I was delighted to see the memoir of Benjamin James (B.J.) Farmer posted here. I have been researching family history to find that this Ashe County, N.C. native who came to Missouri just before the war was both hard working and flamboyant. He was captured 1/17/62 with others in the militia while attending a ball at Bloomfield, MO, a get-together preliminary to re-enlistment. Farmer was also at Wilson's Creek and Chalk Bluff and left interesting notes on the latter in the collection.
In an odd way, the Civil War still divides our family. Farmer, his paternal Uncle Jesse Farmer and family came to Missouri before the war. Ensuing hostilities and changed conditions resulted in severed ties with this man's family (parents, two sons from a first marriage, other relatives) in North Carolina. Some Farmer genealogy on the web says he died during the war. Family ties unraveled. No, he died 1915 in the Confederate Veterans Home in Arkansas.
During the past year I have been a Battle of Marshall (MO) organization volunteer. The year long commemoration provided interesting windows into history. Researching family history has provided parallel insights. Among other things, B.J. Farmer was a township constable in a northwest Arkansas county post-war, a rugged area famous for "The Hanging Judge" and outlaws escaping into Indian Territory.