Red,
Let's talk about your two proposals for a bit, because they have great merit. Of course, the two proposals I refer to are 1) a comprehensive effort to identify war deaths throughout Missouri for the entire war; and 2) a comprehensive effort to identify all men who served on either side throughout Missouri for the entire war. Actually, if it were me, I would reverse the two proposals, because identification of all the combatants could lend itself to identification of all the war deaths. I think I understand what you intend.

About terms, I would exclude civilians or noncombatants who died because of malnutrition, starvation, and other disease caused by both sides taking their food by force. If it were me, for war deaths I would restrict myself to those who were killed as a result of war action. I would avoid those who had war wounds and survived, because finding all who were wounded would be very hard to nail down. I would include combatants who died of disease because that is considered a cost to war, too. I understand why you proposed researchers with certain college degrees, because having such degrees implies those folks proved they can use discipline to perform such work and use professional judgment when needed. However, non-degreed researchers have proven they can apply the same skills and obtain similar results. Such a project would need cooperation across that virtual gap between academics and dedicated amateurs, or at least a temporary truce to the war between those two stalwart bodies.

I can see two starting points for such research. Most importantly, the 116 Missouri counties are excellent means to calculate both proposals through a controlled population--namely all the combatants who lived in a certain county at the beginning of the war or who came to live there during the war. The second starting point would be to begin with the 1860 census, which was intended by Congress to capture all residents in a single count every ten years--and that effort was county by county, by the way. You might want to compare the 1860 list of residents with the 1870 census to see how many men came out alive from the war, although that won't help much if large numbers of war survivors moved away before 1870. A real problem is the nature of young men and the difficulty of census-takers capturing data on young, single men who worked here and there with first this job and then another, and lived above this store or with so-and-so family for part of the year. I am saying the census had a serious weakness counting this particular demographic, which is the very part of the populace we want to capture to figure who were members of this or that military organization and also war deaths. Now, some counties were little scarred by warfare, while others saw almost continuous fighting for the whole war. See, some counties would be easier to apply this study than others.

Lots of available research, such as census research, is already geared to counties. Also, many of the oldest county histories contain a military chapter or a Civil War chapter which lists many of the combatants on either side (or just one side, if they wanted to). Present-day researchers (with and without degrees) have compiled books that contain detailed lists of county men in this or that organization, and several have written histories of certain counties throughout the war. Many of the local historical and genealogical societies are geared to a particular county or group of counties, too, and they would take pride in compiling such lists of their county men back in history.

Maybe somebody could suggest various county historical societies or genealogical groups could perform the lion's share of the research and compose both lists. Maybe a few have already done this. Back in the "Foxfire" and local history days of the 1970s many of these organizations worked for years to capture all the county cemeteries and who was buried in them. These hard-working groups are formed by dedicated volunteers, so, in a way, they are a new army of volunteers for a different purpose from those of the early 1860s. And, as a bonus, some of those volunteers had college degrees, to boot. Maybe they would be up to a new challenge. I would imagine the Secretary of State's Archives in Jefferson City would love to have a copy of the results, since they are charged with the keeping of these same records when they become available. I know they would love to fill in the gaps of their incomplete CW in MO records.

Anyway, these are just some of my thoughts. Keep it simple, and look for already existing boundaries and groups who may enjoy such an assignment. At least it would be a start. It has to start somewhere. Call it that whacky idea somebody thought of during the sesquiese..... well, the 150th anniversary of the war.

Bruce Nichols