You are welcome.

I think you also have an "engaged style of writing," and you should consider writing more. Seriously.

The part where the Lyons family went back home to Hancock County, KY reminds me of similar oral history family stories where part of a family stuck in the terrible war in Missouri suffered a loss and returned to their roots back in another state they lived before Missouri. Sorry to say that must have occurred with some frequency, as large parts of Missouri were nearly depopulated, particularly in the south portion of the state.

Regarding what Joanne Chiles Eakin meant when she wrote her book contained "Missouri men," I don't actually know other than what she wrote in the introduction. That being said, I read enough of her other works to see she used common sense and fairness, so I would assume she applied what constitutes "Missouri men" in her choices on a variety of clues and categories that also used "the benefit of the doubt." Ms. Eakin would not wish to exclude any possible "Missouri man" without a careful examination.

The stories of the disappeared ancestors who go off to war and are never heard from again abound in the turmoil and angst of Civil War Missouri, and the tales of Union troops taking a man off to prison without a record made that he was ever there are all too common. Some of these simply don't have enough detail to take further--a tragedy in itself. Yours had some good clues that gave me a little bit of room to work. I regret I could not direct you to another source or avenue for research, as I really enjoy that part.

Bruce Nichols