I see that Looney Township was in south-central Polk County near the Greene County line, if that helps. There were some of the western prairies that came into the south part of Polk County, near where your ancestors lived. Otherwise it was wooded, especially along the rivers (the Pomme de Terre and the Little Sac Rivers) and creek bottoms, mixed with grassland. In other words, Polk County was (and still is) mostly open with a few gentle hills. Some would call it rolling mixed woods and grasslands.

Polk County was mixed northern and southern sympathy during the war, which created some friction there. This was not as bad as nearby counties, but bad enough. Polk County was not heavily populated, so southern guerrillas passed through on their way someplace else once in a while. The same is true for the Union cavalry guerrilla hunters who were stationed in the bigger towns such as Bolivar, the county seat, and occasionally at Humansville in the northwest corner. The nearest large Union base was at Springfield, county seat of Greene County to the south, and this was the central Union base for southwest Missouri throughout the war. Some of the larger southern raids came near, and armies passed by a few times. The constant guerrilla war across most of Missouri during nearly the whole war caused some rural families to move to larger towns or leave the region or state altogether, which could have been the cause for your ancestors' disappearance. I have read of a number of killings in Polk County during the war to one or another of the causes I named above in this paragraph, but no more than neighboring counties.

I would recommend two strategies for your search.

First, you could get in touch with historical and genealogical societies in Bolivar or Springfield to see what they may have on your ancestors. In your local library in the reference section is "The Genealogist's Handbook" of similar guidebook to local history and genealogy to give you the names and addresses of such societies in or close to Polk County. In other words, this plan would enable you to consult local history and local family history sources.

Second, you could trust this forum with the names and pertinent data about your missing ancestors and see what some of us may have on them. At the least, we could search them out in the 1860 census. This would give some of us information as to whether they were northern or southern in loyalty which we could guess from which state in which they were born. Further, if we find some of them were of military age, we could look for records for them in either army or in Missouri's own army, the northern Enrolled Missouri Militia, that existed from mid-1862 until spring 1865 from local men to guard their own communities. Toward the end of the war Missouri also authorized and encouraged local men to form citizens guards also for local protection. This helped to bring back civil law in rural Missouri, that disappeared for the most part due to the hostilities across the state during the war. You see, a number of military and genealogy researchers assist inquirers such as you in this forum, and if we don't have definite answers for you, we can at least recommend some directions you can search further.

Does that help?

Bruce Nichols