I refer you to James E. McGhee's 2008 "Guide to Missouri Confederate Units, 1861-1865," which seems to cover well the basics about McDonald's/Lawther's/Barry's 10th Missouri Cavalry Regiment. I am not sure this excellent reference book will answer all of your questions about the 10th, but I believe it will help your research and the bibliography at then end of each unit's write-up will give you some other resources to check.

For instance, you mentioned a specific interest in Company D of the 10th. McGhee's book says that Company D was composed mostly of men from Bates, Henry, and St. Clair Counties in west Missouri, and that it was commanded by Captain Richard M. Hancock. Is that also your understanding? Is your interest in the 10th based on an ancestor who served in Company D?

McGhee's book is still in print, and you could purchase it or examine it via Interlibrary Loan, as you prefer.

My specialty is guerrilla warfare in Missouri during the war, but I monitor the message boards of the surrounding states just in case I pick up a query like yours that touches on my topic.

I will say that my understanding of Colonel Lawther's unit as it operated in Missouri during 1864 before Price's raid in September and October was as a behind-Union-lines recruiting unit and not as a partisan ranger band. Lawther's unit rode into south-central Missouri where two irregular Confederate cavalry regiments (Thomas Roe Freeman's and William O. Coleman's) often operated throughout the war as guerrillas, especially in small groups. The main mission for Freeman's and Coleman's regiments was interdicting the major Union supply road from the railhead and major Union base at Rolla to the isolated major Union base at Springfield, MO. Because of Freeman's and Coleman's frequent attention to this region, the Union military was very watchful here and this dictated that Lawther and his men operate clandestinely as much as possible. The Union military, rightly or wrongly, treated Freeman's and Coleman's regiments as guerrillas, although they did not alwaya invoke the "no quarter" rule for killing armed, not-in-uniform guerrillas when captured. Since Freeman's and Coleman's men were mostly from this region on both sides of the border, they acted as guerrillas in killing informants, protecting their own families, and so on, to the point that the war became very personal here.

This is not so for Colonel Lawther's unit when it operated in south-central Missouri, mainly because they took prisoners and protected them from harm from other southerners in the area. I could be wrong about this, but I got the impression that Colonel Lawther and his men intended only to move through south-central Missouri on their way to a more lucrative recruiting field somewhere beyond it. However, Lawther's unit was badly mauled by the Union military here and left after a short time. From my study of their brief stay in this region, Lawther's men did not act as guerrillas, but the Union military in the "Official Records" may have labeled them as such.

You may wish to post your query in "The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board," too, as I would imagine it would attract some response. Just a thought.

Bruce Nichols