Sorry, I did not mean to imply that I disagreed with your conclusions about COL McGregor. I totaly agree with your reasoning that if they were formed before secession, then they had to be militia, because the militia law was the only real authority to be rasing companies until the Military Board issued it's first call for troops in late May or early June. I think what you describe in the 24th Regiment actually occurred in several militia units, before and after secession. Anthony Rushing has information on a couple of Saline County units that appear to have been militia units or at mostly militia units, that enlisted together in new volunteer regiments. COL Shaver from Lawrence County basically the same thing that you believe McGregor did. I think the process of militia units enlisting into new volunteer units continued into 1862. Basically the militiamen realized that they were not going to be called up together and with consription bearing down on them in the summer of 1862, you see an influx of former militiamen into the regiments that were raised that year by Van Dorn and Hindman.

Traditionally most historians have indicated that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Arkansas did not have militia connections because they were recruited under Confederate authority and did not organize under state control, but I think this is also mistaken. Both the 1st and the 2nd had several companies that I find in the rolls as Volunteer Militia Companies prior to enlisting in confederet service. So far only the 3rd Arkansas seems to have been completely raised from what Bryan would probably call Confederate Volunteer Companies.