Pierce MB Young

Pierce M. B. Young: The Warwick of the South, published in 1964 Lynwood Wl. Holland is an account of a major figure in Reconstruction-era Georgia. The youngest major general in the Confederate Army, he was the first Georgian to be allowed to take a seat in Congress after the Civil War. As a Congressman, Young's main concern was rebuilding life in the South along national rather than sectional lines. Young was a member of the diplomatic corps under Grover Cleveland, where he arranged the Central American exhibit at the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta in 1895. His friendships with such diverse personalities as Robert E. Lee, George Custer, Jefferson Davis, and Henry W. Grady are notable. "In preparing this biography Professor Holland has made full use of the extensive collection of Young family papers and numerous quotations from them enhance its value." Journal of Southern History Lynwood M. Holland taught at Middle Georgia College, the T^ie Warwick of the South University of Illinois, and the University of Arizona, and served as Chairman of the Department of Political Science at Emory University Holland's interest in Pierce M. B. Young was sparked by his research into grass roots politics in Georgia which led to his research of the Milner-Cummings personal collection of Young memorabilia at the family home, Walnut Plantation, in northwest Georgia. The University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 www.ugapress.org ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-3445-5 ISBN-10: 0-8203-3445-6 90000 PIERCE M. B. YOUNG The Warwick of the South PIERCE MANNING BUTLER YOUNG LYNWOOD M. HOLLAND o ««« eeoeo PIERCE M. B. YOUNG The Warwick of the South ooo o QOO UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS ATHENS To ELLA and LOUISE Paperback edition, 2009 © 1964 by the University of Georgia Press Athens, Georgia 30602 www. ugapress. org All rights reserved Printed digitally in the United States of America The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this book as follows: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holland, Lynwood Mathis. Pierce M. B. Young; the Warwick of the South [by] Lynwood M. Holland. viii, 259 p. port. 25 cm. Bibliography: p. 244-250. 1. Young, Pierce Manning Butler, 1836-1896. I. Title. E664.Y6 H6 923.273 64-17062 Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-8203-3445-5 ISBN-10: 0-8203-3445-6 Contents PREFACE vii I SOUTHERN HERITAGE 1 II EDUCATION OF A SOUTHERN GENTLEMAN 8 III A PLEBE AT WEST POINT 17 IV A REBEL AT HEART 26 V A DASHING CAVALIER OF THE CONFEDERACY 50 VI TESTING A REBEL'S COURAGE 76 VII A NEOPHYTE IN POLITICS 107 VIII A CHAMPION OF SOUTHERN RIGHTS 122 IX THE DEMOCRATIC STANDARD BEARER 147 X THE PRICE OF POLITICS 166 XI THE TRYING YEARS: 1878 TO 1884 174 XII A PUBLIC SERVANT IN RUSSIA 191 XIII AN APOSTLE OF THE NEW SOUTH 203 XIV MINISTER TO NICARAGUA AND HONDURAS 215 XV THE WARWICK OF THE SOUTH 228 NOTES 240 BIBLIOGRAPHY 244 INDEX 251 Preface OOMETIMES the story of a minor but representative figure Oreflects the life of an era. Such a figure is Pierce Manning Butler Young, who is perhaps the most nearly forgotten major general from Georgia in the Confederate army. And there are reasons why he should not be forgotten. His career reflects the history of the South, and in some respects of the nation, from 1865 to 1896. He was a youth in ante-bellum Cartersville, Geor gia, an officer in the Confederate army, the first Georgia congress man to be allowed to take his seat in Congress after the Civil War, a gentleman farmer harassed by the economic and political problems of the Reconstruction period, consul-general to St. Petersburg, minister to Nicaragua and Guatemala. A handsome bachelor, he was forever viewed as a desirable catch by romantic daughters and their ambitious mothers. For the past nine years I have been working with a wonder fully full, original collection of letters, documents, diaries, news paper clippings, and scrapbooks related to the career and family of Pierce Young. The materials date from 1806 to 1896 and cover phases of Georgia history largely ignored by historians. The correspondence in this collection reveals hitherto unnoted facts about Young's contemporaries, and seldom-noticed under currents of the times. The owners of the collection, Miss Louise Milner and Mrs. Ella Cummings, descendants of the Young fam ily, who live at Walnut Plantation, have been most generous in granting use of the materials. In addition they have been most helpful in assisting in my research and in arranging contacts for me with their friends and acquaintances. Their cooperation has been of inestimable value in the writing of the biography. V1U PIERCE M. B. YOUNG .:. I have received grants from Emory University and the Uni