Arnold Krekel was from St. Charles MO and raised a unit called Col. Krekel's Regt Home Guards from July 6, 1861 til Aug 12 '61 which morphed into a battalion in 1861 called Krekel's Battalion USRC MO Infantry. Mustered Aug 12th 1861 at St Charles it was disbanded and mustered out Jan 10, 1862. see https://www.fold3.com/image/234857001
On the same day he was commissioned as Lt Col 1st Battalion Missouri State Militia Cav. by Gov Gamble himself. He then turns around and asks for LOA to attend the state convention. He then takes another LOA May 31st to attend to a personal matter in court. https://www.fold3.com/image/201247487
He is then found lobbying on behalf of an unauthorized ferry in St. Charles Co in April '63
https://www.fold3.com/image/289099013
He appears to be the Col of the 27th EMM in '64 when he pleads to get paid for his time and to keep at least 2 companies guarding railroads in St. Charles County. https://www.fold3.com/image/238974892
He then ends up collecting $500 for expenses in collecting a $10,000 fine against James Judge. The irony is Krekel sent the Sheriff out to actually collect the money.
https://www.fold3.com/image/301000648
https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/krekel-arnold
Born March 12, 1815, in Langenfeld, Germany
Died July 14, 1888, in St. Charles, MO
Federal Judicial Service:
Judge, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri
Nominated by Abraham Lincoln on March 6, 1865, to a seat vacated by R.W. Wells. Confirmed by the Senate on March 9, 1865, and received commission on March 9, 1865. Service terminated on June 9, 1888, due to retirement.
Education:
St. Charles College
Read law, 1844
Professional Career:
Surveyor, St. Charles County, Missouri
Justice of the peace, St. Charles County, Missouri, 1841-1843
Private practice, St. Charles County, Missouri, 1844-
County/city attorney, St. Charles County and St. Charles City, Missouri, 1846-1850
Editor, St. Charles [Missouri] Democrat, 1850-1864
State representative, Missouri, 1852
Lecturer, University of Missouri School of Law, 1872-1875
Now to confuse the issue he apparently also was in charge of this bunch:
The 1st Battery, Missouri State Militia Artillery was enrolled between 25 January 1862 and 4 April 1862. They were mustered between 25 February 1862 and 3 June 1862. The Battery was discharged 23 November 1862. The Lieutenant Colonel in charge was Arnold Krekel.
Companies in this Regiment with the Counties of Origin:
Company A - Captain Henry Windmueller - Many men from St. Charles, St. Charles County
Company B - Captain Adolph Hufschmitt - Many men from St. Charles, St. Charles County
Company C - Captain George Muller - Many men from St. Charles, St. Charles County
Company D - Captain Fred Heign - Many men from St. Charles, St. Charles County
Company E - Captain O. N. Thurber - Many men from Harrisonville, Cass County
The above information about the companies with partial rosters is found in Kenneth E. Weant's book, Civil War Records: Union Troops Missouri State Militia Cavalry, Volume 7.
Add to this he maaged to get himself appointed PM in Fulton, Callaway Co based in August 1862. I suspect his group of men including Nash thought they were the law and above the law in Central Missouri by this time. https://www.nwmissouri.edu/library/theses/2013/SaegerAndrew.pdf
"Sometime in mid-August, the vilified Arnold Krekel, now a lieutenant colonel, became the provost marshal at Fulton. There is no official record of any of his orders while in Fulton, but Callawegians kept their own stories.
The published late-nineteenth-century history of the county contains the texts of orders Krekel issued while provost marshal. In these orders Krekel demanded that all loyal men report for enlistment and all disloyal men surrender their firearms. In another order, Krekel threatened swift, violent justice upon anyone who succored guerillas or failed to report armed rebels in their vicinity.
