Mosby Monroe Parsons was born on May 21, 1822, in Charlottesville, Virginia. At age 13 his family moved to Cole County, Missouri, and two years later to Jefferson City, Missouri. He left his law practice to volunteer for the Mexican-American War and, as a captain, commanded Company F of Colonel Alexander Doniphan’s Missouri Mounted Volunteers. From 1853 to 1857, Parsons served as Missouri’s attorney general, then was elected to the state senate, where he served until the start of the Civil War.

With the formation of the Missouri State Guard in May 1861, Parsons was appointed a brigadier general and placed in command of the Guard’s Sixth Division. He led his division in the battles of Carthage and Wilson’s Creek in Missouri and Pea Ridge in Arkansas.

Commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate army on November 5, 1862, Parsons led an infantry brigade a month later at the Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas; on July 4, 1863, he participated in the attack on Helena, Arkansas, and assisted in thwarting the advance of Union General Nathaniel Banks during the 1864 Red River campaign in Louisiana. He also participated in General Sterling Price’s raid into Missouri later that year. Parsons ended the war as a major general, having compiled an impressive record as one of the finest division commanders in the Confederate army.

At the war’s end, Parsons, along with other Missouri Confederates, chose to go to Mexico rather than surrender. On August 15, 1865, Parsons and five companions were captured and executed by bandits near Camargo, Chihuahua.