Supporting what hrf just reported to you, I see from looking through the Kansas Adjutant General's report on the 5th Kansas Cavalry that several men each joined the regiment at Rolla, Missouri in the northern Ozarks, Carthage and Fort Scott and Fort Leavenworth and Parkville all on the Kansas/Missouri border, Chillicothe in Livingston County in north-central Missouri and a couple of towns (Moneda and Modina) that I never heard of, as well as Wayne County, MO. These are listed as these men's residences, but that may simply be where they joined the unit so as not place their family in hazard if they happened to come from a predominantly southern neighborhood back home. The men who joined the 5th at the border could have traveled a long ways to get there or could have been living nearby--it's hard to tell without knowing their family background. The oddball places like Rolla, Chillicothe, and Wayne County were likely where part of the 5th was stationed at the time. Rolla was a large Union base, as were Forts Scott and Leavenworth.

Years ago when I was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood (a modern army fort initiated about 1940 about 30 miles west of Rolla, which you probably already know) I noticed in some of the original small Pulaski County graveyards inside the army reservation here and there graves of Kansas cavalrymen from either the 5th or 6th Kansas Cavalry.

Looking at the thumbnail history of the 5th in Frederick Dyer's "A Compenium of the War of the Rebellion" vol. 2 of 3, p. 1182 I see that the 5th KS Cav was organized in Leavenworth and stationed in just about all those placed listed above. I see that the regiment performed service in Phelps, Pulaski, Dent, and Shannon Counties in the northern Ozarks, which explains the graves I saw (not a group, just a solitary grave here and there probably from disease or KIA).

I cannot explain Wayne County, Mo (I think that is the only place that I saw listed once in the Kansas Adj. General's report as a residence for a solitary 5th man) nor can I explain the bunch of guys from Chillicothe, Mo. in Livingston County. Chillicothe was very near the Hannibal to St. Joseph Railroad during the Civil War, so perhaps either a bunch of northern Chillicothe men joined the 5th while it was either passing through or guarding the railroad or they organized and rode horseback to wherever they joined the 5th at some distant place. Livingston was one of those counties that had a large southern population, which may explain why those men joined a distant regiment.

From what I have seen and read, a number of the Kanas regiments had Missouri men.

Bruce Nichols