I found my guy and resolved my Lt. Col. Samuel P. Cox attack on Bill Anderson mystery citizen guard question unit at the same time (and the question Bruce Nichols was struggling with a few years back). The "Lt. Baker" who Cox had ride up on Bill Anderson's camp on Oct. 26 and decoy him and his men back into ambush was 1st Lt. James Baker. He belonged to one of the Order 86 Citizen Guard units. This one was Company C, 4th Regiment Citizen Guards (Militia Exempts), aka Company C, 4th Regiment Provisional Enrolled Militia (PEM).

The Secretary of State's office has the cards for the men in this unit filed under 4th Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia aka 4th PEMM, which existed from around May to November 1863. Problem with that is the 4th Regiment Citizen Guards/4th Regiment PEM wasn't formalized until early October 1864 and it was an entirely different animal.

With Price's Raid into Missouri in full swing Rosecrans further addressed this unique category of civilian combatants on Oct. 9, 1864 by issuing an order requiring that "all citizen organizations for local defense" would be "legalized for State and United States service" and were to be denominated "Provisional Enrolled Militia." Not Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia. Provisional Enrolled Militia. The similarity in name apparently confused whoever was doing the filing for the SOS cards.

Further confusing the issue, the Order 107 county local law and order independent companies authorized for formation starting in June 1864 were also called Provisional Enrolled Militia. This wasn't an accident--the October 9 order for the Citizen Guard units required that they conform to the provisions of Order 107 issued in June.