I have written about this before, but perhaps not in this forum.

This is mostly logistics. The Missouri southern guerrillas obtained most of their needs from sympathetic citizens, and some from battlefield salvage. They preferred the Colts .36 caliber Navy revolvers that the Union cavalry often carried but battlefield acquisition only gave them a limited number of the percussion caps. Since Missouri was under martial law, it was very difficult to purchase these caps in the "Show Me State." Therefore, it was necessary for somebody to travel to a state not under such restrictions, and arrange a way to bring a quantity of the caps back through Missouri to the users. There were large numbers of Illinois residents sympathetic to the southern cause, so appropriate contacts were made and obliging merchants in Illinois answered the need. This is no fable. The Confederacy obtained a wide variety of war materiel from Illinois, especially medicines.

The first time Quantrill's band encountered this problem Quantrill and George Todd actually shut down their band by ordering the men to remain inactive in May and June 1862 while the pair of them traveled in disguise across Missouri to purchase and bring back the caps themselves. Thereafter, they tried to get noncombatants to travel to get the caps. That must be where the Wiggintons fit in, and I remember reading about this, too. I imagine the guerrillas used others besides the Wiggintons for this delicate task.

Bruce Nichols