I will give you some of what I have on Marion D. Erwin, and why he could have been commissioned to recruit for the Confederacy, but also why I doubt it. Then I will give Don what I have about his ancestor, Private William Dixon.

First, about Marion D. Erwin.

Erwin's military record online at the MO Sec'y of State's Officer, Missouri State Archives, says only tht he was a private in Company E, Gordon's Regiment of Shelby's Brigade in Marmaduke's Cavalry Division, until he was "Missing." This was according to the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department Headquarters Order Book for 1860-1864, page 271. Gordon's regiment was the 5th Missouri Cavalry Regiment.

Company E records say "Marvin D. Erwin" enlisted 18 August 1862 from Lafayette County (as one of about 1000 local men who flocked to Shelby's recruiting call in only four days). Erwin was present at roll calls on 31 December 1862, and also in January and February 1863, but there is no record at all after that.

Notice that no record said that Erwin deserted. It says only that he was missing. That could be significant. Lots of men from Shelby's brigade would be "missing" at some times in the war, and a few of them have the their record marked "deserted," but many of the ones who were gone don't have that on the record. Two or three of us MO CW history researchers/writers believe, but cannot prove, that Shelby allowed or maybe even urged numbers of his men from time to time to infiltrate back through Union lines to their home region to recruit at home and bring back recruits. This belief is not widely held, and the evidence is, in my opinion, circumstantial. The theory goes that if Shelby commissioned these men as recruiting officers, his records would have to reflect this, but not necessarily if they simply took off and went home. And, while they were home, many of the Shelby soldiers took up with guerrilla bands, and many never did come back to their assigned unit. Although Colonel Shelby was a stickler for military discipline and obedience to orders, he also had a soft spot for guerrillas in his units, because he led his own guerrilla band around his home during the autumn of 1861. What I am trying to say is that many of these "missing" ones were actually unofficial recruiters, only they were in no hurry to run the guauntlet of Union cavalry patrols across Missouri to take their recruits back south to Arkansas. Just in Erwin's Company E are the three Durrett's of Saline County who acted as guerrillas around southeast Saline County, a Sergeant Thomas Ingraham who may just be the mysterious recruiter Ingraham of Randolph County in the summer of 1863, and especially Captain Joseph P. Elliott who I think is the Captain Elliott who led Shelby's notorious "battalion of scouts and spies." Company E roster also has five guys whose record says they were "recruited by Colonel Quantrill." And this is just the roster for Company E of 5th Missouri Cavalry, not to mention the other companies of the 5th and the other two regiments.

This is perhaps the reason that in the online MO Provost Marshal records there is a statement from David Turner of Macon County on 27 January 1865 that "Capt. Marion Erwin and several men ate dinner at his house; they were not invited;" Evidently, in front of Turner Erwin behaved like a captain, and Turner said he was in the militia, so he probably had a grasp about how a captain should act.

Now, Erwin spent time in Howard County during 1863. During summer 1864 a military tribunal in Warrensburg condemned Erwin to death as a guerrilla based on evidence presented to the tribunal, but the Union forces in Warrensburg in July 1864 were forced to release Erwin because guerrilla leader Bill Anderson abducted the Wellington postmaster in northwest Lafayette County as hostage to Erwin's release, although in a letter Anderson confessed he didn't know Erwin, but thought he should get him released anyway. Evidently, Erwin then returned to Howard County where in February 1865, perhaps while drunk, he bragged to some passing Union troops that he was a real, live bushwhacker and they promptly arrested him and took him to the Macon City Union headquarters for questioning. Union authorities looked into their records and discovered Erwin was already a condemed guerrilla, but they took statements anyway and studied his activities in that area which confirmed that he indeed was a bushwhacker. Further, circumstantial evidence points that Erwin prior to his February capture rode with Jim Jackson's small band, known for frequent murders even of unarmed men. Jackson and his men were cutthroats in every sense of the word, hardly the behavior of a Confederate officer.

