, C. S. A.
, in lieu of his annual address, read a tribute to the valor and worth of the late
, that will prove a valuable addition to the archives of the Association.
It is as follows:
Gentlemen of the Confederate Survivors' Association.
I have been selected by your committee to present this tribute to the memory of our old commander and one of your honorary members,
General G. M. P. Young.
Pardon the seeming egotism —in reference unavoidable—in mentioning his services on the coast of
Georgia and
South Carolina, and shall offer this in lieu of the customary annual address of the
President of this Association, as it is the historian's duty to keep up your records.
Comrades of the
Cobb Legion, Georgia Cavalry, little did we think as we marched the streets of
Richmond, Va., at our late reunion, to the soul-stirring, familiar airs of our old war songs, that he who had so often ridden at the head of your squadron, whose sabre had so often flashed in your front, the true hero of ‘The Cobb Legion, Georgia Cavalry,’ your Adjutant in 1861, your
Major and
Lieutenant-Colonel in 1862, your
Colonel in 1863, your
Brigadier-General in 1864 and 1865,
P. M. B. Young, was then lying at the point of death, in the
Presbyterian Hospital in New York City, far, far away from home, kith and kindred.
True to his knightly instincts, when satisfied that he had a mortal hurt, unwilling to be a charge to his numerous friends or for them to witness his agony, he went to die alone!
True to his proud spirit, he had wrested for a long time with the dread disease, while his intimates, looking only at that grand physique—‘the typical cavalryman’—whenever a spasm of pain would contract his handsome countenance, recollecting what they had gone through together, would accuse him of becoming a hypochondriac, and he, with a merry laugh, would retort: ‘My heart has gone back on me.’
He who was so well qualified to have
