Confederate Shop
By Dr. E. L. Drake
For the benefit of the family and comrades of William Youree, member of Company K, 2nd Tennessee Infantry Regiment, CSA, who was lost in a skirmish at Peachtree Creek, near Atlanta, July 18, 1864, I write of having discovered his remains, and am able to clear up the mystery that has hung over the fate of this heroic boy for 29 years. After several visits to the locality, I learned that his remains are in Wood's private graveyard about three miles north of Atlanta.
His bones had become exposed in making a country road near over 20 years ago, and were removed at the expense of the county and reinterred at the place mentioned. I would like to pay a brief tribute to the memory of this heroic boy. He was a puny, sallow, undeveloped youth when he came to us at Corinth, seemingly too weak to handle a musket or endure a march, but he never missed a battle, I think, in which we were engaged. Although he was frequently sick he never shirked duty or asked a favor. He did his duty like the strongest. Indeed, his death was caused by his dogged persistence in remaining at the front when he was totally unfit for service. When we crossed the Chattahoochee, after the hard and trying Dalton campaign, Billy was so broken down and unfit for service that I ordered him to the hospital. To my surprise he came back to the company in a day or two, and when I remonstrated with him he simply said he "would rather stay with the boys." We were then on the skirmish line at Peachtree Creek, and that day our flank was turned by two brigades of the enemy who emerged from a pine thicket just a few paces to the left of the line. It was a run for life. Being detained by my duties somewhat, he was the last fellow in such distress because he was unable to run. I could only bid him to do the best he could, and with a bitter pang I passed on, leaving him to his fate. In a few moments I was wounded, but managed to get back to the main line. We never learned his fate until the war was over and it was ascertained that he had not been a prisoner. When there could be no doubt with us all but his poor mother, in the absence of positive knowledge, refused to believe him dead, and to the day of her death clung to the hope that her darling boy would return to her.
Billy Youree was a model character. He had none of the vices of camp. His Bible was his constant companion, and his morals pure; he shamed us all by his example of patient, uncomplaining fortitude under the most trying circumstances, though he was but a weak, pitiful-looking, undeveloped boy. When at his grave yesterday mourning tears burst from my eyes and a fervent "thank God" from my lips that the lost had been found, though it was but the bones of the young fellow.
In conclusion, I would plead that the comrades of Billy Youree and the citizens of his native county should bear home this precious handful of heroic dust, and erect over it a granite shaft that should tell to the youth of our land that it is not the stature nor strength, but the spirit within that makes a man.
