Your fast response to my query is the single most helpful thing we've ever had to help explain why Monegaw Springs appears in Lyons family lore in connection with Elias Lyon's capture and eventual death. Many thanks, including thanks for correcting my spelling of Monegaw Springs!

Our Elias Lyons is not among the four Lyons men you ask about; my wife was checking the 1860 Federal Census on line (Ancestry.com) today and finds these men belong to other Lyons families. I wish we did know the county of Elias' residence: it would make life a lot simpler. We think maybe he doesn't appear in the Census just because, as his son William said, he was still moving around, or moving around again. There is a hole in his history from 1855 (when he sold his land in Hancock County, KY) to 1862.

We did look at the Eakin list when at the county library in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago. We originally thought her not listing Elias Lyons suggested that he was not from Missouri: she says in her introduction that she is listing "Missouri men." We couldn't tell whether that means born in Missouri or residents of Missouri. Now you have helped us understand that Elias Lyons may well be missing from the list just because of the primitive, or non-existent, record-keeping typical of that stage of the war. As for Elias' son William's not being listed: he was born in 1847 so it is just possible he was active militarily, I guess, but there is no family or other tradition that we've found to suggest this. In fact, he went back to Hancock County, along with my maternal gt-grandfather and a sister not later than the mid-1860's because guardianships were appointed for them then according to documents we have found in Hancock County. Catherine Lyons, Elias' wife, seems to have vaporized around that time. We've never found a trace nor have any of the other folk trying to track her down, far as we know.

I very much appreciate your help in our search and particularly enjoyed the engaged style of your writing. I also somehow appreciate the fact that one of your men and one of ours, with similar or the same loyalties, passed through that miserable place, Gratiot Street Military Prison. It gives a belated sense of solidarity. Finally, if we do finally answer the Elias Lyons questions, we'll be sure to post them in the interest of clarifying one little bit of War history in Missouri.

Many thanks for your help,

Barry