Alvin Cullum York Research Paper

Alvin Cullum York was born in a two room log cabin near Pall Mall, Tennessee, on December 13, 1887,[2] the third of eleven children born to Mary Elizabeth Brooks (8 August 1866 – 21 May 1943)[3] and William Uriah York (15 May 1863 – 17 November 1911).[4] William Uriah York was born in Jamestown, Tennessee, to Uriah York and Eliza Jane Livingston, both travelers from Buncombe County, North Carolina.[5] Mary Elizabeth York was born in Pall Mall to William Brooks and Nancy Pyle, and was the great-granddaughter of Coonrod Pyle, an English settler who settled Pall Mall. William York and Mary Brooks married on December 25, 1881, and had eleven children. The York children were, in order: Henry Singleton, Joseph Marion, Alvin Cullum, Samuel John, Albert, Hattie, George Alexander, James Preston, Lillian Mae, Robert Daniel, and Lucy Erma.[5] The York family is of English and Ulster Scots ancestry.[6] The York
A revival meeting at the end of 1914 led him to a conversion experience on January 1, 1915. His congregation was the Church of Christ in Christian Union, a Protestant denomination that shunned secular politics and disputes between Christian denominations.[7] This church had no specific doctrine of pacificism but had been formed in reaction to the Methodists' support for the Civil War and now opposed all forms of violence.[8] In a lecture later in life, he reported his reaction to the outbreak of World War I: "I was worried clean through. I didn't want to go and kill. I believed in my Bible."[9] On June 5, 1917, at the age of 29, Alvin York registered for the draft as all men between 21 and 31 years of age did on that day. When he registered for the draft, he answered the question "Do you claim exemption from draft (specify grounds)?" by writing "Yes. Don't Want To Fight."[10] When his initial claim for conscientious objector status was denied, he