Ninth Texas Cavalry

Duane's take

The marker's the one tellin' this story, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now picture this: October 2, 1861. About a thousand men — mounted volunteers, every one of them — converging on a place called Brogdon's Springs, roughly fifteen miles northwest of where you're sitting right now.

They'd come riding in from Grayson, Tarrant, Hunt, Hopkins, Cass, Red River, Titus, and Lamar counties. Eight counties worth of Texans, and they all had somewhere to be. That somewhere was the Confederate Army.

They were mustered into service that day under Colonel William B. Sims, and together they became the Ninth Texas Cavalry. Colonel Sims took them north first — into the Indian Territory of what is now Oklahoma — where the Ninth saw considerable action before pushing east into Arkansas.

By late January of 1862 they'd joined General Ben McCulloch's army. Then came March of that same year, and the Battle of Pea Ridge. Colonel Sims was wounded in that fight.

Lieutenant Colonel William Quayle stepped up and took command. The regiment pressed on. By late spring of 1862, the Ninth Cavalry numbered 657 men, and they marched all the way to Mississippi.

There they joined the Third, the Sixth, and the Twenty-Seventh Texas Cavalry units, and together those four outfits formed a cavalry brigade under the command of Lawrence S. Ross. Ross' Brigade, they called it.

Now here's where you want to lean in. For fifteen months — fifteen months of almost continual action — Ross' Brigade fought their way through Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. That is not a short campaign.

That is not a quiet war. And somewhere in 1864, they participated in an assault that captured and burned a Federal gunboat called the Petrel. A gunboat.

Cavalrymen. You don't forget a detail like that. But war has a way of spending men like coin.

By November of 1864, the Ninth Texas Cavalry — that regiment that had gathered a thousand strong at Brogdon's Springs — had been worn down to 110 men. On May 4, 1865, Ross' Brigade surrendered to Federal troops at Jackson, Mississippi. The fighting was over.

But those who made it home didn't just let it fade. In 1878, the veterans of Ross' Brigade formed an association — men who had ridden together, bled together, and outlasted a war together, making sure the names of the ones who didn't come back would not be forgotten either. A thousand men from eight Texas counties rode out from Brogdon's Springs in the fall of 1861.

One hundred and ten were still standing by the end. That's the Ninth Texas Cavalry. And that's the weight the marker carries.

What the marker says

The Ninth Texas Cavalry consisted of about 1,000 mounted volunteers from Grayson, Tarrant, Hunt, Hopkins, Cass, Red River, Titus, and Lamar counties. They gathered about 15 miles northwest of here at Brogdon's Springs on October 2, 1861, and were mustered into Confederate service under Colonel William B. Sims. Under Colonel Sims the Ninth Cavalry saw considerable action in the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma before joining General Ben McCulloch's army in Arkansas in late January 1862. Colonel Sims was wounded during the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862 and Lt. Colonel William Quayle took command. The Ninth Cavalry numbered 657 men in late spring 1862 when they marched to Mississippi to join the Third, Sixth, and Twenty-Seventh Texas Cavalry units and formed a cavalry brigade under the command of Lawrence S. Ross. For 15 months Ross' Brigade saw almost continual action in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. They participated in the assault that captured and burned the Federal gunboat "Petrel" in 1864. By November 1864 the Ninth Cavalry consisted of only 110 men. Ross' Brigade surrendered to Federal troops at Jackson, Mississippi, on May 4, 1865. Veterans of Ross' Brigade formed an association in 1878. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995