versity Center in Georgia that have made it possible for me to do research in the National Archives in Washington; at West Point; in Richmond, Virginia; in Columbia, Greenville, and Spartanburg, South Carolina; in Henderson and White Oak, North Carolina; arid in Rome, Marietta, Athens, Kingston, Cass- ville, and Cartersville, Georgia. The grants have enabled me to work with special collections at Emory University, Duke Uni versity, the University of North Carolina, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Georgia. I have also examined newspapers from Washington, New York, Atlanta, and Athens. Many long quotations from the letters and materials have been included because they have never been published and because they give an excellent flavor of the feeling and the rhetoric of the period. All quotes not documented may be taken as coming from the Milner-Cummings collection at Walnut Plantation. Original spell ings have been kept, without use of sic or explanatory insert except where meaning may not be clear otherwise. Much credit for the book is due to my wife, Wilma M. Hol land, who typed the original manuscript and assisted me in my research. Special thanks are due Mrs. Ann O. Lee arid Mrs. Charlotte R. Harris for their careful typing of the final copy and their patience in proofreading, and to Miss Gallic Mc- Whirter, of the University of Georgia Press, for her patience, understanding, arid kind help. I am also deeply indebted to my colleagues, Dr. Ronald F. Howell and Dr. Floyd Watkins of Emory University, for reading and criticizing the manuscript. Their recommendations have been carefully followed. The au thor, however, assumes full responsibility for any mistakes or ambiguities in historical interpretation. LYNWOOD M. HOLLAND Emory University Atlanta, Georgia I QOQ Southern Heritage HPHE DECADE beginning 1820 was a critical period for South -* Carolina, for the opening of the cotton lands in the West had flooded the market and greatly reduced the price of cotton. Within one year, 1825, the price dropped from twenty-eight cents to eight cents a pound. The effect was to increase the depression in rural areas. The depression was intensified for the farmers in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, by droughts and poor crops of corn and wheat. Thus the story of fortunes to be made in the former Indian lands of Alabama and Mississippi grew into a kind of Midas myth for those in financial need. The reports intrigued Dr. Robert Maxwell Young, a young physician who had received in 1821 his diploma in medicine from the University Medical College in Philadelphia, and also many of his friends and rela tives in and around Spartanburg Courthouse. Robert Maxwell Young, upon receiving his medical diploma, returned to his home county of Spartanburg to practice. On October 26, 1826, he married Caroline Elizabeth Jones, his eighteen-year-old sweetheart, daughter of a wealthy North Caro lina planter, George Jones. From his wife Dr. Young received a dowry of several Negro slaves and several horses for carriage and farm use. He built a small wooden building as an office and there saw patients and dispensed medicine as was the custom of his day. By 1833 the doctor was facing, with his neighbors, financial difficulties. The previous year one noted South Caro- linian had lamented that "our merchants are bankrupt or driven away, their capital sunk or transferred to other pursuits, our ship yards broken up, our ships all sold," because of the high national tariff.1 2 PIERCE M. B. YOUNG .:. In addition to complications resulting from the low price for his cotton and the inability to collect from the farmers for medi cal treatment, Dr. Young's family obligations had increased by 1833 with the birth of two sons, George William and Robert Maxwell, and a daughter, Louisa. Then, too, Dr. Young had been made executor of his father's estate, which was heavily involved in debt. The difficult task of trying to collect what was owed the estate and at the same time pay the debts incurred against it was a drain on the doctor's limited finances. Getting deeper into financial difficulties, he realized that the Indian lands would give him an opportunity to improve his finances, although it meant buying the land on credit. After each session with his neighbors under the trees around his small shop on East Main Street, the young doctor's desire to speculate on western lands increased. The tentative discussions matured into definite plans, and he, his father-in-law, and a friend, William Foster of Spartanburg Courthouse, set out on horseback for Ala bama to buy land. Early on Monday, November 20, 1833, the three men arrived at Greenville, where they stayed three days with Dr. Young's mother. Joined here by C.

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