I'm glad this was some help to you. Yes, I'm that author. The books are selling well. I have another book published by Two Trails Publishing in Independence called "Johnson County Missouri During The Civil War," that may help you. It is softback and not very expensive. It covers the 27th MO Mtd Infantry and some actions around Dunksburg in which your ancestors may have been involved. The church shooting incident is in there, too (more on that below--I'm responding to your latest note in order of appearance of the topics.).

I think the lady in Idaho may have the information that may determine the date of the killing, or at least the month and year of season and year. Well, anyway I hope so.

Local publications about war activities in the area of the junction of Johnson, Pettis, Lafayette, and Saline Counties? Well, you may wish to examine the older county histories of those four counties, but they have little about that remote location. As you have seen, even today there are just not many people there. The older histories from the 1880s and for the next few decades seem to have more than the more recent ones. Freedom Township in the southeast corner of Lafayette County has produced a booklet and a good periodical article about various events of the war there, but the authors restrict their topics only to the German-American community in that corner of Lafayette County strictly. As far as newspapers are concerned, The "Lexington Weekly Union" from the Lafayette County seat is on microfilm and available via Interlibrary Loan. Warrensburg didn't have a newspaper again until late in the war, 1865 at the earliest, and it was a weekly, too. Saline and Pettis Counties did not have weekly newspapers until very late in the war, either. The Jefferson City "Missouri Times" printed throughout the war, but seldom had much on the area the Randalls lived. A better chance would be the "Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce" which is also surviving on microfilm and freely covered west-central Missouri. That was a daily and a weekly, too. There were some newspapers north of the Missouri River such as at Liberty and St. Joseph through the war, but they didn't cover much south of the river. I don't know of any newspaper south of Warrensburg during the war until you get to Rolla or Springfield, and they would have little about this area. The Johnson County Historical Society at Warrensburg is rather aggressive and cooperative and may be of some help. I don't know about its counterparts in the other three counties, but the Pettis County one at Sedalia may be helpful. Contact them by mail or phone before you go so they have a chance to rummage around and see what they may have for you. They probably have some of those older county histories of not only their county but the surrounding ones, too.

The Dunksburg church is the Mount Zion church just south of town. The fight I described took place 15 July 1861, very early in the hostilities. It is described in the "Kansas City Daily Journal of Commerce" in the 30 July 1861 edition and in the 27 July 1861 edition of the St. Louis "Daily Missouri Democrat", and a flawed version in the "Kansas City Star" from 27 June 1939 has an article on it complete with cartoon. That one has some errors in it, as the author confused two or three different fights and mashed them together. The 1918 Johnson County history mentioned it on page 111. Your men took part because these sources say the Union side was Companies C and E of the 27th MO Mtd Inf took part, asd, as you wrote, the Randalls were in Company E.

Please let me know if you learn anything potent from Idaho.

Bruce