Marcy,
Well, that helps quite a bit, even without knowing when it happened during the war. Let me rummage around and see what I can discover.
Just glancing at a Osage County map, I can see that Jefferson Township is in southeast Osage County south of the Gasconade River in the area around Belle, Missouri, west of the Owensville area of west-central Gasconade County and north of the northeast corner of Maries County and the area around Lane's Prairie. Roughly, that is mostly high ground between the Gasconade River watershed to the northwest and the Bourbouse River watershed to the southeast.
If a group of southern horsemen wanted to make tracks through that region coming from or going to northeast Missouri, according to my little map, keeping to the high ground between those two river valleys would be a good route to go. Now, I don't yet know if such a traveling group took Mr. Walland's life as they passed through, but that is one possibility I will examine.
Have you ever looked for death or cemetery records for Reinhard Bernard Walland near his home at his church or at the cemetery or family plot where he was buried? I know the German-American and Swiss-American communities tended to keep excellent burial records that sometimes included brief notes about circumstances that resulted in a person's death. Local church records can be helpful, too. Has anybody checked into such records yet?
I am thinking about some events in either 1861 or 1864 in that area, but I will have to look. Quantrill was not leading his band until December 1861, and, to be honest, I have not encountered either Quantrill or his men riding through that neighborhood anytime during the war, so it could have been somebody else. During 1861 there was some ruckus at or near Lane's Prairie in Maries County to the south. Some of Quantrill's former men did pass northbound through Morgan County two counties to the west late summer 1864, as I recall my reading. Also, Quantrill with about 40 riders did pass southbound one county to the west through Miller County in December 1864. But there were other groups of southern riders that passed through there, and I'm inclined to think that is what took place with your ancestor. I will see if I can be more specific.
Until later, Bruce Nichols