Snell, Martin Kingsley

Martin Kingsley Snell was born 1815 in Pennsylvania. In November 1835 he was a private in Capt. William Gordon Cooke’s company of New Orleans Greys. He took part in the Siege of Béxar on December 5–10. On March 10, 1836, the General Council commissioned him a second lieutenant in the regular army, but he fought at San Jacinto as first lieutenant of Capt. Andrew Briscoe’s Company A of Lt. Col. Henry W. Millard’s First Regiment, Regular Infantry. Snell commanded the honor guard at the funeral of Stephen F. Austin on December 29, 1836. He remained in the Army of the Republic of Texas until May 17, 1839, when he was captain of Company E, First Regiment. From 1843 until 1846 he was captain of the Fannin Artillery, a Houston militia unit. During the Mexican War Snell recruited and commanded Company E of Col. Albert Sidney Johnston’s regiment, the First Texas Foot Riflemen, from May 19 through August 24, 1846. After this regiment was discharged, Snell returned to Texas to recruit a second company for Col. John C. Hays’s First Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers, which was in federal service from May 14 through June 5, 1847. He died in Houston in 1865.

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