Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/229

 Colonel H. A. Carrington. 217

clad in his regimentals, with his infant child in his arms, dedicated his own life and the life of his child to God and his country. The next day he left for the scene of action, and the army then gather- ing around Manassas. Being a thorough soldier and accomplished tactician, Colonel Carrington aided most efficiently in drilling and disciplining the i8th Virginia regiment one of the finest bodies of men that ever marched to battle on any field, or in any country until July 21, 1861, when the first great battle, there upon the plain of Manassas, where the South ''triumphed gloriously," Colonel Carrington received the first "baptism of fire," and bore himself as become a Virginia soldier and a Southern patriot.

Afterwards Colonel Carrington served with gallantry in every campaign, and was in most of the battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia. He bore a conspicuous part at Williamsburg. At Seven Pines, one of the hottest battles of the war, and where the regiment lost heavily, Colonel Carrington was badly wounded, which disabled him for two months or more. At Games' Mill the gallant R. E. Withers was dreadfully wounded, and ever afterward unfitted for field service, when the command of the regiment devolved upon the major, who led it until just before the battle of Second Manassas, when Colonel Carrington, his wound not yet healed, re- joined his regiment and led it bravely and successfully through that great battle. Here, again, Colonel Carrington was severely wounded, and the command of the regiment devolved upon Major Cabell, who carried it through the Maryland campaign and back into Virginia, where, in the early winter of 1862-' 3, Colonel Carrington returned and resumed his command. Colonel Carrington was in command at Fredericksburg, and there, as he had ever done, acted well his part in the great fight in which General Burnside met disastrous de- feat.

Colonel Carrington commanded the i8th Virginia Regiment in the celebrated charge of Pickett's Division at Gettysburg, where he was reported killed; instead, however, he was wounded at the stone wall, on Seminary Ridge, captured and taken as a prisoner to Johnson's Island, where he endured a wretched captivity, contract- ing the disease which finally culminated in his death. Two of the i8th Regiment's color-bearers were shot down in the charge made by Pickett, when the Colonel seized the colors and bore them at the head of his regiment until he fell at the wall. At Gettysburg the 1 8th Regiment occupied a most prominent position in the charge, and the official report records that the regiment went into the battle