Barbara,
I forgot to check the provost marshal online records at the MO Sec'y of State website. That was a good catch. Having an Iowa Union officer as provost for this subdistrict ensured some degree of fairness that some jusisdictions did not enjoy.
Before I answered, I checked out the 1860 census records. I noticed the Caffey's in the next household. I also saw that not only the Stokes were from Tennessee less than five years before the start of the war, but that a large proportion of their neighbors in Union Township had Tennessee origins, too. It's been my observation that being from Tennessee did not always mean siding with the South in the Missouri war, but many times that was so. By the way, I also noticed the 1860 census shows several Stokes families in neighboring Greene County and one household in nearby Lawrence County.
Stokes would probably have lost his postmaster job in 1865 anyway, when the radical Drake or "Ironclad" constition went into effect in 1865. This prevented anyone who supported the southern cause in any way from holding office, preaching, voting, teaching, and so forth. This constition remained in place for about six or seven years, when the pendulum of public opinion swung back to the moderate view, ushered in the "Lost Cause" movement in the state, and helped to bring back a more even-handed constition.
During the war, a large number of southwest Missourians left the region, and there was also a great shortage of local newspapers. The newspaper shortage was critical because many of the local killings went unrecorded unless the Kansas City, Jefferson City, Rolla, or St. Louis newspapers happened to hear of it, although there was a Springfield newspaper part of the time. In 1983, Lois Stanley, George F. Wilson, and Maryhelen Wilson combed through surviving Missouri wartime newspapers and painstakingly recorded in alphabetical order all the deaths reported during the war years in their book "Death Recordd From Missouri Newspapers, January 1861-December 1865." These included those who died or disease, accident, or violence. I did look for Stokes in this book, but no luck.
Bruce Nichols