Forum,

I am trying to figure how 30 regular Confederate cavalry separated themselves from Shelby's raid in Missouri in late September 1863; traveled together to Jackson County, MO; and went into the guerrilla business there through the next year.

Background: When Captain Quantrill left west-central MO in first days of October 1863 to ride to the South for winter he left Andy Blunt and about 40 men there to carry on the guerrilla war. My mystery is trying to figure out where about 30 other guerrillas came from who were also operating in west-central MO through that winter into spring 1864 long before the other guerrillas returned from Texas.

My only clue is the memoir of Private Warren W. Welch of Company C, Shanks' Regiment of Shelby's Brigade. Joanne Chiles Eakin in 1997 edited Welch's memoir and published it as "Warren Welch Remembers" by Two Trails Publishing in Shawnee Mission, KS. On page 4 Welch wrote (I cleaned up the spelling, grammar, etc.) after describing what his regiment did during General Marmaduke's April 1863 raid in southeast MO "Then started for Missouri River and had one skirmish with Pines. Traveled in night and laid close in daytime, for the country was full of the enemy. When I struck Jackson County Quantrill had been gone south five days, but I soon found Andy Blunt's camp. He had something near 40 men. We had 30 men."

By "Pines" perhaps Welch meant Pineville in McDonald County where on October 2, 1863 Colonel Shelby's raiding force combined with Colonel Coffee's Missouri State Guard regiment. Did Welch and about 30 other Shanks' Regiment cavalrymen break away from Shelby's command (or were detailed away) and ride as a body on their own hook for Jackson County?

There was an unidentified body of about that many guerrillas in about late September who rode north through the far western tier of Missouri Counties and appeared briefly in Vernon and Cass Counties. Could this be Private Welch and his comrades? Shelby's raid also rode north in early October, but through the second or third tier of Missouri counties from the Kansas border.

I looked up Private Welch in the MO Secretary of State's Office online military service records, but nearly all the Company C, Shanks' Regiment men's records were composed from reunion and United Daughters of the Confederacy records. Nearly all these Company C records were NOT compiled by the Confederate Army. However, it appears even from these brief accounts that Company C was a Jackson County outfit recruited in August 1862. I see several names among these men (Helms, Koger, Noland, Rider) that served as guerrillas during 1864. I am ready to assume that a lot of these men were the 30 or so cavalrymen who rode with Warren Welch.

Can anybody tell me about these 30 troopers of Shanks' Regiment that evidently broke away from Shelby's Missouri raid and rode to Jackson County to operate as guerrillas for the next several months? Did they desert? Were they detailed to Jackson County as recruiters? Can anybody name these 30 men? Who was their leader? Was it Welch or someone else?

Bruce Nichols