I commend you for your continued research into dicovering what happened to your ancestors in Missouri's Civil War. From what little I know of it, I would say you are doing this correctly. I want to reply to your question today about how the local Union military labelled George A. Weddle's widow as a southern sympathizer, and how they would have known Weddle was killed at the Lone Jack battle of 16 August 1862. This question is even more appropriate since the 150th anniversary of that fight comes up this Thursday.

First, let me address the lack of military record for Waddle on the online records of the Missouri State Archives. I tried myself without success to find a record for Weddle on the online Missouri State Archives under about a dozen possible spellings for his name. Many of the Confederate records are not in the Missouri State Archives, probably because the information was never applied to that database, and years ago nobody filled out data cards on many of those soldiers. There is another reason Weddle seems to have no official record. The southern forces that took part in the Lone Jack battle on 16 August 1862 were all part of a large southern recruiting force gathering in southern men from all over west-cental Missouri. This means that possibly Weddle as a new recruit for the Confederate army was not yet assigned to a unit and had not been in-processed yet when he was killed.

Second, you ask how the Union military would consider Weddle's widow as a southern sympathizer. The answer to that one is easy. Especially in rural areas, it was public knowledge how everyone voted, because during the Civil War America had not yet adopted the Australian secret ballot system of voting that we all use today. Current voting records were considered public including how everyone voted. Further, America was a very mobile society in the middle 1800's and people commonly asked where others were born and people commonly told their neighbors such information. In that rural society, everyone knew some such basic information about each of their neighbors. This is how people were introduced and how they introduced each other. You know, basic "ice-breaker" stuff. People enjoyed telling about their origins and what funny or dramatic experiences they had and hearing the same from others. Therefore, if a woman of that community became a widow because her husband was killed as a Confederate recruit or solider at this battle or that battle, just about anybody who lived close would soon know of this. In peacetime, neighbors hearing about such a tragedy of a woman whose husband was killed would do many welcome things to show sympathy and even offer to help her care for the farm or offer child care or at least bring by a caserole or something else to eat under the assumption that the new widow may be too distraught to cook. During the war, neighbors who were northern sympathizers may inform local Union authorities such information such as Mrs. Weddle's husband was killed as a Confederate soldier at the Lone Jack battle. This is just one of the many ways local Union authorities would know about Mr. Weddle's tragic death. Local southerners knew about each other and such knowledge might even be useful to passing southern guerrillas or Confederate soldiers to obtain food, shelter, feed for horses and so forth from a local widow of southern sympathy. The Union leaders would want to know to discourage Mrs. Weddle from giving such help to southerners, too. Such information was common knowledge in a neighborhood. Unfortunately, during a civil where it was often neighbor versus neighbor such knowledge often led to more tragedy and retribution that led to what some call a "cycle of violence" where one violent act often led to another and so forth.

Bruce Nichols