I didn't name the Harshbargers as being in the "hit squad." They may have been, but I don't think I said that. If you will read the entries into our original March 2001 discussion on this, Teresa Joyce made an entry 23 March on this, saying her great, great grandfather near Ash Grove on the border of Polk and Lawrence County "by raiders....called the Hersbergers or something similar."

Veteran Missouri CW researcher John Russell responded to this on March 25 and determined that some of the Harshbarger men of Ash Grove were determined northern sympathizers of this area leading them to join first one Union military unit after another throughout the war. John also referenced a civil suit by Samuel A. Harshbarger against some of his neighbors in 1865, and also an Internet site called "Community Conflict: The Impact of the Civil War in the Ozarks" that also mentioned the Harshbargers and their service in the Union 16th Missouri Cavalry Regiment.

I looked up the military service records of Samuel A. John W. and Wiliam P. Harshbarger in the 73rd EMM, the 6th Provisional EMM, and the 16th Missouri Cavalry, and see a reference in one or more of them to these men enlisting at Ash Grove, near where Teresa Joyce said her ancestor was murdered.

Bruce Nichols