Young was born at Spartanburg, South Carolina on November 15, 1836.[2] His father, Dr. R. M. Young, was a son of Capt. William Young, a soldier in the American Revolution under George Washington. Young's maternal grandmother descended from the Cavaliers of England, who migrated to Maryland around the 1740s. She married Mourning Stone, who was a Loyalist during the American Revolution, and helped to give refuge to Lord Cornwallis during his campaign in South Carolina.[3] When Pierce was a small boy, his father moved to Bartow County, Georgia, and enlisted private tutors for his children.[2] At the age of thirteen, Young entered the Georgia Military Institute in Marietta, and graduated in 1856.[2] He subsequently briefly studied law. In 1857, he was appointed to the United States Military Academy but resigned only two months before graduation due to Georgia's secession.[4][2]
Young's cavalry was attached to Wade Hampton'sbrigade of J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry division in the Army of Northern Virginia in 1862.[5] He was distinguished for "remarkable gallantry," as Stuart expressed it, in the Maryland Campaign.[5][6] Promoted to colonel, he rendered brilliant service at the Battle of Brandy Station and participated in the cavalry operations of the Gettysburg Campaign.[5][6][7] In early August, he was wounded in another fight near Brandy Station. In October, he was promoted to brigadier general and assigned command of Hampton's old brigade, consisting of the 1st and 2nd South Carolina cavalry regiments, the Cobb Legion, Jeff Davis Legion and Phillips' Legion.[5][7][8] He was actively engaged during the Bristoe and Mine Run Campaigns, where on October 12, 1863, by adroit maneuvering, he compelled an enemy division to recross the Rappahannock River.[4] An admiring Stuart reported, "The defeat of an expedition which might have proved so embarrassing entitles the officers who effected it to the award of distinguished skill and generalship."[4][7]
In 1864, Young played a prominent part in the Overland Campaign in Virginia, and when Hampton assumed command of the cavalry after Stuart's death at Yellow Tavern, he temporarily took Hampton's place as division commander.[7] In November, Young was sent to Augusta to gather reinforcements and aid in the defense of that city, threatened by William T. Sherman. Promoted to major general in December, he was actively engaged in the defense of Savannah and the 1865 campaign in the Carolinas under General Hampton until the close of the war.[4][8]
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