Clint Lacey quotes from the Jerry Ponder work 1929 work of TL Wright the following attributed to Lindzy Dudley:
"On Christmas, a month later, several companies were at the Pulliam farm for a service and feed with their families. This was on the old Tom Pulliam place northwest of Johnston’s Chapel and close to Oregon County and the Arkansas line. There was a big spring there on the Mill Branch where folks in that part had picnics. "
The 1860 Census does list a Thomas Pulliam native of North Carolina age 41 in Dwelling 524 in the Mill Creek post office district of Union Twsp.
BLM searches for Thomas Puliam in BLM database indicate the following
NWSW 25/ 22-N 1-W No 5th PM MO Ripley 8/20/1867
SESW 25/ 22-N 1-W No 5th PM MO Ripley 7/1/1869
(By the way for those confused by such descriptions here is a bit of help http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/images/page4_large.gif)
This property can be seen at CARES and Terraserver-USA. This link should work http://terraserver-usa.com/image.aspx?T=2&S=12&Z=15&X=845&Y=5055&W=1&qs=%7cponder%7cmissouri or at -91.03175 / 36.53600 These two parcels however do not contain a spring. These parcels are EAST off of gravel road #Z-2AA not west as mentioned by Mark Conley. A large spring is marked on Dry Creek about a mile downstream from this property and less than a 1/4 mile upstream from the Benjamin Pulliam property. On the Topo map an unamed gravel road appears to to run to the spring west off of Rt P less than 1/4 mile, (P is running N-S here) We are still a bit sw of Ponder.
Hopefully this link(cut and paste its a long one) will work to give you the CARES map to see and understnad the relationships better. Clearly all these locations are along present day Dry Creek. Section 25 of 22N1W is immediately Northwest of Section 31 22N1E ( Note the principal meridian which appears on the older maps splits East from West)
http://ims.missouri.edu/maproom/missouri/viewer.htm?JS=layerparam2418213818&DATA=,bm1b,ad6,tp5,bm12,tr1modot,tr1bmodot,tr1cmodot,bm9bw,ad1a,ad2a,bm11,tp5,tr1modot,tr1bmodot,tr1cmodot,bm1,&LEVEL=&APP=
The same 1860 census one page earlier at Dwelling 519 lists Benjamin Pulliam on the afore mentioned 40 acres on Dry Creek. I come to this conclusion because his neighbor Elijah Dalton Dwelling 518 was a significant land owner and had several land grants in the BLM records that are adjacent to the 40 acres of Benjamin Pulliam mentioned above. The hitch is that Benjamin Pulliam had a son named Thomas Pulliam who eventually resides on the same plot.
The veracity of the 1929 TL Wright work has been questioned and I'm not one to rehash that, folks can make up their own mind.
Lindsey Dudley however was a real person living in Doniphan Post Office district, Current River Twsp, Ripley county age 27, native of Illinois, with wife Sarah and 1 yr/old son. Dwelling 372 in the 1860 census and all the folks mentioned appear in the census record and land records congruent with the time. He remained in Ripley county until his death 6 Feb 1927.
I had no trouble finding L Dudley in Co D, 12 Missouri Reg't CSA (White's/Ponder's Formerly the 9th) and refer you to Jim McGhee's excellent description and history of the unit on pg 229 of his "Guide to Missouri Confederate Units" though apparently Mr Ponder had difficulty locating any service record for him. This unit was raised from Randolph Co Ark and several SE MO counties including Ripley Co.
As to a contemporanous citation of Pulliam's Farm being the location of the skirmish, the closest I can find is reportedly in Stanton's The Civil War Reminiscences of General M. Jeff Thompson (Dayton OH 1988) I do not have the book and can not confrim the accuracy but many have quoted and noted that Pulliam's Farm was a regimental camp for the 9th Infantry (Dudley?) and Tim Reeve's 15th Missouri and cite this work. Perhaps someone else on the board can check this out for us.
For those with an inquiring mind the WHMC-Rolla now holds Jerry Ponder's papers and research books. http://web.mst.edu/~whmcinfo/shelf51/r1260/info.html
So now that I've muddied up the water it appears to me that some ground stomping is in order and perhaps a visit to Ripley County courthouse to look at a plat or tax map may be in order.
John R