Parshall Keeney was born c. 1838 in Tioga County, Pennsylvania, the son of Elijah Keeney and Lucy MacArthur (Keeney) of Middlebury Township.¹ His first name, Parshall, is the maiden surname of his grandmother, Anna Parshall. An uncle, Israel Parshall Keeney, lived in Middlebury, PA, at the time of Parshall's birth.² In the 1850 US census, he was twelve years old and living with his parents and siblings in Middlebury, PA.³ His name is listed in this document as Partial Kinney.

Parshall Keeney enrolled as a private in the 50th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Co. K, in Monroe, Bradford County, PA, on August 30, 1861 at the age of 23.⁴ He was with the company at muster-in at Harrisburg, PA, on September 9, 1861. He is listed on the company muster rolls dated November 8, 1861 and January 20, 1862. The company muster roll dated January and February 1862 record he was detached to the quartermaster on January 3rd, 1862, and was issued one Springfield musket. The company muster roll dated April 30, 1862 states Parshal Keeney was detailed on extra duty in the quartermaster's department on January 3, 1862, and that in transit from Annapolis to Hilton Head on the "Ocean Queen," his Springfield was lost, supposed to have been stolen by a sailor. The May and June 1862 company muster roll records show he was detailed on extra duty in the quartermaster's department. In the July and August 1862 company muster roll, his name is written as Partial Kinney. The company muster roll dated September and October 1862 records that Partial Keeney died from wounds received in action Sepember 14th.

The 50th Pennsylvania were engaged at the Battle of South Mountain, Maryland, on September 14, 1862, at the mountain crossing known as Fox's Gap. The wounded were treated in makeshift field hospitals near the battlefield and transported to the city of Frederick, Maryland, chosen as a central hospital site for an area overwhelmed with wounded soldiers following the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. Indeed, Private Purcell Kinney was admitted as patient #13 to General Hospital #3 in Frederick, Maryland, on October 1, 1862, with a wound in the knee and died at Coppersmith Hospital in Frederick on October 17, 1862.⁵ On this document his regiment was erroneously noted as being the 15th PA, a regiment that was mustered out in 1861.

In 1868, Samuel Bates recorded in his History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-1865, that Partial Kennedy of the 50th PA, Co. K, died from wounds received at South Mountain on October 18, 1862 and was buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Frederick, MD.⁶ He was re-interred in Antietam National Cemetery in Sharpsburg, MD, for Partial Kennedy, a private of Company K, 50th PA Infantry, who died in Frederick on October 18, 1862 from wounds received in action at South Mountain, now rests in grave #3941 .⁷ Partial Keeney, Partial Kinney, Purcell Kinney, and Partial Kennedy Partial Keeney, Partial Kinney, Purcell Kinney, and Partial Kennedy all refer to the same soldier, Parshall Keeney of the 50th Pennsylvania Volunteers, Company K.

Audrey Scanlan-Teller
Middletown, MD

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¹1840 US Census, Middlebury Township, Tioga Co., PA; 1850 US Census, Middlebury Township, Tioga Co., PA, fol. 174.

²1830 US Census, Middlebury Township, Tioga Co., PA, fol. 48; 1840 US Census, Middlebury Township, Tioga Co., PA; 1850 US Census, Middlebury Township, Tioga Co., PA, fol. 348.

³1850 US Census, Middlebury Township, Tioga Co., PA, fol. 174.

⁴Parshall Keeney, Combined Military Service Record, National Archives.

⁵Maryland Medical Register #160, National Archives, as cited, transcribed and compiled by Terry Reimer, One Vast Hospital:The Civil War Hospital Sites in Frederick, Maryland after Antietam (Frederick, MD: National Museum of Civil War Medicine, 2001), Appendix A, Hospital Patient List.

⁶Samuel P. Bates, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-1865, vol. 1 (Harrisburg, PA, 1868), 1313.

⁷Roster from Antietam National Cemetery, cited in Steven Stotelmyer, Bivouacs of the Dead, (Baltimore, MD: Toomey Press, 1992), Appendix D, Antietam National Cemetery.