R.T.,

I would gather that someone picked this skirmish out of Dyer's "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion," which is considered a rather comprehensive list of nearly all Civil War actions day by day. I found three actions in the Lone Jack region for that period, and none were actually close to Lone Jack. The only one of the three that made it to Dyer's was a hot fight on the border of Johnson and Lafayette Counties a few miles to the east of Lone Jack. This 11 March 1862 action was between 30 to 40 unidentified Rebels and LT James Jenks and about 30 troopers of 1st Iowa Cavalry and resulted in Union casualties of one dead and four wounded and southern casualties of nine dead, three wounded, and one POW. Mr. Greer, on whose homestead this action took place, was also wounded running a gauntlet of fire carrying a child to safety.

The 12 and 13 March 1862 timeframe was during Quantrill's Aubrey, Kansas raid. A local source says that on 12 March 62 unidentified guerrillas (perhaps Quantrill's) raided the village of West Point, northwest Bates County. This is several miles southwest of Lone Jack. Possibly this is referring to a slight skirmish Quantrill's men fought near Aubrey, Kansas on 13 March as they continued to hover in that area for a few days since their earlier raid brought little Union reaction.

Just in case "This Day in History" made a mistake as to the year, I found a 13 March 1864 skirmish at Fire Prairie Creek a little north of Lone Jack involving local Union scouts and eight unidentified guerrillas in which the only casualties were two southerners' horses.

On the night of 12/13 March 1865 a foot patrol of 1st Cavalry MSM out of Pleasant Hill two miles east of Lone Jack wounded one of two guerrillas they encountered. The quiet patrol surrounded a house and shot up the guerrillas when they rode up to it. I wonder if this is the fight meant in "This Day in History." It is recorded in Dyer's vol. 2, p. 815 and the "O.R." series 1, vol. 48, part 1, p. 139.

Bruce Nichols