"Heard?" Heard where? And how is it we citizens of the 21st century "hear" this 150 years after the war, but nobody else did in the intervening decades until just recently. The "David Guitar was a Confederate sympathizer" saw didn't arise until the late 20th century, based, it appears, on the fact that a man who owned Guitar's home almost a century after the war named it Confederate Hill. After that, writers attributed Gutar first as being a Confederate sympathizer, and then, very regrettably, invented him into being a full-blown Confederate officer, after which a fairly detailed romantic brother against brother tale found its way into the milieu. There is absolutely no evidence of him being either a Confederate sympathizer or a Confederate officer.
These men on both sides of the conflict who served need to be honored for their service and what they did. Saying a man served in an army he did not serve in back then is akin to these misfits today who go around saying they served when they did not, or earned decorations they did not earn. Saying a Unionist was a Confederate, or vice versa, dishonors both the man who served, and the men he is incorrectly said to have served with.
As for David Guitar, there's a saying in the news writing and nonfiction writing field--'the story is too good to let the facts get in the way of it.' This is a prime example.
As for the gravestone, you'll have to address your query to the person who recently said that there was a David Guitar Confederate grave marker and then presented that as proof that he was a Confederate. "Hell the cemetery where he is buried even says he was a Confederate soldier (on Broadway in Columbia, it's cool if you've never seen it)." And, sadly, it appears that the statement that there is a Confederate headstone is nothing but a myth, since a researcher wrote in this thread a few weeks ago that an inspection reveals that there is not one.... Hmmm.
Let's review how over the years this myth slowly inflated, grew larger than itself, and then finally exploded: 1861--David Guitar was a Unionist; 1862--David Guitar was a Union officer; 1861-1865--David Guitar's business partner was a Radical Unionist; 1865-1870 post-war Test Oath/Reconstruction Era--David Guitar was very close in his personal, fraternal and business relationships to staunch Unionists and Radical Unionists; 1910s--David Guitar was buried as a Union veteran and his service as a Union officer was heralded in the press; 1940s--Man buys David Guitar home, names it Confederate Hill; early 2000s--David Guitar is said to have been a Confederate sympathizer; late 2000s--David Guitar is said to have served in the Confederate Army; late 2000s--romantic tale of brother David against brother Odon is heralded; 2012--David Guitar is said to have a Confederate headstone; 2012--David Guitar is said not to have a Confederate headstone; 2012- -David Guitar is said not not to have been a Confederate officer but was a Confederate sympathizer; 2012--David Guitar is said not to have been an open Confederate sympathizer but was instead a secret Confederate sympathizer but nobody knew it until the 21st century.
When this "David Guitar: Confederate" debunking finally gained legs a few weeks ago, one person prominently involved in the Boone County historical community reached out to me personally and stated he was chastened, and chagrined, at how the story ("howler") turned out to be so inaccurate, and cited a spate of recent publications as well as an application to the National Register of Historic places that repeated the error of Guitar being a Confederate officer. The possibility of Guitar being a 'secret' Confederate was then posed to me and a request was made of me to provide my insights regarding how the process came about that depicted Guitar as being a Confederate--here is a cut and paste of my March 14 response to him....
"I suspect the 'Confederate' angle came from the act of an owner of the house naming the site Confederate Hill in the 1940s. Perhaps said owner was an adherent of the Lost Cause. Or, more likely, he was aware of David Guitar's slave ownership and made the leap that others have and extrapolated it to mean that it was not possible that slaveowners could have supported the Union (when, in fact, it was the actions of slaveowners in 1861 that prevented Missouri from falling to the South, and the support of slaveowners, by and large, that held it in the Union for the next three and a half years.)
"No doubt subsequent residents of the area after the 1940s saw the name Confederate Hill associated with the David Guitar House, added two and two together and came up with five. Only Confederates would live on a site named Confederate Hill, right? Certainly a damn Yankee would not have.
"As to how the story proliferated in the past few years and never before (emphasis on that last part)---'brother against brother' gets far better press and the attention of Historical Site bureaucrats than 'prominent Union general and his lesser-ranked like-minded Union brother....' Which story would you be more likely to read? And embrace? And the story of the Union General disowning his Confederate brother before saving his little brother's house but never speaking to him again brings a tear to a fellow's eye. (This story is particularly amusing from a historical perspective when it would have been David's own Union company, which was the only one based in Columbia for most of the war, that would have been the one running rampant and trying to burn the place down. The myth pretty much requires David Guitar to be out teaching himself a lesson by burning his own house down.)
"As far as David being 'secretly a southern sympathizer,' that can be dismissed out of hand. Reading the Boone County history shows us that he was very close to the Unionist faction in Boone County, Switzler included. And that he was involved in activities and affiliations with those staunch Unionists in the post-war era when those activities and affiliations required Oaths of Allegiance to the U.S. to be sworn, and that anyone who in anyway supported the Confederacy was disqualfied from those activities and affiliations. Any way whatsoever.
"Consider the scenario. David Guitar was a secret Confederate, but nobody knew it until 150 years later. Such would require that Boone County's giants of history were too dense to discover David Guitar's sympathy during the war, too dense to have discovered it as he was associating with them in the post-war years, too dense to have discovered it years later by the time the History of Boone County was written, and too dense to have discovered it within their lifetimes on into the 20th century so that Guitar's Southern sympathies could have been revealed by the time of his death and in the writings surrounding his demise. So under the secret scenario, in all of the intervening decades since his death, David Guitar's secret activities remained secret. That is....until the 21st century. Then folks discovered the secret in its secret hiding place, and, after revealing the secret to the world, tucked away the evidence back into its secret hiding place.
"To highlight the nature of this unfortunate myth, consider how David Guitar was first reported for the very first time just a few years ago to have had southern sympathies, but as that freight train got out of the station and up to speed, the story soon evolved to him being an officer in the Confederate Army. Textbook case of a myth feeding upon itself.
"Sir, I have no doubt that the mistake of David Guitar's sympathies traces back to the 1940s misnaming of the site of his home, and that set into motion a chain reaction a half-century later.
"I would say that I have researched Boone County in the war quite extensively. You might be familiar with my in-depth research regarding how the Missouri Tigers were named and how that shook up a few myths. As I read a little over a year ago about the sale of the David Guitar House, and how it had been built by a southern-sympthizer in 1862, it immediately struck me as being impossible. Southern-sympathizers were not sinking fortunes into the building of mansions in 1862. They were being taken out into the woods and were being executed."