I hope it is ok to respond to old posts. In research I'm doing on the 12th Missouri Volunteer Cavalry, I came across a letter from one L. M. Lawson to Adj. Gen'l John Gray dated October 7, 1863. Lawson had been offered a commission as major in the 12th, which was then recruiting, principally in the St. Joseph and northwest Missouri area (but also St. Louis, north central and south central Missouri).

Lawson wrote Gray to decline a commission because the new 12th regiment was taking too many men and officers from the old 5th MSM Cavalry. "The element naturally attracted by such men to the service of the Govt. is lawless and unruly--and the recruits are chiefly drawn from the scattered fragments of the 5th Cav. & companies of the Provisional Regts. in service in this part of the State which have been relieved on account of their lawless and riotous conduct." "I am unwilling to associate with men in a Regt. whose [unreadable] and character are so marked by revolutionary tendencies as to be totally oblivious of all the rights of property and the laws of the land."

Lawson, who I believe was from Platte County, shouldn't have been so hasty in characterizing the new regiment, which under the leadership of Canadian Oliver Wells performed well fighting Forrest in Mississippi, Hood in Tennessee, and the Indians on the Powder River. But his letter is indicative of the squabbles in Missouri at this time between conservatives and radicals.