You can access the "Official Records" about the "Civil War" via the "Cornell University" site. Simply enter into Google.com the three phrases on the same line that I wrote in the previous sentence with the quotation marks around each two-word group as I have done. This will take you directly to the ebook that Cornell Univ. has made of the 128 volume set. Beware that the search engine will want to show you the word "Pitcairn" several places in the whole set of books including wherever a man named Pitcairn is in the text. Stick to the citation I made and use the search engine only to go to the site for Series 1, vol. 48, part 1, page 1264 which you will readily see is about a vessel at Waverly, and ignore the other entries. Also, you can play with the search engine to locate and read other places in the 128 volumes.

What you should see on page 1264 is a March 26, 1865 report from Union Colonel Clark H. Green, commander of the Glasgow, Howard County, garrison to his boss, Brigadier General Clinton B. Fisk, cdr of the District of North Missouri, that among other things states:

"On Friday a small squad appeared in sight of the steamer Pitcairn at Waverly and demanded whiskey; threatened to fire

on the boat if refused. They got the whiskey. They have or will cross between Waverly and DeMott City. Captain [John D.]

Meredith [of the 39th Missouri Infantry Regiment] says he can send or go with sixty men, patrol the river, and find

out their whereabouts."
I obtained these men's full names from the very good index in the back of this volume, and I have written about the aggressive and impulsive Captain Meredith of the 39th earlier in my manuscript.

That the guerrillas did not board the "Pitcairn" to loot her tends to tell me that she was perhaps a small boat that held little of interest except the liquor for the raiders. A regular Missouri River packet was, on the other hand, a regular treasure trove for guerrillas who would have the good fortune to hold such a vessel in their power. Waverly, home town of BG J. O. Shelby of the Confederate "Iron Brigade," was very much a southern town, and I would guess that these bushwhackers had little to fear in the manner of interference from the townspeople if they wanted to board the "Pitcairn," unless some locals previously joined the Missouri Militia (MM or VMM) enacted a few weeks before across Missouri. Since Lafayette County raised only two companies plus of MM this last spring of the war, I rather doubt this was the case, especially in this very strongly southern neighborhood.

Thanks for riding to my rescue. I will probably not turn anything else up for the poor "Pitcairn," but, if I do, I will get back to you and pass it along to add to your very helpful archives.

Bruce Nichols