Bear in mind that the Yankee ledgers of the prisoners in the St. Louis area were full of errors. I used Joanne Chiles Eakin's "Missouri Prisoners of War" book that compiled those ledgers.

There are two entries--one for a "Clark Sturgis" and one for a "Clark Sturges." They most likely are the same man. These state, in effect, that Clark was a citizen of Benton County captured or arrested there on 15 August 1863; was sent first to "G & M," which means either the Gratiot Street Prison or the Myrtle Street Prison. Clark was transferred to the Alton Illinois military prison 4 May 1864, where he was released on 23 June 1865, along with just about all the other remaining prisoners at the end of hostilities in Missouri.

Those above records do not show an entry indicating on "Sep. 1, 1864 not here." That could have been an erroneous entry in the records. Clark could have escaped or been released and the ledger may have failed to reflect that, and then been re-arrested and sent back to prison. That sounds thin to me, and without more evidence, I don't believe it. The fact that the Union held Clark until the bitter end of the war in MO tells me that his tribunal threw the book at him, but at least they didn't send him to the state penitentiary, as they did many others. I wonder if Clark Sturges refused to take the oath and pay bond, like many other civilians did.

Yes, he was a civilian and probably not involved with the military. Today, we would probably call him a "political prisoner." If he had been convicted in tribunal of being a guerrilla, the Union military would have executed him. I could not find a record for him in the MO Sec'y of State's online Missouri State Archives military service records, although the southern records there are very "hit or miss." You may use this same site to examine the newly-published Provost Marshal files.

I was curious as to why Sturges was arrested, too. There was lots of stuff happening in Benton County and area during August 1863, but I have no clue as to Clark's role in all that. This was the month that elements of the 7th Cavalry MSM from that area went beserk and killed several southern sympathizers and torched houses of others. The southern Smith brothers and Chastain brothers from their cave near the Osage River in Benton County were robbing and killing passersby, probably about this time.

Sorry I couldn't shed more light on this mystery.

Bruce Nichols