Bruce: Thanks for your reply and kind comments. A friend shared with me an ancestor's letter of 8/29/1862 that I am now interpreting. The soldier tells of a scout he went on, on 8/22/1862 from Bloomfield, Mo. which after some searching, I identified to be the one referenced in the OR Series I Vol. 13 pg. 250 paragraph 3. At the time, the soldier was in the 56th Enrolled Missouri Militia which fact ads a great deal to the OR account. You know I have an intense interest in the EMM so will pass on a few details as I continue to interpret this action for my friend. The reference in the OR states the soldiers on this scout included ".... four companies of State Militia, altogether 80 men." I believe these men were of the newly organized (mid-August 1862) 56th EMM. See also the Quiner Scrapbooks, Wisconsin Historical Society (online) Vol. 7 pg 159-60 where a soldier in the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry describes this scout and mentions one Capt. (Thomas H. B.) Walker. I believe he was acting as a scout/guide in this expedition, he formerly of Co. C 12th MSM Cavalry, resigned 7/16/1862. His CSR relates he was previously on detached service with the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry in May 1862, on scouting duty. In this context, the Missouri Militia were actually soldiers of the EMM taken along, perhaps, as they might be familiar with the territory--no other reason I can fathom as they were in service, some just a few days. Other entries in the Quiner Scrapbooks in this time frame show the disgust that the Volunteers had with the EMM---I will let you read it.
But one letter of this soldier from when he was in the EMM before joining a Missouri Volunteer regiment. Bob