Greenville, county seat of Wayne County, on the St. Francis River was used by Union troops starting about the summer of 1862 and thereafter off and on throughout the war as a garrison post. The war was rather disorganized and not well documented in southeast Missouri during the spring of 1862.

Representing the southern side were mostly recruiting commands, such as Colonel Tim Reeves' 15th Missouri Cavalry (CSA), and Colonel William L. Jeffers' 8th Missouri Cavalry (CSA). The Union side called them guerrillas, but these were just recruiting cadre and certain southern men assisting them with or without the knowledge of the local authorities. All this recruiting was performed secretly. By April the 1861 southern local forces of the Missouri State Guard had changed over to be Confederate forces, and a number of these men helped form these southern recruiting commands.

Representing the northern side in Wayne County off and on this spring was the 12th Cavalry Missouri State Militia (MSM), an active duty cavalry regiment garrisoned in the region. This regiment was later renamed as the 3rd Cavalry MSM. The 7th Illinois Cavalry Regiment did some patrolling and skirmishing in this area, too. In early May 1862, elements of the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry operated in this region, too. During April 1862 the task of these various Union cavalry units was to find and stop the southern recruiting commands in this area. The lesser, or stay-at-home Union militias were not well developed in April 1862, largely due to opposition of the large percentage of the Wayne County area southern population.

My sources include:
--James E. McGhee, "Guide to Missouri Confederate Units, 1861-1865," 2008, the Univsersity of Arkansas Press, 80, 106;
--Frederick H. Dyer, "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion," 1959, Thomas Yoseloff Company, vol. 2, 108;
--Bruce Nichols, "Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri, 1862," 2004, McFarland and Company, 69-72.

Bruce Nichols