THE EIGHTH BATTALION.
The Eighth Battalion, three hundred strong, was organized at Camp Vance, near Morganton, N. C., on 7 June, by the election of James B. Ellington (First Lieutenant of Company D, Sixty-first North Carolina Regiment), as Major. It was composed of the following companies:
Company A—From Iredell County—W. G. Watson, Captain; George Rufus White, First Lieutenant; Amos M. Guy and Sinclair Preston Steele, Second Lieutenants.
Captain Watson resigned in January, 1865, for the purpose of joining a cavalry regiment in Lee’s army. He returned home to procure his outfit for the service, but was captured by Stoneman and sent to prison in Louisville, Ky. He is now the excellent and popular clerk of the Superior Court of Rowan County. Upon his resignation, Lieutenant White was promoted to the Captaincy.
Company B—From Catawba—J. R. Gaither, Captain; J. M. Lawrence, First Lieutenant, (both captured at Fort Fisher); Charles Wilfong and J. M. Bandy, Second Lieutenants.
Lieutenant Wilfong resigned after the battle of Kinston, and Lieutenant Bandy thereafter until the surrender, commanded the company. He made a fine officer. After the war he was for a number of years a professor in Trinity College. He now resides in Greensboro, where as a civil engineer he ranks high in his profession. Sergeant James M. Barkley was elected Second Lieutenant and F. H. Busbee Junior Second Lieutenant. Both of them were excellent officers. Lieutenant Barkley is now an able and eminent minister of the gospel in Detroit, Mich. I am indebted to him for many data which I have incorporated into this sketch. Lieutenant Busbee is now one of the first lawyers of the State—a brilliant advocate and a wise and learned counsellor.
Company C—From Burke and Caldwell Counties—Lambert A. Bristol, Captain; Marcus G. Tuttle, First Lieutenant; George T. Dula and Horace W. Connelly, Second Lieutenants. Captain Bristol is now the worthy Clerk of the Superior Court of Burke County.
George T. Dula resigned and John W. Harper was elected Junior Second Lieutenant. He soon thereafter laid down his young life on his country’s altar. He was killed at the battle of Kinston.
The battalion remained for some days at Camp Vance and was drilled by Lieutenant Bullock, a drill master. On 24 June, it was ordered to Raleigh and at Camp Holmes was uniformed and equipped with small rifles, which were very inferior and quite dangerous—to the “man behind the gun.”
On 26 June the battalion was ordered to Wilmington. It went into camp at Camp Davis. It afterwards did picket and patrol duty on Masonboro and Wrightsville Sounds under Colonel George Jackson. On 4 August it was ordered to report to General L. S. Baker, at Goldsboro, but returned to Wilmington 16 August and was again placed under Colonel Jackson’s command at Masonboro Sound.
On 2 September, under orders from the War Department, Major Ellington, who when elected Major was disabled from active service by wounds, and who afterwards recovered, was relieved of his command and sent to his company near Petersburg, Virginia. He was soon afterwards killed at Fort Harrison, Virginia. Major Ellington was a gallant officer and much beloved by the boys. It was a mistake to have relieved him. General Holmes afterwards secured a ruling of the War Department by which the officers of the Junior Reserves after they reached the age of 18, were retained with their commands. But the privates and non-commissioned officers were still required to be sent to General Lee as fast as they became eighteen years old.
Captain William G. Watson succeeded Major Ellington in the command of the battalion. In the fall, the battalion was ordered to Sugar Loaf, on the Cape Fear river, where for several months it did picket duty, drilled, etc. On 10 December it was ordered to Belfield, Va., under Colonel Jackson. Its further career will be traced in connection with the Fourth and Seventh Battalions from which it never after separated until Johnston’s surrender.