Background
YOUNG, Pierce Manning Butler was born on November 15, 1836 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Dr. Robert Maxwell and Elizabeth Caroline (Jones) Young. His father moved to Bartow County, Georgia, in 1839.
YOUNG, Pierce Manning Butler was born on November 15, 1836 in Spartanburg, South Carolina, United States, United States. Son of Dr. Robert Maxwell and Elizabeth Caroline (Jones) Young. His father moved to Bartow County, Georgia, in 1839.
Private school. Young graduated from Georgia Military Institute in 1856 and entered the U.S. Military Academy, but he had not graduated when the Civil War began.
He resigned from the academy when the Civil War began and volunteered for the Confederate Army, entering as a second lieutenant of the 1st Georgia Regiment.
He rose in rank to lieutenant colonel by November 1861. In 1862, he performed gallantly under General J.E.B. Stuart in the Army of Northern Virginia during the Maryland campaign, particularly during the charge at South Mountain. After his brilliant fighting at the battle of Brandy Station the following June, he was promoted to brigadier general on September 28, 1863.
Young led Hampton’s Brigade in the Bristoe and Mine Run campaigns during the last quarter of 1863. In 1864, he was temporarily placed in charge of Hampton’s Division, which he led in the defense of Augusta in November and in the defense of Savannah in December. On December 30, 1864, he was promoted to major general.
Young, who was disliked by General Joseph Wheeler, spent the last few months of the war serving under General Wade Hampton in the Carolinas. He surrendered in North Carolina and was paroled in May 1865. After the war, he was a planter in Cartersville, Georgia, and had an active political career.
He was elected to but not seated in the U.S. House in 1868. He subsequently served two terms from 1870 to 1875 and lost a bid for a third. He was a delegate to the Democratic national conventions of 1872, 1876, and 1880.
In 1878, he was a commissioner to the Paris Expedition. Young was President Cleveland's U.S. consul-general to St. Petersburg, Russia, from 1885 to 1887 and U.S. minister to Guatemala and Honduras from 1893 to 1896.
While on his way home from Honduras, he died on July 6, 1896, in New York City.
"Peculiar institution" of slavery was not only expedient but also ordained by God and upheld in Holy Scripture.
Opposed radical measures against South. Stands for preserving slavery, states' rights, and political liberty for whites. Every individual state is sovereign, even to the point of secession.
Member United States House of Representatives (Democrat) from Georgia, 40th, 41st-43d congresses, July 25, 1868-1869, December 22, 1870-1875. Mason.
He was a lifelong bachelor.