In my years of researching and helping people with the Enrolled Missouri Militia nobody ever asked me about the numbered military districts. This may be because the districts did not matter much for the individual EMM regiments. The districts were to identify which EMM general officer had command over which EMM units. Frankly, except for two or three EMM generals who took their position seriously, most of them seemed to be ceremonial and made little difference. I seem to recall that the districts also had a provost marshal who ran sort of a secret police network. I looked in my references tonight and I could find little about the districts. The military districts were not mentioned in individual soldier records that I have seen. How did you come up with the mention of the 1st Military District?

The 79th EMM Regiment included men from Scott, Stoddard, and Mississippi Counties. In stronger northern areas many counties had their own regiment, but the SE corner of MO was strongly southern in sympathy, and so the Union authorities had to spread each regiment further. Just north and west from the 79th EMM, the 68th EMM covered about nine counties with about one company in each of those counties. I don't have much on the 79th until the autumn of 1864 about when Confederate Major General Sterling Price invaded Missouri with about 12,000 cavalry in what is called Price's great Missouri raid. The State General Assembly of Missouri as strongly recommended by the U.S. Department of the Missouri commander, Major General William S. Rosecrans, ordered that all the EMM units be activated to help repel Price's raid. It appears from some clues I found in the "Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" (series 1, vol. 41, parts 3 and 4) that parts of the 79th EMM were used to help guard the Union fortifications at nearby Cape Girardeau, one of the major Federal bastions on the Mississippi River. Basically, parts of the 79th EMM remained on active duty in their home area during October, November, December and January 1865. On 12 November 1864 after Price's army was defeated and driven from Missouri, most of the activated EMM were released from duty, but the commander of Cape Girardeau requested that he wished to retain on active duty one of the 79th EMM companies that had been helping man the fort there. Sadly, we don't know which company of the 79th he meant. Based on the next sentence, there is a chance it could have been your great grandfather's Company F. On December 18, Captain Tanner's Company F, 79th EMM in a skirmish at Little River in the NE corner of New Madrid County fought a skirmish with southern guerrillas, but no details remain to tell us about it. Between 4 and 16 January 1865 a detachment of the 79th EMM was part of a combined expedition from Bloomfield in Stoddard County to Poplar Bluff in Butler County that probably fought with Confederate Colonel Tim Reeves' irregular regiment killing 19 including 3 officers, severely wounding 3, and capturing 5 POWs. There were one or two activated companies of the 79th at Bloomfield, but Company F was not one of them.

Company F, 79th EMM seems to have been created on August 20, 1863, because the company's three officers took their positions on that date. All three kept these positions until March 1865 when the EMM apparatus across the state was dismantled upon the return of civil law in Missouri. The officers were Captain Samuel Tanner, 1LT David Holder, and 2LT Philip Rubell (or Ruble). I found Tanner and Holder in the 1860 census index as both living in Kelso Township of NW Scott County, but there were several Ruble households in several parts of Scott County. It seems Tanner and perhaps many of his Company F men during 1861 were part of the Scott County Regiment of Home Guards mostly of Hamburg and Commerce, two enclaves of northern sympathizers in VERY southern SE Missouri. Hamburg was a village of NW Scott County and Commerce was a Miss. River town in NE Scott County. All three officers of Co. F and many of their men were part of Company F, 79th EMM between August 1863 and March 1865. Also many of the Company F men followed Captain Tanner into his own "Tanner's Six Months EMM Unattached Company, Company F." This little unit lasted from 28 August 1864 until 17 March 1865. It seems that Tanner and his men were members of Tanner's own local militia during those 6 months as well as members of the Company F, 79th EMM at the same time. I have seen this in other parts of Missouri. Basically, this meant that Tanner and most of his men were so dedicated to their cause that they free-lanced with their own posse. What they did with this I can only imagine.

You didn't give your great grandfather's name so I could look up his online record at Missouri State Archives, but Tanner had a musician named John Myer who was in Tanner's unattached company of Six Months's Enrolled Missouri Militia. There were several other Myer men in the 79th EMM Regiment, but John was the only Myer associated with Captain Tanner and Company F. If it matters, John Myer was enrolled at Hamburg 27 September 1864 and ordered into active duty at the same place by General McCormick (That must be where your 1st Military District comes in.) on 10 November 1864. There seems to be no information telling us what Captain Tanner and Musician John Myer (and the other members of their company) did in Scott County between November 1864 and whenever their active duty stopped. I would imagine they kept a watch on well-known southerners, guarded some, patrolled some, and pretty much about the same kind of stuff that you do in Afghanistan. Your great grandfather was involved in counter-insurgency work back in 1864 and 1865, just like you do!

I will place this in "The Missouri in the Civil War Message Board" so others can share some of your history and maybe add to it.

Bruce Nichols