Yes, that helps me understand matters a bit more.

I failed to comment on your statement that "they were all Republicans" from the 1882 Pettis County history. Just these men's voting on the Republican Party ticket in the 1860 election would have been enough to have somebody want to wish them gone. That seems hard to say considering Missouri is such a red state these days, but very few Missourians voted for Lincoln and the Republicans in 1860. A lot of the southerners and northerners worked hard to compromise and forestall or prevent the civil war they saw coming. A vote for Lincoln and the new Republican Party (the "Grand Old Party" or "GOP" label came a few years later) was viewed by many as a vote to split the nation into south and north, so most Missourians voted for Breckinridge or Bell as a compromise in a forlorn attempt to head off secession. Therefore, the few men across Missouri who voted the Republican ticket were viewed in their communities as fire-eater northerners and shunned or worse. I read about a man in Lincoln County, I think it was, who during 1863 was shot and killed by unknown assailant while walking along a road. The county history in mentioning this as an isolated act of Civil War violence in that county said only that the deceased had voted for Lincoln in the 1860 election. Can you see what I am saying? Remember, that the United States by 1860 had not adopted the Australian secret ballot and everybody in the local community could easily know how all their neighbors voted. Just voting for the Republicans in 1860 would get somebody the label as a northern radical or extremist in this state.

When you added that the Randall men and Hargrove also served in the 27th MO Mounted Infantry, then I knew that they were labeled by their community as what they used to call "firebrands." You see, the Johnson County regiment of Home Guards (renamed as the 27th MO Mtd Inf) was on the northern extreme of the spectrum as the men who recruited for the southern army were on the southern extreme of the spectrum. The most dedicated northerners across Missouri in 1861 joined the local county home guards in order to fight against the many southerners who were also preparing for war. The 27th went hunting for southern recruiters in a seveal county area of west-central Missouri. The 27th was a come-as-you-are sort of outfit and didn't keep good records, but they did a lot of fighting for many weeks in 1861. Union Department of the Missouri commander Major General Henry W. Halleck ordered all the Union home guards disbanded during the winter of 1861/1862 for a variety of good reasons, so the 27th obeyed and disbanded. The thousands of men across Missouri who had belonged to those home guard outfits usually afterwards joined "regular" Union regiments, and many of them later joined the "approved version" of home guard created in July 1862 called the Enrolled Missouri Militia or EMM. Johnson County and the surrounding area was rougher in terms of extreme thought and action and tended to have more neighbor versus neighbor fighting. As a result, many of the home guard members of 1861 in the Johnson County area either moved to Kansas, joined the regulars and went away to fight, or made their homes into little forts and prepared for the day when local southerners would come after them. It was just that bad in west-central Missouri. Men hunted each other down as if for sport. I researched this for years and have written about it, too.

What I am saying is that Missouri had a variety of different kinds of Union units a man could join at different times, and many of these men joined one and served for a while and then later joined a newer version and served for a while. Some men have records for serving in three to five different Yankee units throughout the war. The same is somewhat true on the southern side, too. John Randalll is on record as belonging to the Johnson County Regiment of Home Guards in Captain W. Applegate's Company E in August 1861, the 27th Missouri Mounted Infantry [I should tell you that there was not a 25th, 26th, 28th, or 29th MO Mtd Infantry, that this was a unique outfit] with the notation "rendered no service", but that means mostly that Captain Applegate didn't see John render service with him. Later John served in Company A of the 40th EMM with Terry and Hargrove. Terry is on record as serving both the 40th EMM during 1862 and in the 5th Provisional EMM during 1863, too. I agree with you that this is bewildering, but this is exactly what happened. Look upon their service in these different units as a cascade or series of service in whatever unit was available to them at various times. Honestly speaking, many of these units were disbanded when they became just an excuse to murder others and the authorities figured that out. There was one northern outfit in nearby Knob Noster in east Johnson County called "Clear Fork Rangers" or "Company Q' that was exactly that--an organized "hit team" to assassinate southern men in the neighborhood. The regular Union milita rode in from the Warrensburg garrison and shut them down. You shouldn't be surprised to hear that one of the leaders of the "Clear Fork Rangers" was later a skilled guide for regular Union cavalry outfits that worked in that same area, and not much justice was returned for these men assassinating their own neighbors. Southerners did this, too, only they did it through the bushwhackers. Some of the southerners were guerrillas or bushhwackers at some times and members in good standing of regular Confederate outfits at other times. No kidding.

Terry and John and Reuben drilled and met with their unit in Dunksburg, as that village was known as being a center for area northerners. At one time during 1861 a southern bunch came to get them at a church (still standing last I heard) these northern men were known to meet in. The southerners surrounded the building and shooting quickly broke out. Several southerners were hit and a hot fight went on for a few minutes until somebody figured out that these men were shooting through the frame church and its windows and hitting their own men on the other side. Their nothern prey were not even there! Of course, that was in 1861 before men in this region acquired better skills at hunting each other down. During 1863 a band of Quantrill guerrillas came to the Dunksburg area with a "kill list" and assassinated a couple of local northern men before the militia patrol out of Warrensburg (the nearest Union garrison of regulars) tracked them there and chased them away. Even if we cannot determine a date for the killing of the Randalls and Hargrove, I am sure this is also what happened to them. The difference is that I may stand a chance in determining which bunch did the work if I knew the date or even the month and year. In the final analysis, it really doesn't matter, though. If I keep adding such data, it helps me to acquire over time a better assessment of who was doing what when. Sort of a gruesome hobby, but I hope I have rendered you some service and answered your questions.

Bruce