Thanks for the information. It looks like you are really getting into your research.

It seems that LTC Thornton is like a few other Confederate commanders in Missouri in that he recruited men as if for a regular unit, but conducted operations as an irregular (as in guerrilla) unit. Some Confederate commanders would not cross that line of distinction between regular and irregular, but others felt necessary to cross over when necessity demanded it, especially when operating many miles behind Union lines.

I noticed in my research that some Confederate recruiters engaged in active warfare against Union troops after they had collected a suitable number of recruits, as such boldness tended to attract even more recruits--which is what I call the "bold approach." Others used what I call a "stealthy approach," recruiting "on the quiet" so as not to arouse Union suspicions, and then secretly infiltrating through Union patrols to get their new recruits back south to Confederate regular forces in Arkansas. So many years later, Missouri Civil War students have generally heard of the officers who advocated the "bold approach" because of all the attention it brought to them (such as LTC Thornton and Colonel Joseph C. Porter of NE MO), whereas, hardly anybody heard of the more successful recruiters using the "stealthy approach" (such as Colonel Caleb Dorsey, Colonel Caleb Perkins, and Colonel Eli Hodge all of NE MO). Both strategies brought success to some and disaster to others.

Bruce Nichols