The Civil War Battle of Marshall was fought on Oct. 13, 1863. Union Gen. Egbert B. Brown and 1800 soldiers turned back the raid of Confederate Col. Joseph O. Shelby and his 1,200 cavalrymen in a day-long battle. Union forces attempted to encircle and divide Shelby’s troops, but the wily Confederate commander successfully withdrew his raiders and escaped in two columns. The victory by Brown and his Federal soldiers in the Battle of Marshall was the culminating event of Shelby’s raid that had begun more than three weeks earlier in southwest Arkansas.
