I'll try.

I looked up the military service records of your two men and their company commander, Captain Juluis M. Bourk of Company K, in the online Missouri State Archives at http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers, which agrees mostly with what you offered in your query. This states that all three enrolled on 12 August 1862 at the start of the EMM program at Macon City, county seat of Macon County, and in that town performed off-and-on active duty until late April 1863--90 days in all for Captain Bourk and 70 days each for Alfred and Joseph Jaeger. That is all the record says for Alfred and Joseph. I see from the 1860 Missouri Census index that two Jager families lived in the Macon City area, so I assume your Joseph and Alfred are from those families. So, if they were "townies" that would make them close at hand to perform EMM functions in their home town.

There is an additional remark at the bottom of Captain Bourk's record which states "M.P.'s Apr. to Nov. 22, '64 'Enrolled Apr. 30 1864. Ordered into active service Sept. 29, 1864 at Macon. Relieved from duty Nov. 22 1864 by Col. Eberman. 51 days actual service.' Total 141 days."

Allow me to attempt to interpret this. Colonel R. J. Eberman was the regimental commander of the 62nd EMM, according to "The Annual Report of the Adjutant General of Missouri for the Year Ending December 31, 1864.", page 589. For the life of me, I don't know what the abbreviation "M.P.'s" means in Civil War jargon. Most readers will recognize M.P. as "military police," but that usage did not come about until Secretary of War Elihu Root's tenure in the early 20th century when he "modernized" the armed services. However, I assume "M.P." in the context that it is used on Bourk's record means about the same thing as "military police," although in the Civil War the correct abbreviation was "P.M." for "provost marshal" for the function of those who keep order in the military the same way of military police of present day. More about this part of Captain Bourk's military service toward the bottom of this report.

You see, in the EMM program some soldiers were activated to guard the unit weapons (rifle-muskets or shotguns, not sidearms) usually kept in the courthouse or other strong building at the county seat of almost every county in MO. These select members of the unit also guarded county records for the eventual day that martial law expired and civil war returned to rural Missouri late in the war. They also guarded other valuable military targets such as railroad infrastructure, and the Hannibal to St. Joseph Railroad passed right through Macon City. EMM on active duty also patrolled some, served as guides for other Union units patrolling through their area, and assisted the Provost Marshal's office, which served as a sort of secret police in Missouri during the war to root out secret Rebels and the like. From my reading I also know that there was a Union military base and Provost Marshal's office in Macon City for much of the war, so guards were needed for those functions. These were the sort of duties that active-duty EMM performed in the county seats of Missouri, and I strongly believe that is what the two Jaegers did while on active duty in Macon City.

There is more. You specifically asked if your Jaegers were involved when the 62nd EMM was "rolled into another" unit. My answer is "maybe yes" and "maybe no." During Spring 1863 elements of the 62nd EMM were detailed into the 2nd Provisional EMM Regiment in this same area and served on active duty there until that program was halted in late October 1863. I know from a special report to the Missouri General Assembly investigating the conduct of the militia in early 1864 that several officers of the staff and Companies A, C, D, and E were detailed into the 2nd PEMM and also some enlisted members, perhaps from those same companies. The PEMM was an experiment to cull out of all the EMM units certain officers and men of proven performance to form sort of a "super EMM" that would be on active duty all the time and hopefully overcome some of the shortcomings of the predecessor program while providing to the Union cause in Missouri several regiments of reliable, active duty soldiers. Usually, such special service appears in specific soldiers' records, but I see no exact reference to that in either the Jaegers or Captain Bourk's cards of service. Usually, such additional duty appears in the records, so this probably does not apply to the Jaegers. The chances area that the next type of "additional duty" listed in the next paragraph does not apply to the Jaegers, either, but I mention it to explore all possibilities.

I should also state that Confederate recruiter Colonel Sidney D. Jackman from Howard County and his many subordinates working secretly in this same area during 1863 successfully and quietly infiltrated both the 1st and 2nd PEMM and recruited many of the "more southern" men in these militia units of northeast Missouri into Confederate service. Colonel Jackman took many of these men south with him at the end of the year to the Rebel army, too. However, although Macon County contributed many men (several score of them, I think) to the southern cause, I have no reason to believe your Jaegers did that. The 62nd EMM was also composed of men from Linn County to the west, and that county had a larger southern population that did Macon County, but that is mere guesswork based on my study, and I cannot provide numbers. Remember, there are good reasons this part of northeast Missouri is called "Little Dixie" to this day, although there is vast disagreement about which specific counties comprise "Little Dixie." Perhaps you did not have this in mind when you asked your question.

Captain Bourk's record shows he performed other specific duty starting September 29, 1864, and I would not doubt that the two Jaegers did it, also--although it does not appear on their records. When Confederate Major General Sterling Price led an army of about 12,000 to invade Missouri on 19 September 1864, Brigadier General Clinton B. Fisk, commander of the District of North Missouri, activated just about all the EMM and PEMM he had left in many of the counties to deal with the approaching Price army and also the hundreds of behind-Union-line Confederate recruiters and guerrillas very, very active across north Missouri at that time. At the least Captain Bourk and perhaps the two Jaegers helped guard the railroad infrastructure and other facilities in and near Macon City until after Price and the guerrillas were defeated and left the state in early November. There were some skirmishes and raids not far from Macon City, but a constant garrison of sorts in that town seemed to keep away unwanted Rebel attenton here. Not all the militiamen who performed duty during this crisis between late September and early November 1864 had it applied to their records.

For more information I refer you to the older Macon County histories of the late 1800s and early 1900s and to whatever historical and genealogical society they have in Macon County. There they may have better records about which men provided which service to either side during the war.

I hope this helps.

Bruce Nichols