Why not give us some basics on Joseph Jeffries so researchers can try and find him for you? Names are deceiving. Got a middle name or at least a middle initia? Can you give what county and it may even help to know the township in which he lived? Who were his folks? Who did he run with?

I looked in Rose Mary Lankford's "The Encyclopedia of Quantrill's Guerrillas," which actually has a lot more than Quantrill's men in it. Her book referred me to Eakin and Hale's "Branded As Rebels" page 236 and Edwards' good old "Noted Guerrillas" of 1877 page 358. Both these sources tell us that a Jeffries was killed at Union Mills with Captain John Thrailkill's guerrilla band. This was soon after Thrailkill (along with Fletch Taylor's guerrilla band) provided security for Confederate Lieutenant Colonel John Calhoun Thornton's recruiting command and uprising centered around the Platte County area in July 1864. An amalgamated group of Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM) and citizen volunteers with single-shot rifle-muskets and shotguns hit Thrailkill hard near Union Mills at the intersection of Platte, Buchanan, and Clinton Counties on 22 July 1864 in tough fighting in thick brush. Thraikill was wounded in the neck and suffered losses, and everybody, including Union authorities, were amazed that a group of different EMM from several units and several counties were capable of doing a veteran guerrilla band damage like that. Such achievements were rare for the EMM. No clue about a full name for Jeffries killed in that fight. There are several Jeffries with records in the Union military prisons in the St. Louis area (thanks to Eakin's "MO POW's," but none that puts those Jeffries in northwest Missouri.

Ring any bells?

Bruce Nichols