18-year-old Richard Washington, aka Richrd Warrington, enlisted on January 6, 1864. He mustered into the 19th Regiment at Camp Stanton on January 8, 1864. Washington served as a drummer in the regimental band during his service. He mustered out of the Union Army with the rest of his regiment on January 15, 1867 at Brownsville, Texas. A week earlier, on January 8, 1867, William Noble Bean of Bryantown, Charles County, Maryland filed a claim with the Government for $300 compensation for Washington's enlistment. Bean claimed that he had owned Richard Washington since November 1856 through inheritance. Bean's claim stated that Richard Washington's real name was Richard Warrington. His widow, Caroline Warrington, said in a deposition:

I live with my daughter Ida M. Thomas and claim pension as the widow of Richard Warrington who served in Company F, 19 U.S. Col. Infantry and died two miles from here on May 18, 1912 of heart trouble, and he had no physician with him at the time. He served in the Army under the name of Richard Washington and had no other U.S. service, Military, Naval, or Marine Corps. I have not remarried since the death of Richard Warrington and have been supported by my children and the little labor I am able to do, as he left me no property, real or personal, except some few pieces of furniture and a cow which went mostly to pay his funeral expenses.

I married Richard Warrington a year or so after his discharge from the Army and Rev. Father McGuire of Piscataway Church in Pr. Georges County performed the ceremony in his church, and Dr. Blanford, Henry Duckett & Fr. Coats were the witnesses, but all except Blanford are dead. We had no license to marry with - none was required at that time - but the ceremony was three times announced publicly by the priest and nobody objected - and I had not been previously married and was seventeen years old when Richard married me and he was some older than me, but had not been previously married either, for I knew him when he was a good big boy before the war and stayed on the place of his master Mr. Noble Bean of Bryantown, Md.

I belonged to Mrs. Jerry T. Mudd of Gallant Green, Md., who visited the Bean family when I was a child and took me along as a nurse.

I lived with Richard Warrington as his wife from our marriage to his death and we were never divorced - and I had eleven children by him and five are living but all are past the age of sixteen years…

He was about eighteen when he enlisted and married me the year following his discharge. He was the father of no children except the eleven by me.