Uniforms Enrolled Missouri Militia question

By 1864 any EMM unit that was activated for 30 days or more were issued standard Federal Blues. I would stay away from any type of hat brass or trimmings. Most of what they would have received would have been the old and outdated stuff that would have been deemed unsuitable for the regular U.S. Volunteers. However, still would have been Bluejackets and sky-blue trousers. Hats most likely a mixture of civilian style and military. I do think the uniforms had to be turned back in once they were no longer on active duty though. My ancestor was in the 81st EMM (Paw Paws) and 1 of his muster rolls list their uniforms as - Army Blue!
Don't assume that they wore them, just because they were issued uniforms. Some might have. Others probably didn't. They wore the parts that suited them, and improvised the rest from their favorite field gear.
 
The PEMM was a separate organization from that of the EMM. Yes, the PEMM had full uniforms and equipment just like U.S. Volunteers. But by the year 1864, any regular unit of the EMM that had been activated for 30 days or more were also issued U.S. Blue, although it was not the high-quality items, those being saved for the U.S. Volunteers. My ancestor was a Paw Paw out of Andrew County.
If a man stayed in Missouri and had to serve in order to keep out of trouble, the Paw Paw version of bluebelly would be honorable.
 
If a man stayed in Missouri and had to serve in order to keep out of trouble, the Paw Paw version of bluebelly would be honorable.
Heres Stiles on the EMM


"The state government organized an additional militia force, the Enrolled Missouri Militia, or EMM. It consisted of part-timers, local men who were to assume the lighter duties from the MSM and U.S. volunteers. None other than James H. Moss organized the EMM in Clay County, which replaced Penick’s MSM regiment.

The idea behind the EMM seems obvious: Put local security in the hands of men who know the community. The problem with it was threefold: First, the most highly motivated men had already joined the U.S. army or MSM. Second, the EMM recruits were untrained, underequipped, and unpaid. Third, the new force consisted of Unionists who had been feuding with their neighbors; there was a lot of bad blood. Now they were instructed to “subsist on the rebels, their aiders, and abettors”— essentially an order to loot the neighborhood.

The bad blood bled both ways. James H. Moss (now Colonel Moss) picked as his company commanders men known to be conservatives, former Whigs who were pillars of the community—but war was war. Captain Anthony Harsel, for example, owned at least sixteen slaves; but rebels called him as an abolitionist and burned his house down. Civilians refused to help the militia. “Many [local women] have told me that they, the bushwhackers, had as much right there as I, with my company,” reported Captain William Garth.

The EMM in Clay County became increasingly embittered. As a result, Edward Samuel explained, “they were becoming more radically Union.” Some militiamen started to think that slavery should be abolished. As Samuel put it, he himself was “an Unconditional Union man, even radically so, if necessary to put down this rebellion.”

That kind of talk infuriated Colonel Moss. He had no intention of destroying the old society in order to save it. “It is a common report here,” wrote a militia officer on February 14, 1863, “that Col. Moss of Clay County uses the Enrolled Militia of said county to prevent the escape of negroes.” I discovered one case of the militia whipping a rebellious slave, even though his owner was a secessionist.

But Colonel Moss’s day was passing. The state government organized a smaller and meaner version of the EMM—the Provisional EMM—with men noted for their hardline attitudes. In April, Colonel Moss was put on the shelf, and security for the county was taken over by the Provisionals."


The EMM was as divided as the communities it represented.........note in IMO
 
Wasn't the theory behind the Paw Paws that they could police their counties against marauding jayhawkers? That's what I've been led to believe. If that's accurate, one can understand why any former Confederate or State Guard soldier would willingly put on blue for that particular fight. It's equally easy to understand why the Paw Paws could not be relied upon to fight pro-Southern bushwhackers.
 
Wasn't the theory behind the Paw Paws that they could police their counties against marauding jayhawkers? That's what I've been led to believe. If that's accurate, one can understand why any former Confederate or State Guard soldier would willingly put on blue for that particular fight. It's equally easy to understand why the Paw Paws could not be relied upon to fight pro-Southern bushwhackers.

Well Bruce Nichols noted an example of a EMM gamely engaging a guerrilla force and getting shellacked then noted they never engaged the guerrillas again.....

They were so poorly equipped it would be like sheep trying to fight wolves....AVE Johnston had regular army troops at Centralia and still was no competition in a open field fight.

