Halfplate Ambrotype of Lieutenant Robert Burwell Edington,
Company E, 42nd Virginia Infantry, “Dixie Grays.”
This is a half-plate relievo ambrotype, misty in appearance, and it was probably taken in 1862 in Western Virginia. Robert Edington was listed in the records as a 19-year-old laborer living at Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs, Roanoke County, Virginia in 1861. He entered service at unspecified rank in the “Dixie Grays,” Salem, Virginia, and the company became Company E of the 42nd Virginia Infantry. He was elected 3rd Lieutenant of his company on April 4, 1861.
Edington appears here in an early war uniform with foot officer’s sword and what appears to be insignia on the collar and shoulders of his jacket. Oddly, he displays the underside of his kepi. His record indicates that after his April 1862 promotion he commanded his company several times before the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Edington’s appearance in this photograph evidences a role as a commissioned officer at that time, and it appears that the photograph was taken after his election to 3rd Lieutenant in April 1862. He is wearing a Confederate shell jacket.
The 42nd Virginia fought in western Virginia from July through December 1861. Thereafter, it participated in all of the major actions of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson through the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1-3, 1863. The regiment fought at Culps Hill during the Battle of Gettysburg as part of the Second Corps under General Richard S. Ewell. During intense fighting on July 2, Edington was wounded severely and sent to the W. Henry Montford Farm where General Alleghany Johnson’s Division Hospital was established. He died of his wounds on July 4. It is easy to presume that Edington’s remains were transferred to Richmond’s Hollywood Cemetery in the early postwar years.
Author and researcher Gregory Coco noted that “…on the W. H. Montford farm there are five distinctive places where burials were noted, one of which was under a locust tree opposite the barn.” Coco photographed the field where these graves were located and includes the photograph in his book Wasted Valor: The Confederate Dead at Gettysburg.
The following photograph of Edington’s boyhood home in Roanoke Valley as it appeared in the early 20th Century (the James Edington House, which was surveyed in the 1930’s:
Philip Eddington and his family were people of wealth and influence, owned quite a number of slaves and several good farms. His [grand] sons were members of the “Dixie Grays.” Joseph Eddington, second Corporal, died in 1862 in a hospital. James P. Eddington, a private, was wounded in 1862 at Kernstown. Robert Eddington, private, was promoted to Third Lieutenant in 1862, and killed in 1863 at Gettysburg.
The ambrotype was held in the family collection of Bedford, Virginia, chief of police James Day.