Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Skirmish at Greenville - which prompts me to ask forum participants to share their insight and assessment of this action, the events leading to it and those that followed - particularly with referene to an escalating sequence of retaliation and counter retaliation throughout the remainder of the conflict - in what seemingly became a personal struggle between the leadership of the opposing units - Capt. William T. Leeper (Company B, Twelfth Regiment Cavalry Missouri State Militia) and Col. Timothy Reeves (Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry).

This comparatively minor event has received only small notice in the broad pattern of the war - but it was I think rather more important regionally than has been generally acknowledged.

It is my hope that discussion of this event and its context might lead to clearer understanding of subsequent events.

I should add that public interpretation of the Skirmish at Greenville is under consideration in the form a wayside exhibit near the site at Old Greenville and that response to this queary may help to define the nature and content of that interpretive wayside and perhaps provide a discussion to which interested visitors to that site could link.

After action reports for the July 20 1862 Skrimish at Greenville Mo. can be found in O.R. Series I Vol 13 Chapter XXV pp 166-171
accessible here: http://books.google.com/books?id=JtYUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA171&lpg=PA171&dq=July+20+1862+Skirmish+at+Greenville+Mo.&source=bl&ots=2DS-mM-U7U&sig=9-JRk8EEVVk07sqbi_YUKKRdS5w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=N2AJUMLxBIjarAHZpKjHCg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=July%2020%201862%20Skirmish%20at%20Greenville%20Mo.&f=false

Rusty Weisman

Senior Historic Preservation Specialist
Missouri Department of Transportation
Russell.Weisman@Modot.mo.gov