Now, where the Macon "True Democrat" got the idea that one of the Rebels executed at Macon City was a Confederate officer is beyond me. However, captured southerners knew they had to prove they were from a regular unit to avoid being executed as guerrillas, which was the current order in Missouri between March 1862 and May 1865. Some captured southerners tried to go the extra mile and claimed to be officers in order to obtain better treatment, and maybe that worked for a few. Missouri guerrilla leaders tried to obtain regular status under the Confederate Partisan Ranger Act in Richmond, VA of April 1862, but they had a hard time meeting one or two provisions of the act about reporting to their superior command on a regular basis, and so on. The Union military did not accept the "partisan ranger" status as true combatants worthy to be treated as prisoners of war, and the Confederate government later invalidated the act, anyway.

Second, about William Dixon of the 45th EMM.

Dixon's first of two records states that he served 37 or 39 days active duty in Captain Peter Thompson's Company C between August and November 1862 when the EMM program started, and his record says this was in or around Unionville, county seat of Putnam County. This would be guarding the unit's armory of rifle-muskets probably kept in the courthouse, assisting the provost marshal to arrest suspected disloyals, some patrolling, and fighting with guerrilla leader Bill Dunn's band in the area, and that sort of thing. The 1882 Putnam County history says 30 men of the 45th EMM garrisoned Unionville all that summer.

His second period of active duty was more dramatic. When General Price's army of about 11,000 invaded Missouri in September 1864, the Union command of Missouri activated ALL the old EMM units that still existed about 25 September and sent them to take the place of full-time soldiers needed to fight Price's army. Dixon's record in Captain G. W. R. Ledford's Company E says he served only 16 days active duty during this emergency, which I think is way too short. Don, you say his group was sent to Howard County to oversee the election to prevent the southerners from monkey business, but the election was on 8 November, and his record says his active duty stopped on 7 November, so I think his record was not accurately prepared--the fate of many a soldier. His record does say this duty was in Macon City, probably at the District of North Missouri headquarters in that town or helping to guard the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad that ran east to west through that town and across Macon County and all of north Missouri. The Union "Official Records" states in vol. 41, part 4, p. 228 that Colonel Shelton and 300 men of the 45th EMM patrolled through Sullivan and Putnam Counties for a while and then were ordered to move to Macon City to "deal with Rebels near there." The 1882 Putnam County history does mention on page 503 that during November 1864 the 45th EMM protected Howard County voting precincts then returned to Macon City, where they were inactivated at the end of the emergency period by General Fisk, the district commander.

You mentioned that while William's unit was in Howard County in November they burned some southerner's property and such. Part of the reason some men of the 45th EMM went crazy in Howard County may have been the discovery south of the MO River in Franklin County in late October of the bodies of a Union major and six privates who were prisoners of war held by Price's army. One of Price's commands had a personal beef with the unit these men came from, so on 3 October they held a field courts martial and executed the seven POWs and left their bodies in a creek bottom. When a passing Union unit found the bodies about two weeks later word quickly spread throughout all the northern forces in MO and there was lots of killing of Rebel prisoners and not a whole lot of mercy shown for a few days. Don, you mentioned William's group was sent to escort a southern sympathizer from LaPlata, which is in north Macon County, and somehow the EMM shot and killed the man. That could have been part of that "payback" too.

He could have seen action. When the Union forces pulled all their regular troops out of north Missouri to fight Price mostly south of the MO River, the guerrillas in N. MO. went nutso and ran amock all over the place in order to make the Yankees send more troops to fight them and not to fight Price's army.

Some records indicate a Rebel recruiting command rode fast through parts of Macon County on 24 October and other bodies of southern horsemen were going here and there in and around Macon County. This was probably the scariest day of the entire emergency period in Macon City, because there were not many troops left there to defend the place if any of these roving bands attacked the town. But, it turned out this was just a ploy to tie up the Union soldiers in the area so a large Confederate recruiting command could move through the area heading south to join Price's army wherever it was then.

I know this seems like bits and pieces, but sometimes that is all that is left after all these years.

Bruce Nichols