On September 27, 1864, when Union troops threatened Marianna, a call went out for the local home guard units to come to town for action. Dozens of men and boys from throughout the greater Two Egg area went to fight. Some made it in time for the Battle of Marianna. Other's arrived too late to lend a hand.
There is an old family tradition in the area that at least one of these boys never made it home.
Nasrey L. "Z.T." Brogden was supposedly a member of a home guard unit from eastern Jackson County. He is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Marianna, beneath an old headstone that simply identifies him as "C.S.A., 1861-1865" and a newer marker that lists his date of death as "September 27, 1864."
Family tradition holds that he was killed during the Battle of Marianna and buried at Riverside with a group of other Confederate soldiers, most of them unknown, that supposedly died in the battle.
In this case, however, the tradition probably originates from the fact that he is buried in Marianna combined with local memories of the battle there. In truth, Brogden was already dead by the time of the Battle of Marianna.
The son of William Brogden, he enlisted at Marianna in Company H, 11th Florida Infantry on July 24, 1863. Like so many other soldiers of that horrible war, however, he soon became seriously ill. Disease and sickness were rampant in the military camps of the time, due in large part to poor sanitation, bad food, contaminated water, etc.
Hospitalized in the post hospital at Marianna, Brogden died in a hospital bed on December 22, 1863, just five months after enlisting in the Confederate army. He was buried at Riverside Cemetery.
Although most of the graves in the two rows of Confederate dead where Brogden is buried are those of unknown soldiers, the few that can be identified were also victims of illness. This indicates that this little burial plot was actually used to bury soldiers who died at the Confederate hospital in Marianna rather than in battle.
