I have seen in a couple of places references to Irvin Walley, the man who was accused of killing Cole Younger's father Henry on July 20, 1862, as being a member of the 5th MSM (Old). For example, in Richard Brownlee's Gray Ghosts of the Confederacyand on Find-a-Grave. However, Walley was never a member of the 5th MSM. He was at one time a member of the Cass County Home Guards and may have been a civilian at the time Henry W. Younger was killed.

The mistake about his being a member of the 5th MSM may come from a letter Gen. Ben Loan wrote to Gen. Sam Curtis on January 27, 1863 in which he said: "Recently, I had arrested a Captain Walley, who had murdered one Harry Younger, in Jackson County, for his money. The evidence of his guilt was so clear and conclusive that he confessed it. Preferring that he should be regularly tried and punished, I directed a court to he held in Independence for that purpose. The witnesses, soldiers in the Fifth Regiment Missouri State Militia, who were stationed at Harrisonville in Cass County, were sent to attend court. When on their way, they were bushwhacked by a band under Bird Younger, a son of the murdered man, and the court was not held. No court can be held in Jackson, Johnson, Cass, Bates, Henry or Vernon Counties." (OR, Serial 33, pp 0078-0082.)

No element of the 5th MSM was south of the Missouri river before August 17, 1862, that I can see from the record of events, so if they were witnesses it would not have been to the actual shooting but perhaps to having heard Walley confess. It is not known when the "witnesses" were bushwhacked but I can find no men of the regiment who were killed in January 1863 or even December 1862. I don't believe Walley ever did stand trial or suffer any punishment for the crime General Loan was quite sure he committed. Walley died in Bates County, MO, April 28, 1893 and is buried in Butler. The 1881 history of Jackson County mentions the killing of Henry Younger but does not mention Walley, so I don't know if it was widely known during his lifetime that he was the prime suspect in the murder.

Does anyone know more?

Tom Jones