This is interesting to me as a resident of Boone County. Sturgeon figures prominently in the 1864 Centralia massacre, as Bill Anderson's guerillas set the train on fire and headed it down the tracks in that direction. Anderson once called Rocheport, in southern Boone county, and not far from Perche Creek, 'my capital'. That entire area is chock full of deep gullies and steep sloped ridges; it's not too hard to find the edge of a ridge and drop out of sight and disappear, perfect for guerilla warfare as practiced by Southern irregulars. Renick is actually about 7 miles north of the Boone County line, in Randolph County. Do you think that it might have been in the area of Clark, Missouri instead, which is about 3 miles from Sturgeon?

I actually did some field mapping along Perche Creek some years back, and mapped the soils from McBaine, Missouri, all the way north to the Randolph County line. It's tough territory on foot. I can only imagine what these men went through making it from one location to the next. It took me about two hours to cover two miles through the thicker brush, which was loaded to the gills with ticks, stinging nettle, poison ivy, and horseweed.

Thanks for the wonderful information and discourse here!