The VMM (I believe the letters stand for "Veteran Enrolled Missouri Militia.") was the postwar paramilitary organization set up in most Missouri counties under General Orders Number 3 (I am unsure exactly whose G. O. Number 3 this refers to--probably the State of Missouri, since the Federals left Missouri mostly to its own devices after March 1865.) after the older EMM organizations from summer 1862 were dismantled in March 1865. The VMM organizations were in use only for several months in the middle of 1865 until civil law and other local and state organizations could be re-established in the wake of over four years of martial law in Missouri. As you acknowledged, these organizations handled civil emergencies like floods and the like, and may have also helped form posses to apprehend fleeing felons and escaped prisoners.

I have not studied these 1865 organizations yet, so I cannot write with full confidence.

Bruce Nichols