Actually, yes, this group of traveling southerners was part of Colonel John C. Porter's command. We know this because the Union forces were alerted to meet and fight this moving group of horsemen and some of the Confederates captured and the released captives admitted that this was one group of Porter's men. Souce: "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies in the War of the Rebellion," series 1, vol. 13, page 321, report by Colonel Albert Sigel, 13th Cavalry MSM, commanding the Union troops in this fight.

This was exceptional, since there were several Confederate recruiters who had operated in northeast Missouri that summer and they split their recruits into separate traveling groups in order to enhance their chances of infiltrating Union-occupied SE and SW Missouri in order to reach the Rebel army in Arkansas. Normally, these traveling bands of neophyte Rebels left no record of who recruited them as they passed or even skirmished with Yankee patrols. As I said, this was an exception in that Colonel Sigel obtained prisoner and captive testimony that this band originated from the efforts of Colonel Porter.

Bruce Nichols