Pamela,

I think I came across the brother William Harbison in the online Civil War service records, but nothing that even remotely resembles the John Jefferson Harbison under a bunch of different spellings. Sorry.

The two records for the brother are these:
W. H. Harbison joined as a private in Captain Rice's Company I of the Cole County Home Guards on 6 July 1861 in Miller County south of Cole County. The remark at the bottom of the card says "was never in the service." Cole and Miller Counties, MO were about three counties west of Iron County.

On 26 September 1862 William Harbison at Ironton, Iron County, enrolled as a private into Captain Ezell's Company E of the 68th Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM). He was ordered on 3 April 1863 to active service in that company. However, the remark at the bottom at the card reads "No service." It also says "Roll [of unit] says: Assigned, not mustered in."

I cannot add anything about the W. H. Harbison's service or no service in the Cole County Home Guards, but I can add a little about service in the EMM. Union Department of the Missouri General Order Number 19 in July 1862 created the 70-some-odd regiments of the EMM by making enrollment mandatory in the EMM for all able-bodied men. The EMM was to be Missouri's own private northern army. When the men responded to the order by enrolling, if they were southern in sympathy they were to state so when they were enrolled. Most southern men either didn't enroll or enrolled and pretended to be northern in sympathy. Hardly anyone was stupid enough to announce to the enrolling officer that they were secessionist, because they had sense enough to realize that the EMM would assess money penalties for being southern to pay for the EMM or worse. The "worse" was that the other enrolled members of their local company would pay that man a visit some night and burn him out to convince him to go south to Dixie, or kill him. So, many southern men enrolled as ordered just to allay their neighbors' suspicion and give some "lip service" to being a part of the new company but with no intent to ever serve in such a Union unit. You see the EMM was what they used to call "grassroots" militia similar to what America had in colonial times. That meant that all able-bodied men enrolled and occasionally drilled together, but the unit didn't get called to active duty until there was a real threat nearby. Those men could stay home at their civilian jobs or trades until called. That way, if some guy felt pressured to enroll in the local unit, he had plenty of time to "beat feet" and leave before anybody in his unit got suspicious that his heart wasn't in serving. In other words, lots of guys signed up to keep in good graces with local authorities but then could not be found to actually perform any soldiering. This was also true with men who could care less if North or South won the war, but they knew they didn't want any part in it. Lots of those men went out west to wait out the war by looking for gold or silver in Montana Territory, Colorado Territory, or Nevada, or just "cool it" in California. It was one thing to enroll, but something else again to actually serve, even if mustered in.

The part of Missouri served by the 68th EMM has so few northern men in residence that many counties in that part of MO had only one company in the 68th to the extent that the 68th EMM had companies in a great many southeast MO counties. The funny thing is that there were enough serious northern men in the 68th that they performed their soldiering duties at times in adequate fashion. The 68th EMM actually had a rather good reputation.

I hope that helps.
Bruce Nichols