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Contact Info
Home Town Pittsburgh
Last Address Helena, Montana
Date of Passing Sep 01, 1924
Location of Interment Arlington National Cemetery (VLM) - Arlington, Virginia
Samuel Baldwin Marks Young (January 9, 1840 – September 1, 1924) was a United States Army Lieutenant General. He also served as the first president of Army War College between 1902 and 1903. He then served from 1903 until 1904 as the first Chief of Staff of the United States Army.
Biography
Young was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to John Young Jr. and Hannah Scott Young. He was educated at Jefferson College (now Washington & Jefferson College) and married Margaret McFadden in 1861.
On the outbreak of the rebellion, he joined the 12th Pennsylvania Infantry in April 1861 as a private. After the expiration of his term he was commissioned Captain, 4th Pennsylvania Infantry in September. He served with distinction in the Army of the Potomac throughout the war, receiving promotion to major in September 1862, to lieutenant colonel in October 1864 and to colonel in December 1864. By the end of April 1865, Young had achieved brevet rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers in recognition for his services in the Siege of Petersburg and the Appomattox Campaign.
After the Civil War he stayed in the Regular Army as a Second Lieutenant, and was promoted to Captain of the 8th U.S. Cavalry in July 1866. He served with distinction throughout the Indian Wars and was regularly promoted, rising to the rank of Colonel of the 3rd U.S. Cavalry in 1897.
On the commencement of hostilities with Spain he was promoted Brigadier General of Volunteers and in July 1898 made Major General of Volunteers while he commanded a division in Cuba during the Santiago Campaign of the Spanish-American War.
During the Philippine-American War, he returned to the rank of Brigadier General of Volunteers and commanded brigades in the Northern Luzon District, of which he was made military governor.
From February 1901 to March 1902, he commanded the military district of California from the Presidio of San Francisco. In 1901 his daughter Marjorie married army surgeon John Heysham Gibbon, nephew of fellow Civil and Indian War commander John Gibbon. Under the new General Staff System, he was appointed as the first Chief of Staff of the Army in August 1903, a position he held until retirement in January 1904.
In 1909-10, he was President of a Board of Inquiry that investigated the alleged riot of black soldiers of the 25th U.S. Infantry at Brownsville, Texas, August 13, 1906, and affirmed the subsequent dishonorable discharge of 159 men by order of President Theodore Roosevelt.
As acting Military Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park in 1897 (after a stint in the same role at Yosemite in 1896) he introduced fish conservation measures. He returned to the park as full Superintendent 1907 – 1908. He died at his house in Helena, Montana, and was honored with a state funeral in Washington, D.C., and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Nez Perce War
From Month/Year
June / 1877
To Month/Year
October / 1877
Description The Nez Perce War was an armed conflict between several bands of the Nez Perce tribe of Native Americans and their allies, a small band of the Palouse tribe led by Red Echo (Hahtalekin) and Bald Head (Husishusis Kute), against the United States Army. The conflict, fought between June–October 1877, stemmed from the refusal of several bands of the Nez Perce, dubbed "non-treaty Indians", to give up their ancestral lands in the Pacific Northwest and move to an Indian reservation in Idaho. This forced removal was in violation of the 1855 Treaty of Walla Walla, which granted the tribe 7.5 million acres in their ancestral lands and the right to hunt and fish in lands ceded to the government.
After the first armed engagements in June, the Nez Perce embarked on an arduous trek north initially to seek help with the Crow tribe. After the Crows' refusal of aid, they sought sanctuary with the Lakota led by Sitting Bull, who had fled to Canada in May 1877 to avoid capture following the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn.
The Nez Perce were pursued by elements of the U.S. Army with whom they fought a series of battles and skirmishes on a fighting retreat of 1,170 miles (1,880 km). The war ended after a final five-day battle fought alongside Snake Creek at the base of Montana's Bears Paw Mountains only 40 miles (64 km) from the Canada–US border. A majority of the surviving Nez Perce represented by Chief Joseph of the Wallowa band of Nez Perce, surrendered to Brigadier Generals Oliver Otis Howard and Nelson A. Miles.[4] White Bird, of the Lamátta band of Nez Perce, managed to elude the Army after the battle and escape with an undetermined number of his band to Sitting Bull's camp in Canada. The 418 Nez Perce who surrendered, including women and children, were taken prisoner and sent by train to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Although Chief Joseph is the most well known of the Nez Perce leaders, he was not the sole overall leader. The Nez Perce were led by a coalition of several leaders from the different bands who comprised the "non-treaty" Nez Perce, including the Wallowa Ollokot, White Bird of the Lamátta band, Toohoolhoolzote of the Pikunin band, and Looking Glass of the Alpowai band. Brigadier General Howard was head of the U.S. Army's Department of the Columbia, which was tasked with forcing the Nez Perce onto the reservation and whose jurisdiction was extended by General William Tecumseh Sherman to allow Howard's pursuit. It was at the final surrender of the Nez Perce when Chief Joseph gave his famous "I Will Fight No More Forever" speech, which was translated by the interpreter Arthur Chapman.
The New York Times wrote in an 1877 editorial on the Nez Perce War that: "On our part, the war was in its origin and motive nothing short of a gigantic blunder and a crime"