Shelby was not above intimidation in military operations if it suited his needs. That's why he liked to have a little artillery with his force at all times. When Union troops holed up in the Washington County courthouse at Potosi and didn't surrender immediately to Shelby's forces in September 1864 during Price's raid, Shelby fired one of his cannons at the building once or twice. Of course, that brought the Yanks out right away with hands in the air. During Shelby's raids his artillery easily conquered Union stockades and blockhouses, too. It was not easy being Shelby's artillerymen considering the really fast pace his units maintained--a pace that shook cannon carriages and caissons to pieces, especially cross-country. However, very little is more intimidating than having your own cannon when you need them, especially when the other side didn't bring theirs.

I read hints about depredations of the 52nd EMM in a variety of sources, but very little with detail. There is a lot of small stuff, but much of it is in the "who hit John" form of story with few specifics. There is, however, a lot of it.

Yes, if you can determine something about the 22 December 1862 death of Odneal, it may connect to something else. I guess I don't need to mention to a MD that the man could have succumbed on 22 December to wounds or injuries incurred days before or even incurred some other place than Tipton. That's partly why I suggested burial or cemetery records.

The Union soldiers killed by "bushwhackers" from Howard and Boone counties on 7 October 1864 in the second paragraph of your previous reply were local citizen guards George Todd's 107 bushwhackers killed I believe on 6 October after crossing the Missouri River from Boone and Howard Counties. Todd's men saw the citizen guards from a distance and waited for them on the backside of a slope and blasted them as they rode over the top and chased the remainder for miles. I saw a Colts revolver one of the citizen guard survivors carried that day proudly owned by his descendant still living in that region. One source of this fight claimed the guerrillas were Bill Anderson's, but it was George Todd accompanied by Bill Thrailkill's band and Bill Stewart's small band--total of 107.

Bruce Nichols