I almost turned aside and didn't answer at all, because at first blush I thought I had nothing for you. Actually, I have next to nothing for you. Let me explain.

First, I found no online military service record for an E. Kerk or E. Kirk in the Missouri State Archives. That is not unusual, since that archive is missing a lot of the Missouri Confederate records. Nobody took them away, as it appears nobody ever put them in there. I know that over the last 30 or so years people have been placing such records in that archive, but there are so many to do yet.

Second, an historian a few years ago sent me a copy of his composed roster with notes for the 12th Missouri Cavalry Regt. (CSA) that was part of Colonel Joseph O. Shelby's "Iron Brigade," but nowhere in those regimental files is a record for an E. Kerk or E. Kirk. Much of those rosters have been re-invented or re-created since the originals either didn't exist or where destroyed during or just after the war, so more and more of those records are coming to light, one way or the other. Sadly, your guy isn't there yet.

Now, to the "almost nothing" part, and it is slim. What I found is an 1860 Missouri Census record in the right place for a 20-year-old female, born in MO, named M. E. Kirk. The census of Freedom Township of southeast Lafayette County shows her on page 576 in the household of 49-year-old, Kentucky-born, farmer Veriah Taylor. Taylor's household also has three twenty-somethings Taylors, born Alabama and Virginia, and three small Taylor children born in MO, between the ages of 6 and 2. And, last but not least, there is Miss M. E. Kirk.

Two reasons this is hopeful for you. One is Freedom Township is in the ballpark area for Colonel Joseph O. Shelby's lightning four-day recruiting whirlwind during August 1862 that netted him hundreds of men and the foundation of what became the 12th MO Cav and the rest of what became his "Iron Brigade." Shelby's own home was in or very near Waverly, MO, in northeast Lafayette County, just a few miles north of this Wilson household. This Miss M. E. Kirk is very much in the target area for Shelby's recruiting. You see, in autumn 1861 Shelby led his own guerrilla band composed of guys from east Lafayette and west Saline Counties, and many of those guys helped Shelby "get the word out" in August 1862 that brought in so many men to sign up with Waverly's fireball colonel.

The other reason this is hopeful for you is that the 1860 census, like all the censuses, did a lousy job of capturing young, single men who hardly had a place to hang their hat because they were often moving around, doing first this job and that job, and going off on first one adventure and then another, driving freight wagons, driving stagecoaches, working riverboats, and well... you get the picture. That is why is was so hard to capture such active young men in the census. Sometimes, all the census taker could capture was the young man's mom, or a younger brother or sister. Voila! Enter Miss M. E. Kirk! She may be as close as we can get. I spent many years trying to catch the men who became guerrillas in west-central Missouri in the 1860 census, and it is hard to do for many of them. You can catch them when they were kids back in the 1850 census, but for many of them they didn't appear when 18 to 24 years old in the 1860 census. Provided the Kirks were around this area in 1850, you should look for them in the 1850 census. I don't have easy access to it, or I would have done that before I replied.

There you go. Next to nothing, as promised!

Seriously, it's as close as I can get.

Bruce Nichols