Well, that adds a new wrinkle to this I did not know, but knowing Private LeMasters was part of a wagon train escort enables me to search in different directions. First, let me assure you the wagon train Quantrill's band attacked on 2 November 1862 in Cass County could not have included your ancestor as escort, since that train (according to "Official Records" series 1, vol. 13, pp. 347-8) traveled to Harrisonville in Cass County from Sedalia, two counties to the east, and was on its way back to Sedalia when attacked. LeMasters's escort was for a wagon train I assume went from south, probably from the large Union base at Springfield, to one of the posts along the Missouri/Kansas border to the north and I guess LeMasters and the rest of the escort were returning to their base at Springfield when they fell into trouble and your ancestor was killed.

This action may very well have been part of the defense of the Lamar post that evening of November 5, and Captain Breeden in his report on page 348 (below the one about the other wagon train in Cass County) neglected to mention there were other soldiers not of his regiment that took part. I agree with you that this particular explanation may very well be exactly what happened to Private LeMasters, and the man was later buried in or near Lamar.

This brings to mind a question that may be difficult to answer. Were any other of the 8th Missouri Cavalry Regiment's men (not the 8th Cavalry Regiment Missouri State Militia) killed or wounded at or near Barton County at this time? They could have even been from other companies than Private LeMasters' Company I. The answer may help your search, but it is beyond my meager resources.

Before we proceed with some other possibilities, please let me help to unravel or at least explain the different dates of death on several official records. I have noticed on similar cases that there is often confusion in a man's unit determining his actual date and/or place of death. This confusion took place more often when the soldier was killed away from his company and regimental headquarters and, more importantly, the clerks who wrote those entries in Union records. In times and places where lots was happening, that sort of clerk's entry was often made days later and based on memories, and things got garbled. Often the clerk had to ask around to find somebody in charge of the detail, and when stuff is going on every day that responsible person can mix stuff up in his mind.

As to the place, I have noticed, sometimes painfully, that a skirmish is often placed in the largest sizable populated place close to where it happened, because the source did not know the name of a creek or a hill or whatever and just wrote the nearest town as location. This tendency seemed to be prevalent in Missouri, and has given me lots of trouble over the years.

As to the 12 September entry into the record that LeMasters was present at Springfield when he was home enjoying his new son and helping the new mama, I wonder if somebody in the unit was "covering for LeMasters" until he would return from doing his fatherly duty. Just a guess.

Let me complete all this conjecture by raising several other possibilities that could have resulted in LeMasters' death at places other than exactly in the town of Lamar on 5 November or 6 November:

1. You mentioned "I know that Quantrill was expecting backup from the north that did not come." That backup was actually Confederate recruiter Colonel Warner Lewis. Not far from Lamar Quantrill and Colonel Lewis ran into each other, and both agreed to a battle plan that involved Quantrill's guerrillas coming from one side of town and Colonel Lewis' men attacking from another direction. There is a possibility that Private LeMasters ran afowl of Colonel Lewis' command, since they were nearby at the time.

2. Further, according to Union Colonel Henning's in the same source on pages 352 through 354, Thomas Livingston's local guerrilla band was in the area at that time. Perhaps they ran across your ancestor and killed him.

3. Another possibility is that Quantrill's band ran onto Private LaMasters either north or south of Lamar and killed him on the prairie before or after the Lamar fight.

4. Other possibilities I got from another source. Ward L. Schrantz wrote his "Jasper County, Missouri, in the Civil War," in 1923 which was published by The Carthage Press in Carthage talking about Quantrills' attack on Lamar on pages 101 through 102 mentions several other northbound or southbound wagon trains active in this area that concerned the Union leadership when they discovered Quantrill's band was moving through. Perhaps LeMasters was actually with one of these wagon trains or just bumming a ride with them and some guerrilla killed him.

If LeMasters was killed in any of these possibilities, chances are strong that when Union troops later found his remains, they could have taken them to Lamar for burial. That seems logical to me. Most Civil War dead buried in this region were later re-interred in the National Cemetery at Springfield. I checked their records online and also all the national cemeteries under every different way I could spell LeMasters and found nothing. You can try it yourself. Just Google "national cemetery""website" and look for the grave locator hot link in the website. I have used it before.

This doesn't provide answers, but it gives you new possibilities to consider in your search. This seems to be a tough one.

Bruce Nichols