The 16th Missouri Infantry Regiment started as a band of ex-Guardsmen provisionally recruited by Col. J. Vard Cockrell in May/June of 1862. These were largely recruited from the remnants of the Guard that remained west of the Mississippi River under Brig. Gen. James S. Rains. Hence, they came from all over the State rather than from any one given geographic area, and they were not specifically raised by county. While recruiting during the Independence and Lone Jack actions, they received a strong infusion of men from Jackson, LaFayette, Johnson, Cass, Clay, Platte, and other western Missouri counties, which would generate a western Missouri flavor to the whole.

After withdrawal to Fayetteville, AR, the regiment was formally organized as "Mounted Infantry" with Cockrell as the colonel on or about September 1, 1862. Shortly afterwards, Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman came up to inspect the troops and insisted on dismounting most of the mounted troops. Because the regiment perfected its organization before most of the other Missouri infantry, it was provisionally designated the 7th Missouri Infantry Regiment by the local commanders who were unaware that the remnants of the 1st & 2nd Northeast Missouri Cavalry Regiments had been consolidated into another 7th Missouri Infantry Regiment (which never seems to have perfected its organization either). Within a few weeks of its organization, Col. Cockrell felt he didn't have the men's confidence nor did he feel he had the ability to train and lead infantry and he yielded command to Jackman on the 15th of September. Hindman appealed to Jackman to serve as a partisan leader and he resigned about the middle of November to go forth to raise Jackman's Missouri Cavalry Regiment. Josiah H. Caldwell became the next colonel of the 7th. Special Orders No. 177 from the Headquarters of Price's Division, dated Dec. 15, 1863, redesignated the regiment as the 16th Missouri Infantry Regiment.

One other reason so many people think of this unit as a mounted infantry command is that they confuse it with Jackman's cavalry unit, which was organized in 1863-1864 in central Missouri.

While Missouri cavalry tended to be raised by raids far behind enemy lines, which enabled them to recruit most of their men from a single area, the infantry was slowly organized by compiling the flotsam and jetsom of the Guard together with single companies raised by officers raiding into their own home turfs. For example, the 10th Missouri Infantry has a strong flavoring from the II and V Divisions of the Guard while Clark's 9th Regiment was largely composed from men of the III Division. The cavalry, on the other hand, tended to be raised locally, e.g., the 12th (Jackson County), 5th (LaFayette County), etc. So, the infantry regiments tended to reflect a larger geographical area than the cavalry.

This wasn't a bad thing, since units raised in a single location could spell a real disaster on a single neighborhood if sent into a really nasty fight and the regiment took heavy losses.

Hope this helps.