The Briscoe farm skirmish between Francis G. Henderson's guerrilla band (Union sources and the media had his name mistakenly as "James Henderson.") and the patrol of the 3rd Cavalry MSM in the hills near Marthasville, southeast Warren County, took place March 25, 1862.

I mentioned this on page 65 in Chapter 8 of "Guerrilla Warfare in Civil War Missouri, vol. I, 1862" published 2004, and the sources I cited in endnote # 10 for this chapter included:

--"From Warren County," "Daily Missouri Democrat," St. Louis, 12 March 1862;
--the 1885 National Historical Company Warren County History published 1885, p. 993;
--Daughters of Union Veterans, "Missouri: Our Civil War Heritage," 1994, p. 347.

The second two sources are correct, but there is an error listed for the newspaper account. The date in my endnote should have been that same newspaper of 31 March, using a letter dated March 26 sent from Warrenton, which is full of detail about that action which that letter clearly states took place "yesterday evening," which seems to have been written by one of the Union soldiers present. I missed the "St. Louis Republican" article printed 24 March using a letter dated 24 March that Kirby provided, but I question those dates for the "Republican." The "Republican" has an earlier article pertaining to preceding events in Warren and St. Charles Counties in their 12 March 1862 issue entitled "From North Missouri" based on a letter sent from Warrenton dated 9 March 1862. This 9 March letter and the later 26 March letter appear to be written by the same correspondent, but why he sent the 9 March letter to the "Republican" and the 26 March letter to the "Democrat", is beyond me. The second letter is signed "L. M. P." but I don't see any signature on the 9 March letter (unless I stupidly cut off the end of the article that may have completed on the next column at the top of the page. I spent so many hours obtaining this stuff years ago, that I recall I could hardly see straight to drive home from the library on several occasions back then. No excuse.).

This 9 March letter in the "Republican" matches some detail Lieutenant Colonel Arnold Krekel of the 1st Battalion Cavalry, Missouri State Militia (MSM) placed in his 10 March 1862 report of the Big Creek skirmish of 9 March to General Schofield found in "Official Records" series 1, vol. 8, page 333, in which LTC Krekel mentioned Henderson's band in Lincoln County at the end of his report. This amount of detail told from the northern viewpoint makes me think that one of the officers or NCO's of the 3rd Cav MSM or 1st Battalion Cavalry MSM wrote the letters to the two St. Louis dailies. This was a common practice in Missouri at the time.

Please excuse the error in my book and pardon my delay in replying, but I have been out of the country a few days (I was in Texas, as they say "a whole 'nother country").

Bruce Nichols