Something for each of you. Not to have the last word, because that is not my place or purpose.

HRF, Thanks for proving me correct about those two 71st EMM who died on 18 September 1862. I figured it that way, but it's nice to hear I pegged it right. I think the actual fight near Wellington was on 17 September.

George and Richard, too, on what happened to those two Warren men. George, I appreciate your finding those men's records. Shelby's regiment was recruited in four days in August 1862. That is an astounding fact! Four days to sign up literally hundreds of men. Only a Shelby could have done it, although it helped that it was on his home ground and that a number of those men served under him in autumn of 1861 in his own guerrilla band for a few weeks. What came afterward was hard to take. The recruiting and saying goodbyes to family, friends, girlfriends, and wives didn't leave those men very much time to sleep what with all the excitement. Shelby got a late start while the other recruiters got away on the long ride back to Arkansas with all their recruits. Shelby, through no fault of his own, was the last Rebel unit to ride through a very long gauntlet of Union cavalry all the way south to Arkansas. I read about it some years back, and Shelby pushed his men to the very limit. They were barely holding onto the saddle, they were so tired, and I read that a small number of new recruits actually lost their minds and went beserk on the long, grueling ride south. Different men have different breaking points, and it's something you don't want to see but you will remember when you see a man discover just where his breaking point is the hard way.

Shelby's regiment came back to Missouri in Marmaduke's raid on southwest Missouri in January 1863, and that mid-winter campaign was full of suffering, too. Lots of those men had no shoes and were in stocking feet on the sleet-covered, rocky Ozark roads, and even the mounted ones had to walk their horses on it, too. Although the early part of the raid was invigorating for the Confederates when things started to go their way, it didn't end that way, as the Yanks forgot they were supposed to run away and lose, but fought like mad men to turn back the frozen Rebs. That's about when the one Warren man deserted, and I read that he had lots of company. Next, he was captured, sent to St. Louis to Gratiot Street Prison (the former McDowell Medical College) where he died of disease one month later. The other Warren deserted one month later during February 1863. Desertions were always high in the winter, and for good reason.

Richard, Quantrill rounded up every single Reb he could find over several counties to put together 450 men for the Lawrence raid (although 101 of them were new recruits from Ray and Clay Counties passing through that just happened to join the raid just before it crossed the Kansas border). Nobody recorded all the names. I know Quantrill's adjutant, and he kept good numbers, but there was no way he could get all the names (This was Bill Gregg of Jackson County who postwar was deputy sheriff of Jackson County.) The only way we know the names we have were because several of the participants wrote down names of some of those they knew. This was supposed to be southern men's big chance to get back at the Yanks, and lots of southern men joined just for that reason. Evidently, there were men with no background in the southern military or in guerrilla bands either who just wanted to join the excitement. Several of them paid for that thrill with their lives over the weeks afterward when they slipped up and told somebody they rode along on the Lawrence raid and it got back to the Yanks. In the dragnet over Jackson County and others that lasted several weeks the Union troops claimed they killed over 100 men. I actually think they did kill most of those, including a goodly number of those new recruits from Ray and Clay Counties and the scores of new guerrilla recruits some of Quantrill's subordinates recruited in Saline County during July before the raid.

The newspaper you referenced changed its name over the years bit by bit, but it was usually called the "Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce," or the "Western Journal of Commerce," and not only did it publish daily newspapers but also weekly ones with a slightly different name than the daily ones. It's enough to confuse anybody.

Regarding "probably," I use that word a lot. Also "evidently," "perhaps," "possibly," even "maybe," and others like them. It's actually all right to let your reader know that you are not absolutely certain of this or that. Nothing wrong with that. I say that because my father-in-law, a good man, tells me about my history writing: "Bruce, you weren't there, so how can you know?" The man is right, and I consider his words often. The answer--and just about the only answer--to his question is "we are only as good as our sources," and the problem is our sources do not always agree, do not always tell the truth, sometimes try to make themselves look better than they were, and lots of other despicable things. It's pretty tough to sort through all that 150 years later.

Bruce