414 Norru Carorina Troops, 1861-65.

consideration, and the best way to put a stop to it was can-
vassed among the officers. There were several publications
in the newspapers on the subject, and Assistant Surgeon
Gaither wrote a set of resolutions which were passed by the
officers in meeting, which attracted general notice and were
universally approved as the best presentation of the situation
that appeared.

Captain Joseph J. Young, A. Q. M. This gentleman
had an unique experience as a soldier. He was the regimen-
tal quartermaster from the beginning to the close, and no
command was ever blessed with a better one. He was wrap-
ped up in his regiment and he could not do too much for
them. He has kept copies of the regimental muster and pay
rolls of the regiment which he treasures as among his most
valuable possessions to be bequeathed to his children. In
the latter months of the war when the number of the regimen-
tal quartermasters was reduced to two to a brigade, he and
Captain John Gatlin, Fifty-second Regiment, were retained
for MacRae’s Brigade, and thus in addition to the care of
his regiment, the brigade also received the benefit of Cap-
tain Young’s valuable services and experience, and he always
acted brigade quartermaster in the absence of Major Collins.

It was Captain Young’s timely information, carried to
Colonel Vance at the Captain’s great personal risk, during
the battle of New Bern, which advised Colonel Vance of the re-
treat of the other troops in time to enable the Colonel to with-
draw the Twenty-sixth Regiment from the works and escape
capture. We have seen how prompt Captain Young is to
write his old Colonel the day after the battle of Gettysburg,
of the glorious record this regiment made on that gory stained
field ; and as he began his military career with them, so at the
end he was one of his immortal regiment to surrender at Ap-
pomattox.

Captain Young was born in Wake County, 1 January,
1832, and in May, 1861, he enlisted in Captain O. R. Rand’s
Company D, in the Twenty-sixth Regiment; was appointed
by Colonel Vance Quartermaster of his regiment.

In December, 1864, Captain Young was sent to Eastern
North Carolina to collect and forward supplies to Lee’s army.

Twenty-Sixtu Reerment. 415

Adjutant James B. Jordan was born in Raleigh, N. C., 8
June, 1856. He was in business in Tennessee when on the
secession of South Carolina, he returned to his native State
and was elected First Lieutenant in Company D, of the
Twenty-sixth Regiment and at the organization he was ap-
pointed Adjutant.

This position he held with honor and distinction until in
the third day’s fight at Gettysburg, he was seriously wounded,
taken prisoner and carried to Johnson’s Island, where he
was detained as a prisoner until the close of the war.

In 1888, he was made Clerk of the Cireuit Court of Volu-
sia County, Florida, which position he held at his death, 27
April, 1899.

Captain Samuel P. Wagg, Company A. This gallant
young officer was killed in the charge of Pettigrew on the
third day at Gettysburg, within a few feet of the enemy’s
works. When the call for troops was issued at the breaking
out of hostilities, he promptly enlisted in the first company
that was organized in his county (Ashe) and was elected its
First Sergeant. At the reorganization of the regiment in the
Spring of 1862, he was elected Captain and was ever at his
post of duty. Captain Wagg was buried on the field.

Captain Thomas J. Cureton, Company B. This officer
succeeded to the command of Company B on the death of
the gallant Captain William Wilson, killed on the first day’s
fight at Gettysburg.

Lieutenant Cureton was himself wounded on the third day
in the shoulder, but declined to leave the field, and assisted
in reforming the brigade as its shattered remnants recoiled
from the assault on Cemetery Heights.

Captain Cureton was again wounded at Hanover Junction
on 23 May, 1864, while in command of the skirmish line, but
returned to duty in December, 1864, and remained with his
regiment until the close, and much of the time was in com-
mand of it on the retreat to Appomattox, when Colonel
Adams was in command of the brigade.

Before the war, Captain Cureton was a farmer, living in
Unién County, N. C. His grandfather owned the property
in the Waxhaw settlement, North Carolina, where Andrew

 

 

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