Missouri's online Missouri State Archives records have a military service records section you may access yourself on http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/soldiers and plug in ALL the various spellings of "Ballew," as this search engine is particular and you cannot predict how either side ended up spelling men's surnames. All military services are notorious for mangling men's names. Just plug in those various men you suspect served the south during the war with all the spellings (notice I said it twice for a reason) and maybe you might turn up a Missouri Confederate in your family tree. Please put a comma immediately after the surname and I advise you not to put in a first name and just scroll through the list until you find one that looks likely or whose unit seems Confederate. This part may sound strange, but after a bit of trial and error you will discover which unit names are distinctly Billy Yank and which ones are Johnny Reb. Then hit the hot link on that man's military service record box, and the record within MIGHT just give his county and/or town of residence and often "Nat." for place of nativity The system is quirky, but does work. If you get stuck or want to know where an 1860s town name or county was, just come back, or you can simply give me a list of the names as complete as you can, provided there are not too many, and I will see if I can discover a Rhody in the bunch for you. I must admit this is an intriquing question and definitely one of a kind.

Bruce (not Bryce, who is a distinguished, accomplished Civil War author of this region. I don't mind, but I can't speak for Bryce. When I was a kid in Texas I had to, shall we say, assert myself on the playground because some of those Texicans had a strange idea about the name "Bruce." Thankfully, my name was given a much-needed boost by Bruce Lee, Bruce Springstein, and Bruce Willis and I don't resort to playground heroics as often. It bothers my arthritis anyway.) Nichols