While on an unrelated research task relating to Confederate pre-Appomattox activity in Mexico, I ran across a couple of intriguing communiques in the O.R.

Note Rose Mary’s transcription from Cole Younger’s memoir referring to the time Younger spent with “a secret service officer named Kennedy....” Younger goes into a discussion of traveling with Kennedy from Texas, through Chihuahua, and on into California in the spring of 1864.

Now go to the O.R., ser. 1, vol. 53, pp. 1044-1046, which provides two reports of a secret Confederate mission, led by an H. Kennedy, that went from Texas, through Chihuahua, and on into California in the spring of 1864. That got my attention.

According to the O.R. source, the secret Kennedy mission was undertaken pursuant to orders from Col. S. Hunter in order to recruit a unit to operate out of Arizona. Other sources reveal that a Major Sherrod Hunter was recruiting to raise a Confederate Arizona-New Mexico regiment in 1864-65. See Boyd Finch, “Arizona in Exile: Confederate Schemes to Recapture the Far Southwest,” Journal of Arizona History, Spring 1992. Note that this recruiting took place in such places as California, Oregon and Washington state. And then note where Cole Younger says he was at the time these recruits were coming from these places.

And why would Younger say in his memoir that he was delivering ironclad gunboats to the Pacific Northwest instead of saying he was recruiting? Some of you Cole Younger experts might be able to answer that one better than I, but I would start by saying that Cole Younger looks to have had a bit of a sense of humor.