I took a closer look through my files, and found some more data to supplement my previous message:
- Under orders from Col. Gideon W. Thompson, Quantrill’s company was organized on August 14, 1862, west of Lone Jack, Mo. Thompson was in Missouri to recruit a regiment under orders from Gen. Hindman (CIC, Trans-Miss. Dept). However, Quantrill stayed behind when Thompson took his recruits south to Newtonia in September. Thompson’s regiment, without Quantrill, was then organized as the 6th Missouri Cavalry (later redesignated the 11th Mo. Cav).
- Quantrill’s men went south to Arkansas in November 1862, where they joined Shelby’s Brigade. The company was mustered into Confederate service at Fort Smith on 18 November 1862 with 76 officers and men, with Quantrill as captain. They were subsequently attached to Col. B. G. Jeans’ Mo. Cav. Regt. (later designated the 12th Mo. Cav.) of Shelby’s Brigade, and participated in the Prairie Grove campaign and Marmaduke’s first Missouri raid as part of the regular Confederate army. Quantrill himself went on an extended leave (to Richmond), however, and was absent the whole time. Lt. William Gregg and later 3d Lt Ferdinand Scott were in command. In mid-April of 1863, just before Marmaduke started his second Missouri raid, Quantrill’s company left the army and went back to southwest Missouri - after 5 months of regular service. During the last part of their stay with the army, Quantrill’s men were reported to be with Burbridge’s 4th Missouri Cavalry.
(All this according to Richard Brownlee: Gray Ghosts of the Confederacy; Michael E. Banasik: Embattled Arkansas, The Prairie Grove Campaign of 1862; Jerry Ponder, The Battle of Chalk Bluff: An Account of Marmaduke’s Second Missouri Raid.)
In December 1863, a portion of Quantrill’s men rejoined the army. William Gregg and others broke with Quantrill and enlisted in Shelby’s brigade in Arkansas. Gregg became 1st Lt in Co. I, 12th Mo. Cav. (Col. David Shanks).

As to Quantrill’s alleged operations with Stand Watie in December 1863, the sole source for this was two Lts. and one Sgt. of the 1st Indian Home Guard Regiment, who reported that they had fought both Watie’s and Quantrill’s men at Barren Fork, Cher. N., on December 18, 1863. Neither Watie’s adjutant or any higher Union officers mention Quantrill in their reports of the engagement. But Quantrill’s misdeeds in northern Texas during the same period are reported by Brig.Gen. Henry McCulloch. (Ref. Official Records and Official Records Supplement) Thus, it seems pretty safe to say that Quantrill was not in I. T. in December 1863, and never conducted joint operations with Watie – although the two might conceivably have met when Quantrill moved through I.T. in October 1863. Still, the rumoured “joint” raid is presented as fact even in Wilfred Knight’s book “Red Fox”, an otherwise very reliable work on Stand Watie.