This traveling group may have paralleled the Butterfield Overland stage route you mentioned, but Captain Box' detailed report makes it clear that he was following a definite cross-country trail. I quote "...discovered their trail about 1 mile from town [Syracuse]; followed it some distance, when we found their track scattered through the woods. I then ordered half of my men to dismount, at the same time dismounting myself, and followed the scattering tracks through the thick brush for about 10 miles, keeping the cavalry about 100 yards in our rear..." If I read that correctly, the captain and some of his troopers tracked their quarry on foot for about ten miles, keeping their horses and the majority of the 30 men 100 yards behind them. Box didn't state why he chose that particular method, but I guess I can see some advantages to it.

I have attempted to trace on topographical maps (an old army habit of mine) the route of various southern groups infiltrating through Yankee patrols on long treks from northeast Missouri all the way to the Arkansas line. They tended to choose speed and ability to cross ground quickly rather than stealth, since much of that country south of the Missouri River and the northern outskirts of the Ozarks is lightly populated, has much woods, and is hilly. I surmise from the knowledge that this group or that group traveleled between Point A and was later seen at Point B that many of these groups kept to the ridges, which were not sharp but gentle in slope and tended to be lightly timbered in the counties I describe. As long as they kept to the high ground and kept out of the brush and other empediments in the bottoms, mounted groups could make good time and be gone before Union cavalry could be brought to bear to catch up to them.

That being said, this particular group chose not to do that, but kept to the brush and therefore could not make speed, enabling Captain Box on foot (as I quoted him above) and tracking 61 mounted Rebels to catch up to them in a matter of hours. This was the second mistake of this group. Their first was attempting to stop the "Fanny Ogden" and shooting at her. Bad choices. More successful groups doing the same thing kept as low a profile as possible and moved as fast as they could ride to keep ahead of trouble.

At least, that is my take on what I read and my study of the terrain of Cooper, Moniteau, Morgan, Miller, and nearby counties, and some of that on the ground myself.

I do understand the great advantage in paralling major travel routes or roads, as that is sensible and can allow a certain speed of travel. When General Braxton Bragg's army marched back to Tennessee through the Cumberland Gap in 1862 they conscripted one of my ancestors (also because his sister royally insulted them by killing her hog when they told her they were taking it along). When my ancestor escaped from Bragg's men, he made his way home by paralleling the road and traveling at night, sleeping in the woods by day. He made it, and the story is well remembered in my family.

Bruce Nichols