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:
“Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.”
—Richard Eberhart (b. 1904)
“One half of my life has put the other half in the grave.”
—Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
“Stately as a galleon, I sail across the floor,
Doing the military two-step, as in the days of yore.”
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“The service a man renders his friend is trivial and selfish, compared with the service he knows his friend stood in readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)