This Eades business has been bugging me, so I did a bit of research. However, to tie up loose ends, I will probably need some of John's services hunting down people to see if I have pegged the right ones.

One of the loose ends was where this fight took place. Captain Box said he found the trail of these 61 men about a mile from Syracuse. Since I strongly believe this traveling group was in reality some of Confederate recruiter Colonel Sidney D. Jackman's recruits with some cadre working their way south to Arkansas, I believe Box found the trail about a mile SOUTH of Syracuse. Since Captain Box says he followed the trail ten miles before he made contact, this places the battle site just two to four miles north of Versailles, county seat of Morgan County, unless the Rebels were riding more southwest into Benton County or southeast into Miller County. This is about as close as I can get to the actual site. You see, these Rebels must have known they had to find a safe crossing of the wide Osage River and would have soon after crossing the Pacific railroad tracks near Syracuse started veering toward that distant crossing site. From my reading, the primo crossing sites of the Osage River in this region for behing-Union-lines Rebel riders would be in Benton or Camden Counties.

Now, who were these guys? A day before Captain Box's fight, on October 4 the "O.R." vol. 22, part 2, p. 615 and the St. Louis "Daily Missouri Democrat" and "Daily Missouri Republican" of October 19 mentioned a group of about 80 guerrillas, probably of "Jackman's band" crossed the Missouri River to the south about five miles east or southeast of Arrow Rock, southeast Saline County. They didn't do it quietly, as they attempted to stop the passing steamer "Fanny Ogden" in order to cross over on the vessel, but the steamer refused to stop and the guerrillas fired on the boat, putting a few bullets through the "Fanny Ogden'"s upper works. This alerted Union troops in the area that a big bunch of trigger-happy Rebels were riding south through Cooper County, and that somebody had better do something about it. Therefore, Captain Box and his 30 troopers MAY have been on alert when they heard that somebody saw this body of riders crossing the railroad near Syracuse the next day on October 5. Meanwhile, Shelby's raid was at this time riding fast northbound in Dade County far away in southwest Missouri, so I don't believe these riders in Cooper County were going to meet them. I doubt they would have known about Shelby's raid, but maybe not.

Colonel Jackman spent months recruiting in the region around Howard and Boone Counties and wanted to get his recruits in manageable size units south to the Confederate Army in Arkansas before the onset of winter. One of his subordinates was Captain James F. Wilhite of Clear Creek Township of west-central Cooper County, but this Wilhite was at that time in military prison in the St. Louis area. So, which LTC Wilhite did Captain Box's men kill? Living with James F. Wilhite in the 1860 census was physician W. D. Wilhite, only two years younger than James, probably a brother. I could find nothing on this Wilhite in the online Missouri State Archives. John, could you see what you could find on this Doctor W. D. Wilhite of Cooper County? Especially is he lived after the war? Now, there were lots of Wilhite households in Boone County and several in Saline County. Hemet and Jefferson Wilhite were active in guerrilla activities in Howard County, where Jackman was recruiting, and also in west-central Missouri with the Quantrill guys, but I can account for Jefferson Wilhite in 1864. I don't have much more on Hemet, so he may be a candidate to be LTC Wilhite that Box's patrol killed. John, can you see what you can discover about Hemet Wilhite. Frankly, Dr. W. D. Wilhite or Hemet Wilhite may be good candidates to be the LTC Wilhite Box's men killed. Most of the other active Wilhites I can account for but these two.

This brings me back to "Colonel" Preston H. Eades. I actually believe Preston Eades was killed in this fight. The problem I have is exactly what was Preston Eades doing with this bunch of traveling recruits and cadre? As discussed, there seems to be no evidence that Eades was actually a colonel. By the way, Captain Box in his report never mentioned Eades, only his XO, LTC Crittenden did in HIS report of October 9. A newspaper ("Daily MO Republican" of 21 October 1863) said "a Col. Eads from Cooper county, was one of the killed," but perhaps the paper got that from LTC Crittenden's report. I wonder if Eades was acting as a guide to take these men as safely as possible through the Cooper County area, but that is just a guess. I don't mean to take anything away from Eads--maybe he really was a colonel.

Another thing that bothers me from Captain Box's report is that a few of the group were wearing Union uniforms and heavily armed with shotguns and multiple revolvers. That sounds like bushwhackers, but maybe not.

That's what I have after looking into this a bit.

Bruce Nichols