Beverly Young of Mississippi

By Dr. B. F. Ward

Miss Lucille Webb Banks has written a graphic and beautiful description of Waverly, the magnificent ancestral home of the Youngs, situated on the Timbigbee River, near Columbus, Mississippi. It was occupied at that time by two old bachelor brothers, Captain William Lownes Young, and Major George Valley Young, familiarly known as "Major Val" and "Captain Billy." Those two patriotic and hospitable old gentlemen had a brother, Beverly Young, who was a private of Company I, Van Dorn Rifles, 11th Mississippi Regiment. He was one of the first to enlist, and served as a private till he received his fatal wound at Gettysburg.

Though wealthy, Beverly Young was modest, unassuming, and unpretentious, yet genial and courageous in the face of every danger. He was severely wounded in the leg in the last day's battle; but with a crooked oak limb which he found and used as a crutch he could hobble around a little, and insisted on my giving attention to others whom he considered were in more urgent need than himself, saying that he could wait. For protection from a July sun I had laid a number of the very badly wounded on the ground in an oak grove through which ran an insignificant little brook. The night after General Lee retired, leaving five or six thousand wounded on the field, an unexpected rain fell in torrents. Quickly, the little stream overflowed its banks and flooded the ground where our wounded lay from ankle to knee-deep. It was very dark. We were apprehensive that some of the brave fellows would drown before we could get them out, but we rescued them all. I waded in water knee-deep to where I knew a man was lying with his head at the root of a large oak. Hearing nothing from him, I thought he was drowned, and, stooping down to feel for him, I touched an uplifted hand wet and cold as death. I spoke to him. He recognized my voice and faintly answered, "Doctor, I thought I was gone and was holding up my hand in prayer." The water was up to his chest, but he had rested his head against the root of the tree to keep above the water. I took him by the arms, raised him into a sitting position, and, kneeling in the water with my back to his chest and making him clasp his arms around my neck, I staggered to my feet and carried him to high ground, although his weight was greater than mine.

When daylight came we were confronted with a sad spectacle. The poor fellows were wet and chilled, their wounds were soaked with dirty water, and none of them had a change of clothes.

Nearby was a farmhouse and a very large brick barn which was filled with straw. I walked up to the house, and was met by a typical Pennsylvania farmer. I saw the hard lines in his face and realized the rigor of the judgment seat before which I stood. How I wished for the eloquence of Paul that I might have made that old Hessian Felix tremble! I did my pathetic best. I wanted straw worse than the Israelites did in the brick yards of Egypt, but could not get it without money. I told him that I had not a dollar of funds that would be current in his country, and reminded him that on the battlefields of Virginia many Federal wounded had fallen into my hands, and that I had always extended to them the same care and attention given to my own wounded; but he was not in the "reciprocity" business. I then inquired how much he would charge for straw enough to make beds for a certain number of wounded, as I wanted it only for the worst and helpless cases. He replied that I could have the straw for five dollars.

Brave, great-hearted "Bev" Young, crippled, penniless, suffering the cruelties and inhumanities of a Northern prison! He died of wounds. The people of Columbus ought to build a monument to his memory with a five-dollar gold coin embossed on its face and an inscription under it something like this: "Beverly Young, wounded and a prisoner, gave his last dollar to his suffering and dying comrades."

Monuments are an important part of history. They are books that never go out of print and require no new editions to bring them up to date. They are the milestones of the centuries, the oracles of the ages. They inspire the youths and young men to emulate the heroism, the manhood, and the patriotism of their ancestors. There was more heroism in Beverly Young's contribution of his last cent to his suffering comrades than in his charge the day before on the blazing line of the enemy's breastworks. To carve the memory of this deed in stone would be an eloquent appeal to the embryonic manhood and womanhood of Demosthenes over the Athenian dead who had fallen in a losing battle as disastrous to Greece as Gettysburg to the Confederacy.