I have wondered if this was my ggrandfather John Van Meter. My ggf moved to St. Joseph, MO, in 1857 from his birthplace in WVa along with his wife Ruth and they moved from there to Texas in about 1878, for some reason. He would have been about 26 yrs old about the time of the Civil War. St. Joseph was the hotbed of Quantrill's activities and was where Jesse James was finally kiilled. In looking through the MO census of those war years, however, I found about 4 John Van Meters residing in MO who were of the right age. Found nothing yet to indicate my ggf was the one. I keep looking.

Don Van Meter