him the brevets awarded to him. The records of 
  the 7th Regiment. Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, disclose his loyal service 
  until promotion awarded him with a commission, and his merit advanced 
  him to a position on the staff of his division commander. Henceforward 
  the battles he engaged in brought him honor, marked by promotion and by 
  brevets. His commander, Major Gen. S. H. Crawford, wrote that he with 
  another was "among the foremost" when Round Top, the strategical point 
  in the battle line of Gettysburg, was seized for the Union troops, and 
  that Capt. Livingston and he were "deserving of especial commendation 
  for the prompt and fearless conveyance of orders entrusted to them on 
  the 3d under the immediate fire of the enemy battery." [See Official 
  Records of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. XXVII, Part I, page 656.]
    After the war Major Henderson returned to his home and quietly resumed 
  the business, which was interrupted four years before by his prompt 
  response to his country's call. He assisted his father in the milling 
  branch of his business, then in the grain and forwarding business, and 
  after his father's death, in 1886, took upon himself the milling and 
  forwarding business, and managed it successfully until he died. He was 
  of a modest and retiring disposition, but much esteemed for his 
  integrity, good business qualities and excellent judgment in matters 
  generally. For twenty years he was a director in the Carlisle Deposit 
  Bank, and the confidence his neighbors had in his progressive ideas and 
  sense of fairness carried him into the school board of his township, 
  where the political party to which he belonged had but a meager minority 
  of votes. He was a member of Post No. 201, G. A. R., and a regular 
  attendant at its meetings.
    Major Henderson never asked for position and those that came to him came 
  unsought. He was content to walk in quiet paths, to manage his business 
  quietly and carefully, and to enjoy the companionship of his friends, 
  his comrades and his family. He won the respect and confidence of all he 
  met, and his honor and integrity in civil life were as conspicuous and 
  unsullied as his courage on the field of battle. His death occurred at 
  "Oakland" Feb. to, 1901, and his remains are interred upon the Henderson 
  family plat in the Meeting House Springs graveyard, near Carlisle. He 
  was never married.