Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 25.djvu/151

 Tin /{,'!>/ S.ll, l-fiir / </</;<//'/. 117

nude a happy home who was one of the most lovable of men as \\( h.i\< M-rved with him know died in a New York hospital hun- dreds of miles from his beloved Georgia.

IDENTIFIED WITH THE COBB LEGION.

His history was our history, his glorious record ours. He was distinctly a creation of "The Cobb Legion," and they felt that in- describable attachment that men feel fur comrades who have bled with them on more than one hard contested field.

Though General Thomas R. R. Cobb had organized the legion, he was a noted man in Georgia before it was formed. Though Col- onel William G. Deloney was our " Chevalier Bayard," sans peur et sans reproche, he fell at the zenith of his glory, September, 1863. Though General G. J. Wright was as brave and gallant as man could be, yet they all were older; we expected much of them.

It was not the same feeling we had for Pierce Young. As Colonel Baker, of the ist North Carolina Cavalry, told him at Middletown, Maryland, September 12, 1862, where, after a hard day's fight, in- censed at some slighting remark that Baker had made of a charge of " The Cobb Legion," he defied him to mortal combat then and there, "on horseback or on foot, with sabre or pistol, or any way he would fight." "Why, Pierce, you are nothing but a boy, you for- get yourself; I came here to fight Yankees, not as good a soldier as you." Unmindful of the emphatic berating of his junior officer, conscious of his own courage, demonstrated in many a fierce en- counter, instead of arresting him for disrespect, he laughed at the boyishness displayed even before his own regiment, who, with the older men of Young's Regiment, always so regarded the affront. Far from being perfect, we forgave his faults, even as a father would those of a spoiled child for a spoiled child in many of his actions ua^ Pierce Young, even to the day of his death.

A West Point cadet, he promptly resigned on the secession of Georgia, and offered his services to the Confederacy, and was as- signed to duty as adjutant to Colonel Thomas R. R. Cobb, then organizing his legion "on the peninsular." Being a born soldier and with his military training, it was easy for him to infuse into that command, then consisting of six companies of infantry, four of cav- alry and the afterwards famous Troup Artillery of Athens, the esprit du corps they were so noted for.