Ken,

Yes, there are a number of sources for this action, but the date is off. Colonel John Ritchie's 2nd Indian Home Guard Regiment (Union) and Colonel William A. Phillips' 3rd Indian Home Guard Regiment (Union) moved into Newton County, and Jasper County, MO and had minor actions in that area between September 1 and 5, according to Frederick Dyer's "A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion," Volume 2, page 804. Confederate forces and local southerners referred to the Indian Home Guard men as "pin Indians," but I read that the origin of this nickname has been lost to history. Union authorities sent them in to counter several Confederate commands including Confederate Colonel Douglas Hancock Cooper's Indian command, as well as Colonel John T. Coffee's and Colonel Upton Hays' Confederate cavalry regiments, that remained near Newtonia, Newton County for several days at this time. Confederate guerrilla leader Major Thomas Livingston and his bushwhacker band served as scouts for Cooper's Indian command for several days during September 1862.

On 9 September, Union troops of Company C, 6th Kansas Cavalry from Fort Scott, skirmished with Cooper's Rebel command at or near Newtonia, but no casualties are mentioned. I looked at the roster of Company C, 6th Kansas Cavalry, and failed to see any obvious Native American surnames in the company, but I know Indians served in some of the other Kansas regiments.

Coffee's and Hays' men skirmished at or near Newtonia again on 13 September with elements of the Union 3rd and 6th Cavalry Missouri State Militia, and the Union MSM suffered losses of 2 killed and 12 missing, although the Rebel losses are not well recorded.

The action that I believe matches Edwards' details took place on 20 September 1862 near Shirley's Ford of the Spring River. (This could refer to Bud Shirley, a farmer who lived near Carthage and was killed by Union troops later in the war. Not to muddy the waters, but Bud's daughter Myra postwar became the notorious bandit queen Belle Starr) The two Union Indian Home Guard regiments traveled with some of their wives and children, which proved to be a liability in this case. On September 20 at least Livingston's scouts and perhaps parts of Coffee's and Hays' regiments attacked the combined 2nd and 3rd Indian Home Guards, which probably is the instance you cited. Dyer recorded the Pin Indians' losses as 20 killed and 9 wounded, and Dyer only recorded Union casualties. Another source, the "Official Records" cited below, said Rebel losses included 22 killed. I don't know if any of these losses include some of the local residents the Pin Indians murdered during September 1862.

Other sources for the 20 September 1862 action at or near Shirley's Ford include:
-- "Official Records" series 1, Volume 13, p. 277 Colonel Ritchie's own report;
-- Ward I. Schrantz' "Jasper County in the Civil War," Carthage, MO: The Carthage Press, 1923, pp. 74-87; -- John C. Livingston, Jr. "Such a Foe as Livingston: The Campaign of Confederate Major Thomas R. Livingston's First Missouri Cavalry Battalion of Southwest Missouri," Wyandotte, OK, Gregath Publishing Co., 2004, pp. 33-37.

I hope this helps.
Bruce Nichols