Pierce M. B. Young

Confederate Army general

Pierce Manning Butler Young (November 15, 1836 – July 6, 1896) was an American soldier, politician, diplomat, and slave owner. He was a major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, and after the war a four term United States Congressman from Georgia, before serving in the diplomatic corps.

Young was born at Spartanburg, South Carolina on November 15, 1836. His father, Dr. R. M. Young, was a son of Capt. William Young, a soldier in the American Revolution under George Washington. Young's maternal grandmother descended from the Cavaliers of England, who migrated to Maryland around the 1740s. She married Mourning Stone, who was a Loyalist during the American Revolution, and helped to give refuge to Lord Cornwallis during his campaign in South Carolina. When Pierce was a small boy, his father moved to Bartow County, Georgia, and enlisted private tutors for his children. Young's cavalry was attached to Wade Hampton's brigade of J. E. B. Stuart's cavalry division in the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862. Promoted to colonel, he rendered brilliant service at the Battle of Brandy Station and participated in the cavalry operations of the Gettysburg Campaign. In early August, he was wounded in another fight near Brandy Station. In October, he was promoted to brigadier general and assigned command of Hampton's old brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd South Carolina cavalry regiments, the Cobb Legion, Jeff Davis Legion and Phillips' Legion. He was actively engaged during the Bristoe and Mine Run Campaigns, where on October 12, 1863, by adroit maneuvering, he compelled an enemy division to recross the Rappahannock River. Young ran for a fifth term, but was defeated by the Grange backed candidate William Harrell Felton. Young was appointed United States commissioner to the Paris Exposition in 1878. He served as consul general at St. Petersburg, Russia (1885–87) and as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Guatemala and Honduras (1893 1896) by appointment of President Grover Cleveland. Young died on July 6, 1896, in New York City, with interment in Oak Hill Cemetery, Cartersville, Georgia