Colonel Overton Young

YOUNG, OVERTON C. (ca. 1825-?). Overton C. Young, planter and Confederate army officer, was born in Georgia about 1825, the son of John Young. He was married to Mrs. A. E. Manadue, a widow with a son and a daughter. He moved to Texas in 1848 and by 1860 was a wealthy planter in Brazoria County with a second wife, Ann E. (Compton) Young, with whom he had four sons. On December 12, 1861, he was commissioned as colonel of the Twelfth Texas Infantry. Ordered with other Texas infantry regiments to Camp Nelson, Arkansas, Young's men were brigaded with Col. William B. Ochiltree's Eighteenth and Col. Richard B. Hubbard's Twenty-second Texas Infantry regiments, Col. John H. Burnett's Thirteenth Texas Cavalry (dismounted), and Capt. Horace Haldeman's artillery battery to form the First Brigade. Young was appointed brigade commander and was superseded in command of the regiment by Lt. Col. Benjamin A. Philpott. The First Brigade was combined with the Second Brigade of Col. Horace Randal and the Third Brigade of Col. George M. Flournoy, in whose Galveston offices Young's eldest son, Lee, had studied law, to form the Texas Division. A fourth brigade, under Col. James Deshler, was detached to Arkansas Post soon after its organization. The division was officially known as McCulloch's Division or the First Division, Second Corps, Army of the Trans-Mississippi Department, until Maj. Gen. John G. Walker assumed command on January 1, 1863. It then took the name of Walker's Texas Division and was so known until the end of the war. Brig. Gen. James M. Hawes, who had commanded a brigade of cavalry under Gen. Thomas C. Hindman and had taken part in cavalry raids throughout Arkansas, succeeded Young as commander of the First Brigade in April 1863 at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Young reverted to the command of his former regiment. In that capacity he participated with great distinction in the battles of the Red River campaignqv and the battle of Jenkins' Ferry, where he was severely wounded. In his official report Gen. Thomas N. Waul, Young's commanding officer at Jenkins' Ferry, took pains to "especially commend" his behavior on that field. "As at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, he behaved courageously and cooly, managing his regiment with great skill and exhibiting much fitness for command." Young's wound, wrote Waul, would deprive his brigade of one of its finest officers if it prevented him from returning to the army, and Waul earnestly recommended him for promotion.

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