Thank you. You seem to come to my rescue more often than Seal Team 6. That was helpful. This act to require signed, detailed oaths from the EMM officers was the result of a months-long, in-depth investigation into the conduct of the various kinds of Union militia in Missouri. The findings were published in early 1864 in the about 500-page "Report of the Committee of the House of Representatives of the Twenty-second General Assembly of the State of Missouri Appointed to Investigate the Conduct and Management of the Militia" and included Majority and Minority Reports. Dianne Buffton and Linda Brown-Kubisch compiled this report with a fine index (which the original lacks) which is annotated as being pubished by The State Historical Soctiety of Missouri in 1998. I know the society in Columbia has a copy you can see, and this report is highly detailed with scores of affidavits from important figures in many counties, reports on the militia in a number of counties, lots of letters from militia officers and interested parties, and so forth and so on.

This is to say that I understand why the 22nd General Assembly required the oaths, and such oaths affirming allegiance were not new in the U.S. My German-American ancestors, originally from the Palatinate State of what is now Germany, were made to sign such oaths in Pennsylvania during the Revolution, just to ensure they were not Hessian mercenaries who were trying to sneek into American society, I suppose.

Now, that being said, I have been told that the Special Order Number 126 executed in about April 1864 as a result of the "Report" cited above and the oath law and maybe others, specifically also ejected literally scores of officers, mostly at company level, from the Enrolled Missouri Militia for "being too hard on rebels." Can anyone confirm of deny that, please, and also cite a source for me, too?

Bruce Nichols