Simpson's trilogy is very good, but it is not complete.

For example my GGrandfather Giles Taylor was in Company "I" of the 3rd Arkansas. I have a copy of his muster roll from the National Archieves which clearly shows that he was present for the Aug. 31st 1863 muster. However, Simpson only list him present up to the June 30, 1863 Muster. We have much better access to records today, because of computers and the internet, than Simpson had in his day.

Giles never came home from the War as far as any records that I can find. His muster roll ends after the August muster. I suspect from my research of the 3rd that maybe he was a casuality of the fighting on September 19th 1863 at Chickamauga in Vinards Field.

The 3rd Arkansas kept some pretty good records, but casualities at Chickamauga are a "Black Hole".

I suspect that this "Black Hole" it is because the Texas Brigade was withdrawn and repositioned the night of the 19th to the center of the battlefield from that far left flank were they had fought on the 19th. This in effect would have left a lot of their casualities on the Vinard Field Battleground, which was basically still controlled by the Federals at the days end. And basically abandoned them when the Texans were redeployed.

However, We would be inaccurate to assume that all the missing from the muster rolls of Aug 1863 were casualities of Chickamauga, because news of the fall of Little Rock on Sepetember 10th reached the 3rd Arkansas prior to the Battle. Some of those Arkansas boys took "French leave" to go home and see to their families.

So I am sure that the old 1st Sargeants have a hard time trying to reconstruct his Muster records after the battle. And I am sure there were many who he did not known what happened to them.

So the problem is compounded.