Jesse Bowman Young (1844-1914)
Birth: July 5, 1844; Berwick, Pennsylvania
Death: July 30, 1914 (age 70);
Military Service: USA, 1861-64
Unit: 4th Illinois Cavalry, 84th Pennsylvania Volunteers
Alma Mater: Dickinson College, B.A. (Class of 1868); Dickinson College, M.A. (Class of 1871)
Jesse Bowman Young in August, 1861, at the age of seventeen, he joined his uncle, Major Samuel Millard Bowman (1815-1883) in the Fourth Illinois Cavalry and saw action with the Western Army under Grant. When Major Bowman assumed command in 1862 of the 84th Pennsylvania Volunteers - drawn largely from Blair, Lycoming, Dauphin, and Westmoreland counties - he was commissioned in the 84th's Company B. The regiment then fought with distinction in many of the most significant encounters of the war, including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. When his uncle assumed command of the brigade, Young served as his aide and then became a divisional staff officer, serving in that capacity with Sickles at Gettysburg in the Peach Orchard. Jesse Young left the Army at the end of his enlistment in 1864, having risen to the rank of Captain, but was offered a colonelcy as head of a regiment of African-American volunteers. While Young was waiting for his assignment in Washington D.C., the war ended.
