Hello distant relatives. It's September 2014 and I just also stumbled across this site while researching the Burgess family. My great-grandfather was Herbert Lee Burgess, Originally from Ripley West Virginia. He sold his farm in 1917 and moved to western Pennsylvania, probably because of the abundant work in the steel mills in this area. His father was Garland Syrus Burgess, born in 1849 in Johnson County Missouri.

The whole raid history is fascinating. I am looking to track down other pieces of information Regarding our mutual great grandparents, John Anderson Burgess and Emily Ann Samuels Burgess.

1) Family legend has it that the men were lined up outside the house and subsequently shot. This does not seem to match with the stories, but more importantly Garland would have been about age 13 at the time of the raid. He would've been of "fighting" age. Were the younger children not in the house? Why would Emily have put her family in danger like this for the Confederacy?

2) What brought them to Missouri in the first place? They were farmers/salt mine owners in Kanawah County West Virginia. But it seems that John Burgess, and other close relatives packed up lock, stock, and barrel and moved hundreds of miles to Missouri. I've read that soldiers in the Revolutionary war were awarded bonuses or property in the Missouri territories.

3) What became of the property that the burgesses owned in Missouri that was burned by the Union soldiers? Was it sold off or abandoned? If I were to travel to Missouri from Pennsylvania with there be anything to see?

4) And lastly, references have that Emily was of Indian descent. Any ideas regarding this? It seems her family was also from West Virginia, and her grandparents from Bucks County Pennsylvania. So I find it hard to believe that she was the Indian lineage. Perhaps there was another group of burgesses that were intermingled with Native Americans. Family legend also talks about raiding parties that captured Indian women who subsequently became Their wives. Something also about a riverboat captain family member, and the Indian women were taken upon this boat while their relatives try to track down the boat as it traveled along the river.