Early Life and Military Service
Nicholas came from a family of English and Ulster Scots descent. Soon after his birth, the clan moved from Virginia to Hartford, Kentucky in 1813, where Nicholas spent the remainder of his childhood. As a young man, Nicholas was involved in the Black Hawk War of 1831 and later was a sergeant in the Mexican-American War. It was during the Mexican-American War that Nicholas served under Captain Wyatt Berry Stapp of the Illinois Mounted Volunteers. Nicholas later honored Captain Stapp by naming his fourth, and most famous son, Wyatt, after him. During the Civil War, Nicholas also served in Iowa as a provost marshal for recruitment; taking on the burden of sending local boys and men as well as his own sons Newton, James, and Virgil off to fight for the Union Army.
Read more about this topic: Nicholas Porter Earp
Famous quotes containing the words early, life, military and/or service:
“I taught school in the early days of my manhood and I think I know something about mothers. There is a thread of aspiration that runs strong in them. It is the fiber that has formed the most unselfish creatures who inhabit this earth. They want three things only; for their children to be fed, to be healthy, and to make the most of themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Professors of literature, who for the most part are genteel but mediocre men, can make but a poor defense of their profession, and the professors of science, who are frequently men of great intelligence but of limited interests and education, feel a politely disguised contempt for it; and thus the study of one of the most pervasive and powerful influences on human life is traduced and neglected.”
—Yvor Winters (1900–1968)
“In all sincerity, we offer to the loved ones of all innocent victims over the past 25 years, abject and true remorse. No words of ours will compensate for the intolerable suffering they have undergone during the conflict.”
—Combined Loyalist Military Command. New York Times, p. A12 (October 14, l994)
“We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men’s necessities, while elsewhere she was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim’s shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)