captain of a handsome volunteer company and recently appointed colonel of a regiment of militia of this place Philadelphia, Pa. He also was attached sometime since to an engineer corps, in North Carolina - and has, I believe, a pretty good knowledge of surveying. As to his nerve, I think I can venture to vouch for that."
This letter was dated Nov. 21, 1835; when it was delivered, does not appear. But Lewis M. H. Washington says that
"A short time after our being quartered in the fortress de Espiritu Santo there was a small artillery corps organized, made up of men with some experience in gunnery, and commanded by a kinsman of the late gallant Stephen Decatur -- Captain Stephen D. Hurst. ... With the assistance of the accomplished Brooks of the engineers, Captain Hurst soon drilled his little corps into a tolerable degree of efficiency."
After the massacre the Philadelphia Papers described him as an aid to Col. Fannin, who had held a colonel's command, and mentioned that he had been a clerk in the post office of his native city, and that he was a young man of amiable disposition, courteous deportment, and warm attachments, and withal, a gallant soldier. [Winston: Pennsylvania and the Independence of Texas, Quarterly, XVII, pp. 267-268.]
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