" John James Sitton left school during the ferment leading up to the Civil War, but learned upon returning home that federal soldiers had the names of all southern sympathizers “including my own.” He left in May 1861 to join the Missouri State Guard, but en route joined Walker’s regiment of Gen. N. B. Pearce’s Arkansas State brigade. “Through the influence of family on both sides,” he obtained a discharge from Arkansas service on 29 July 1861 and immediately enlisted in Gen. James H. McBride’s Seventh Division of the Missouri State Guard, joining the First Infantry Regiment led by his uncle, E. T. Wingo, now a colonel. Sitton became the regiment’s stndard bearer and carried the Missouri flag into battle at Wilson’s Creek on 10 August."

Alan Thrower
England