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From: "Toby Turner" <>
Subject: [17TH-TX-CAVALRY] Bryan Marsh Letters
Date: Sat, 5 Jan 2008 09:41:21 -0600


Bryan Marsh, from Smith County, Texas, enlisted in 1861 and served in Company C, 17th Texas Cavalry, becoming captain at Little Rock and, later, colonel after the 17th was consolidated with the 18th, 24th & 25th regiments on May 23, 1863. His surviving letters to his wife date between May 5, 1862 and June 20, 1864. While I did not find any of the names for which I was searching in these letters, they do show exactly where Company C was located on specific dates and do contain names of various men. Marsh was captured at the fall of Arkansas Post (his last letter from there dated December 21, 1862) and released in Petersburg, Virginia from which he wrote his wife on May 5, 1863.

These letters were published in Chronicles of Smith County, Texas, volume XIV, no. 2 (Winter, 1975), pages 9-39 and 43-55 (including some of the letters of his wife to him in which she mentions current events in Smith County). Unfortunately, this particular journal does not appear to be easily available to researchers in that it can't be found within the Allen County Library (from which one can order copies). While it is available at the Family History Library at Salt Lake City, it is not on film so can't be ordered from your local family history center. It can be found at the Clayton Library for Genealogical Research in Houston, Texas. The letters were too numerous for me to copy in full, nor am I able to perform any lookups in them.

Unfortunately, the Clayton's collection is missing another volume of the Chronicles in which are published the letters of Zachariah H. Crow (vol. IV, no. 2, Fall, 1965), but I hope to obtain them directly from the Smith County Historical Society. This volume is also available at the Family History Library in SLC.
Toby Turner

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