Sure. Those newspapers are on microfilm.

If you live in or close to Missouri you can visit one of a few places in Missouri like the Missouri State Historical Society in Columbia, the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis, or large libraries that have large collections of old Missouri newspaper microfilm collections like the downtown libraries in St. Louis or Kansas City, or the St. Louis County Library headquarters in LaDue.

If that is impractical, you may use Interlibrary Loan through your local library to summon those specific reels of microfilm to your own library for a slight fee, usually about $4 to $6. Basically, that covers the transport cost of shipping the microfilm to your library for a couple of weeks and then the return trip of the microfilm back to its origin. Check with your local library about the availability of microfilm readers and printers, and the nature of their rules about how you would use those facilities. Interlibrary Loan is actually very easy either to search whole reels of newspapers (ugh!) or for specific issues or months of a particular paper.

Let me say a word about the professionalism of the press during the Civil War in Missouri. ..................There! Now I have written about the professionalism of the press in Missouri during the war. Do you get my meaning? Bear in mind that I am not attacking the fourth estate, and I have journalism friends and family. Just don't believe everything you read, and that old saw about "print anything you like about me, but just spell my name right" is very, very true also! Period newspapers are valuable sources, but should be collaborated against other sources. Watch out for the "Who hit John" kind of stories popular in old and modern newspapers. Look for verifiable details and clues that match or fail to match what else you have collected on a person or event. Newspapers tend to play to the emotional side of their readers, subscribers, and advertisers; so be on the lookout for a story that appeals to your emotions. Some are true, but others we merely want to be true. Remember the Bible verse that warns us not to fall for stuff that appeals to our "itching ears" (2 Timothy 4:3; after all, it is Sunday). That is how folklore is made.

Now about bushwhacking! That is a verb adapted for the Missouri guerrilla war. It refers to an act, not a person. Therefore, people of both sides were "bushwhacked," and people of both sides or neither side performed the "bushwhacking." This gets confusing to folks researching their genealogy about someone who died suddenly in Missouri during the war period. Anybody can wear a uniform, and that does not make them professional military.

I hope that helps.

Bruce