Dan McGee was a specific target of the 12th MSM Cavalry prior to the massacre, as was he the specific target of every other Union unit in the area at the time. He was a relatively high-profile figure, and he was boldly operating right in the midst of the Union forces. Unlike most of the other units in the area at the time, the 12th Missouri State Militia Cavalry was recruited in southeast Missouri, and a number of its troops no doubt were personally familiar with McGee, making their fight with McGee personal.

In his autobiography, Sam Hildebrand never discussed the Mingo Swamp Massacre. He did discuss the skirmish at Bollinger's Mill that preceded it by a few hours. The reprint version of Hildebrand's autobiography that came out a few months ago places Hildebrand's somewhat disjointed account of the Bollinger's Mill skirmish into context, and footnotes from other sources further places that affair into the context of the Mingo Swamp Massacre that occurred later that day.

However disjointed Hildebrand's version of Bollinger's Mill was, Confederate Jesse Ellison confirmed his presence there. According to Ellison, Hildebrand was riding with him at the time, not independently. This assertion is confirmed by the names of people Hildebrand himself provides as being with him at the time--Henry Resinger and George Lasiter--names that also ended up on the rosters of Jesse Ellison's command.

The biggest problem with Hildebrand's version of Bollinger's Mill comes when he discusses the skirmish's aftermath, overlooks the Mingo Swamp Massacre, and starts discussing an escape from Federal pursuers that appears to have transpired eight months later.

The account relating the Federal counterattack from the sawmill at Bollinger's Mill came from Sergeant Henry C. Wilkinson of the 68th Enrolled Missouri Militia, which was the Federal unit that the Confederates engaged there.

The 12th MSM Cavalry happened upon the scene not long after the Bollinger's Mill fight, and was able to get on the trail of McGee while it was still fresh. Unfortunately, the only known primary source account of the ensuing massacre comes from the Federal side. That version appears in the Official Records, series 1, volume 22, part 1, pp. 225-227

In the latter part of the 20th century, Ivan McKee wrote of how Dan McGee was shot so many times he was almost shot in half, and, if I recall correctly, of how McGee's bloody clothing was put on display at the Madison County Courthouse. Unfortunately Mr. McKee didn't cite a source, so there isn't much a historical writer can do with that other than note that Ivan McKee said so a century and fourteen years after the fact.

I am hoping there may be one or two first-hand versions of the Mingo Swamp Massacre lurking in the thousands of pages of the Peterson Papers at the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis.