Lewis Eliphalet Parsons (April 28, 1817–June 8, 1895) was the appointed provisional and 19th Governor of Alabama from June to December 1865, following the American Civil War.

He attempted to purchase the panhandle of Florida for Alabama, which sparked rumors that he had access to unclaimed confederate gold.

One of Parsons' most memorable lectures was made in New York after he visited the devastated city of Selma, Alabama, immediately following the war in 1865: It happened that Gen. James H. Wilson, of Illinois, with a large force of cavalry, some seventeen thousand (sic), commenced a movement from the Tennessee River, and a point in the northwest of the State of Alabama, diagonally across the State.

Every woman was robbed of her watch, her earrings, her finger-rings, her jewelry of all descriptions; and the whole city was given up, for the time, to the possession of the soldiers.

Indeed, after three weeks had elapsed, it was with difficulty you could travel the road from Plantersville to that city (Selma), so offensive was the atmosphere, in consequence of decaying horses and mules that lay along the road-side.

His grandson, James K. Parsons was a career United States Army officer who attained the rank of major general and received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in World War I.