No, I could find no specific action in the Rose Hill area on 17 March 1864, but perhaps some other actions taking place nearby will bring us closer to the truth about what happened to O'Neal and Foster. I have written a lot about Johnson County in the war, and just a few months ago I studied the spring of 1864 in this region.

The Rose Hill community was well-known for being southern in sympathy, which brought unwelcome attention to Rose Hill as the war dragged on. A number of families of that area were banished for a variety of reasons, or were taken captive by Union troops in nearby Holden as hostages against attacks by guerrillas. Killings were common, and a number of murders were never applied to specific parties. The mix in Johnson County of people determined to advance the southern cause matched all too well with those set to defend the Union resulted in over four years of near-continuous bloodshed.

Here is what I could find that may apply to the deaths of O'Neal and Foster, but no guarantee:

First, Quantrill's band left to winter in Texas in October 1863 leaving trusted sub-leader Andy Blunt in charge of a small band of guerrillas to keep southern hopes alive, and perhaps also tend a few guerrilla wounded left in the region with southern families. Blunt (not his real name, but a "nomme de guerre" we suppose to protect his family) operated mostly in Jackson and Lafayette Counties with spirit and dash until killed by a Union patrol near Oak Grove March 7, 1864. Union patrols all through the winter had been killing Blunt's men one at a time, and his death was the last straw for a number or the 20-or-so survivors. Union military records estimate that several of Blunt's remaining men rode south to Henry County and joined a number of unknown southen guerrillas who accumulated there a few weeks before this. Since the Union military knew about these men in Henry County not far from Rose Hill, that could have led to trouble for known southerners living in or near Henry County. Some of the local Union 60th Enlisted Missouri Militia (EMM) in Henry and surrounding counties were known to assassinate men they considered threats to themselves. Any Confederate veterans living at home, or "returned Rebels," as the Federals called them, were considered among "the usual suspects," if guerrillas were active in the area.

Second, Union District of Central Missouri commander Brigadier General Egbert Brown experimented with various forms of counter-guerrilla tactics and units during this time. One of these developments was Special Detective Benjamin F. Allen and his long-term patrol of mounted men throughout Jackson, Johnson, Cass, and Henry County during March and after. Allen's outfit was basically a hunter/killer group who rode around with a few proven troopers asking trusted northern sympathizers who they considered the worst Rebels in the neighborhood, and so forth. Although Allen submitted reports when he rode by Union garrisons, I would assume he didn't report everything. Detective Allen submitted vague reports from time to time, which you can read in the "Official Records" series 1, vol. 34, part 3, on page 524. It seems Allen and his killers rode through this area about the time the two men died. Allen referred to a skirmish his group fought about Fire Prairie Creek in east Jackson County March 13 in which they chased eight guerrillas, but managed to kill one guerrilla horse, wounded a second horse, and captured one firearm. Then, Allen wrote that on March 19 along Big Creek seven miles west of Wadesburg in southeast Cass County, his group "found 1 bushwhacker 7 miles west of Wadesburg, and left him there." If you draw a rough line between Fire Prairie Creek in east Jackson County with Wadesburg in southeast Cass County you may notice that that line comes rather close to Rose Hill in the southwestern corner of Johnson County just a jump away from Henry and Cass Counties. This may explain what happened to O'Neal and Foster, but this is just conjecture.

But, I say all this to give you an idea of what it was like to live (or try to) in this area during March 1864.

Bruce Nichols