Representative Pierce Manning Butler Young

Pierce Manning Butler Young (November 15, 1836 – July 6, 1896) was an American soldier, politician, diplomat, and slave owner. He rose to the rank of major general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and, after the conflict, served four terms as a Democratic United States Representative from Georgia before entering the diplomatic service of the United States. His public career spanned the tumultuous era from secession and civil war through Reconstruction and the late nineteenth-century expansion of American diplomatic engagement abroad.

Young was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, on November 15, 1836. His father, Dr. R. M. Young, was a son of Capt. William Young, who had served as a soldier in the American Revolution under George Washington. On his mother’s side, Young’s family lineage reflected both Cavalier and Loyalist traditions: his maternal grandmother descended from the English Cavaliers who migrated to Maryland in the 1740s, and she later married Mourning Stone, a Loyalist during the American Revolution who is noted for having helped give refuge to British General Lord Cornwallis during his campaign in South Carolina. When Pierce Young was still a small boy, his father moved the family to Bartow County, Georgia, where he employed private tutors to educate his children, providing the foundation for Young’s subsequent military and professional training.

At the age of thirteen, Young entered the Georgia Military Institute in Marietta, Georgia, where he received a formal military education and graduated in 1856. After his graduation, he briefly studied law, indicating an early interest in a professional career beyond purely military pursuits. In 1857, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point. His tenure there, however, coincided with the mounting sectional crisis. With Georgia’s secession from the Union imminent, Young resigned from the academy only two months before his anticipated graduation, aligning his fortunes with those of his home state on the eve of the Civil War.

Returning to Georgia in early 1861, Young entered Confederate service. He was initially appointed a second lieutenant in the 1st Georgia Infantry Regiment but declined that commission in favor of the same rank in the artillery, a branch he evidently preferred. By July 1861 he had been promoted to first lieutenant and assigned to the staff of General Braxton Bragg at Pensacola, Florida, while simultaneously serving as aide-de-camp to General W. H. T. Walker. That same month he was appointed adjutant of the Georgia Legion, commonly known as Cobb’s Legion. His rise within the Legion was rapid: he was promoted to major in September 1861 and to lieutenant colonel in November, taking command of the cavalry portion of the Legion.

Young’s cavalry command was attached in 1862 to Wade Hampton’s brigade in the cavalry division of Major General J. E. B. Stuart in the Army of Northern Virginia. During the Maryland Campaign of 1862 he distinguished himself for what Stuart described as “remarkable gallantry.” Promoted to colonel, Young rendered notable service at the Battle of Brandy Station in June 1863, one of the largest cavalry engagements of the war, and took part in the cavalry operations of the Gettysburg Campaign. In early August 1863 he was wounded in another engagement near Brandy Station. His performance nevertheless continued to draw favorable notice, and in October 1863 he was promoted to brigadier general and given command of Hampton’s former brigade, composed of the 1st and 2nd South Carolina Cavalry, Cobb’s Legion, the Jeff Davis Legion, and Phillips’ Legion. He was actively engaged in the Bristoe and Mine Run Campaigns, and on October 12, 1863, through skillful maneuvering, he compelled a Union division to recross the Rappahannock River, prompting Stuart to commend the “distinguished skill and generalship” of the officers involved.

In 1864, Young played a prominent role in the Overland Campaign in Virginia. When Wade Hampton assumed overall command of the Confederate cavalry following Stuart’s death at Yellow Tavern in May 1864, Young temporarily filled Hampton’s place as division commander, underscoring his stature within the mounted arm of the Army of Northern Virginia. In November 1864 he was sent to Augusta, Georgia, to gather reinforcements and assist in the defense of the city against the advancing forces of Union General William T. Sherman. Promoted to major general in December 1864, Young took part in the defense of Savannah and then in the 1865 campaign in the Carolinas under General Hampton, remaining in the field until the close of the war.

After the Confederacy’s defeat, Young returned to Georgia and took up life as a planter, reestablishing himself in the postwar South. Entering politics as a member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Georgia and served four consecutive terms from 1868 to 1875. His tenure in Congress coincided with Reconstruction, a period of significant political and social upheaval in the South and across the nation. As a Democratic representative, Young participated in the legislative process during this critical era, representing the interests of his Georgia constituents and contributing to debates over federal policy, Southern readmission, and the reordering of political power in the former Confederate states. Seeking to extend his congressional career, he ran for a fifth term but was defeated by William Harrell Felton, a candidate backed by the agrarian reform movement associated with the Grange, reflecting shifting political currents in Georgia and the broader South.

Following his congressional service, Young remained active in public life through a series of diplomatic appointments. In 1878 he was named United States commissioner to the Paris Exposition, a major international fair that showcased industrial, artistic, and technological developments and provided a venue for American engagement with European powers. Under President Grover Cleveland, Young entered the formal diplomatic corps. He served as consul general of the United States at St. Petersburg, Russia, from 1885 to 1887, representing American interests in the capital of the Russian Empire during a period of evolving transatlantic relations. Later, again by appointment of President Cleveland, he was commissioned Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Guatemala and Honduras, serving from 1893 until his death in 1896, and thereby playing a role in the expansion and management of U.S. diplomatic relations in Central America.

Pierce Manning Butler Young died on July 6, 1896, in New York City while still in diplomatic service. His body was returned to Georgia, and he was interred in Oak Hill Cemetery in Cartersville, Bartow County, reflecting his long-standing ties to the state where he had been raised, launched his military and political career, and which he had represented in the United States Congress.