Ohio History Journal

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WINFIELD SCOTT'S VISIT TO COLUMBUS

WINFIELD SCOTT'S VISIT TO COLUMBUS.

 

 

 

BY GEN. H. B. CARRINGTON, U. S. A.

[General Henry Beebee Carrington is one of the very few su

viving generals of the Civil War.  He has led a distinguished ar

eventful life. Born in Wallingford, Conn., March 2, 1824, he is now

the age of eighty-six, hale and hearty; a writer of clearness and precisio

and a speaker forceful and entertaining. He graduated at Yale (1845

and in November, 1848, arrived in Columbus to there take up his pe

manent residence. Of his entrance into the Capital City he notes in h

own language that it was "travelling by stage from Cleveland to C

lumbus over the Loudonville hills, being met all along the way by th

call 'Who is Governor?' and that the election of Seaberry Ford as Go

ernor was not settled until after my arrival in Columbus, you will se

the initial point from which my Columbus experience underwent varie

and unusual vicissitudes." Immediately after his arrival in Columbus,

began the study of law, was admitted to the bar and practiced his pro

fession until 1861, during the most of which period he was the la

partner of William  Dennison, the first war governor of Ohio. M

Carrington was Adjutant General for the State (Ohio) from 1857 to 186

At the outbreak of the war he organized many of the first regimen

sent out by Ohio; became colonel of the 18th U. S. Infantry; had

distinguished record as commander, participating in many of the in

portant battles and emerging from the conflict as a brigadier-genera

In 1875 he was granted access by the governments of both Great Brita

and France to all archives pertaining to the American Revolution;

surveyed and mapped all the battle-fields of the American Revolution, t

result of which was the most complete and authentic work on the revol

tionary battles ever issued. He served the United States government

many important capacities, as, in 1889-91, moving the Indians throug

Missoula across Mission Ridge range of the Rocky Mountains to Jock

Reservation, Western Montana; later, under direction of the United Stat

government he made a detailed census of the Six Nations in New Yo

and the Cherokees in North Carolina. General Carrington has been a pr

lific writer, something like a dozen volumes on American history, politic

etc., emanating from  his pen. He is now a resident of Hyde Par

Mass., and the article which herewith follows, recounting an interestin

incident in the visit of General Winfield Scott to Columbus, is from a

address delivered by General Carrington on the evening of his 86

birthday before the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion

at its Spring Meeting in Boston, March 2, 1910.-EDITOR.]

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