According to one story, a party of rebels camped near James Renoe’s farm in rural Callaway County. They demanded supplies of Renoe, who surrendered them at gunpoint. The next morning, when he felt the family was safe, Renoe’s father rode into Fulton to inform Krekel of the men near his farm. Krekel had already heard of the rebels’ presence and had dispatched men to deal with them. As the father returned home, he met Union soldiers along the road, leading one of his horses bearing a bloody saddle. Closer to home, Mr. Renoe found his son James shot to death and laid out along a fence line. Witnesses at the scene said the soldiers shot him without justifiable provocation.
Another story records the murders of William R. Given, his son David, and their neighbor Charles Hill. The Givens were Confederate sympathizers, but Hill was a Union supporter. In October 1862, a band of rebel bushwhackers camped near the Given farm and brought a wounded man to the farm for medical care which the Givens provided. When Krekel heard about the guerillas, he dispatched most of his force, known derisively in Callaway County as Krekel’s Krauts, to root them out. The militiamen found Charles Hill and William and David Given reroofing a nearby schoolhouse. Krekel’s soldiers took the men prisoner and held them under guard in Given’s buggy house. When the rebel band attacked the militia, the commanding officer, presumably Krekel, ordered his men to shoot the prisoners. The soldiers shot and killed all three men. William Given, an elderly religious man, was on his knees praying for his captors when they shot him.
As with the provost marshals before and after him, it is unclear when Lt. Col. Krekel’s regime ended. What is clear is that there was a bitter enmity between Krekel and almost all residents of Callaway County. And Callawegians were not the only people to dislike Krekel. Krekel was an able leader and a skilled compromiser in the political arena, but his skills did not translate into effective military leadership. For a time Krekel had the faith and support of Gen. Schofield, but multiple superior officers believed Krekel was an incompetent officer. Colonel John V. Du Bois and J. H. Gamble, the master of transportation for the North Missouri Railroad, believed Krekel acted foolishly by shutting down a railway mechanical repair yard in the middle of an increased need for speedy troop transportation. Missouri’s Adjutant General John B. Gray thought Krekel was either lazy or unintelligent in his methods of recruiting for the Enrolled Missouri Militia. About the time that Krekel became Fulton’s provost marshal, Colonel Lewis Merrill, commander of the famed cavalry unit called Merrill’s Horse, summed up his thoughts on Krekel. Merrill wrote to General Odon Guitar that “Krekel ought to be able to do something, but he and his men are evidently so worthless that I can hope for nothing from them.”
Cobb and Krekel's forces apparently crossed paths late August early Sept 1862, from the Republican on Aug 28, 1862
PORTLAND -- The notorious guerrilla Alvin Cobb was attempting to cross the Missouri River heading south with about 1,000 men, Col. Arnold Krekel reported to St. Louis headquarters.
Brig. Gen. John Schofield called on Brig. Gen. Lewis Merrill, stationed at Macon, to assist in trapping Cobb. Krekel intended to block the crossing, Schofield wrote to Merrill. “Can you do anything to bag him?”
Lt. Col. Arnold Krekel's St. Louis-area German-American cavalry battalion, serving in Fulton late 1862, was derided as "Krekel's Dutch," guilty of numerous depredations including summary executions of William and David Givens and Unionist Charles Hill, at Prairie Chapel, Sept. 4, 1862, during a Federal "search-and-destroy" mission for Confederate guerrillas.
Krekel post war became a Federal Judge and a Benefactor to the Lincoln Institute in Jefferson City, fore runner of current Lincoln University.
http://hermanndeutschheimverein.org/images/abolitionists_exhibit_catalog.pdf
The following has a good history of Krekel's political beliefs and moves;
https://www.sccmo.org/DocumentCenter/View/12286/Looking-Back-with-the-Co-Executive-Four-Families-Continued-June-2018-PDF
Overall Krekel was an accomplished jurist, politician, organizer, and quick to look after his own interests and pushed a radical agenda with the power he gained. As for being a military leader, he was poor, often absent, and fostered an anything goes attitude amongst his men with subsequent atrocities being performed, many as bad as those he declared his enemy.