Was reading another example last nite where 80 union troops cornered 7 guerrillas, and still lost more then the guerrillas did when the guerrillas broke out

"On 6 September, 1863, Frank and Samuel Beard, Noah Webster, John Webster, William and Perry Hays, and Henry McAninch, were surrounded by eighty Federals and Jayhawkers in a house near Howard's Mill in Kingsville Township, Johnson County. It appeared a hopeless situation, but these desperate Guerrillas resolved to cut through it or die.
A pistol in each hand, and firing as they ran, they dashed out of the house at the nearest Federals, shoulder to shoulder. At the first volley, both of the Beard boys fell dead.

Then Perry Hays was shot through the heart. McAninch, bored through one arm and one leg, killed a Federal and climbed on his horse with the utmost difficulty. John Webster, as he fled, was literally run over by a Federal Lieutenant and crushed to the earth. He lay on his back under the belly of the horse, it's rider above him reaching down and shooting at him as he was stretched out prostrate, and bruised and bleeding from the iron feet of the stallion, as seemingly ferocious as it's master. Webster rallied, however, almost instantly, and killed the Lieutenant as he sat above him on his horse. His brother, Noah, seeing the desperate extremity he was in, came back to help him and was shot twice but not crippled in the effort. John Webster had now to go to Noah's assistance, which he did speedily on the Lieutenant's own horse, taking up his brother behind him and escaping without difficulty from all pursuit.

In this savage combat, five Federals were killed, and three Guerrillas, the wounded Federals numbered eight and the wounded Guerrillas two. Will Hays was not hurt, and as he and McAninch came out from the desperate press together, they ran upon two militiamen hurrying in the direction of the fight. Hays halted them, shot them, and took from the body of the youngest a list of the names of certain citizens whose houses were to be burnt the next day."
 
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Well Bruce Nichols noted an example of a EMM gamely engaging a guerrilla force and getting shellacked then noted they never engaged the guerrillas again.....

They were so poorly equipped it would be like sheep trying to fight wolves....AVE Johnston had regular army troops at Centralia and still was no competition in a open field fight.

Was reading another example last nite where 80 union troops cornered 7 guerrillas, and still lost more then the guerrillas did when the guerrillas broke out

"On 6 September, 1863, Frank and Samuel Beard, Noah Webster, John Webster, William and Perry Hays, and Henry McAninch, were surrounded by eighty Federals and Jayhawkers in a house near Howard's Mill in Kingsville Township, Johnson County. It appeared a hopeless situation, but these desperate Guerrillas resolved to cut through it or die.
A pistol in each hand, and firing as they ran, they dashed out of the house at the nearest Federals, shoulder to shoulder. At the first volley, both of the Beard boys fell dead.

Then Perry Hays was shot through the heart. McAninch, bored through one arm and one leg, killed a Federal and climbed on his horse with the utmost difficulty. John Webster, as he fled, was literally run over by a Federal Lieutenant and crushed to the earth. He lay on his back under the belly of the horse, it's rider above him reaching down and shooting at him as he was stretched out prostrate, and bruised and bleeding from the iron feet of the stallion, as seemingly ferocious as it's master. Webster rallied, however, almost instantly, and killed the Lieutenant as he sat above him on his horse. His brother, Noah, seeing the desperate extremity he was in, came back to help him and was shot twice but not crippled in the effort. John Webster had now to go to Noah's assistance, which he did speedily on the Lieutenant's own horse, taking up his brother behind him and escaping without difficulty from all pursuit.

In this savage combat, five Federals were killed, and three Guerrillas, the wounded Federals numbered eight and the wounded Guerrillas two. Will Hays was not hurt, and as he and McAninch came out from the desperate press together, they ran upon two militiamen hurrying in the direction of the fight. Hays halted them, shot them, and took from the body of the youngest a list of the names of certain citizens whose houses were to be burnt the next day."
There are lots of similar examples, but in this case I was asking specifically about the so-called "Paw Paw" militia.
 
There are lots of similar examples, but in this case I was asking specifically about the so-called "Paw Paw" militia.
The paw paw militia was EMM, its the act the unit was raised under, there is no separate Paw Paw Militia act, it was simply an EMM unit under Col Moss, after Lawrence Moss used the jayhawker retribution to get his EMM regt called back up into service.......it was always a EMM unit though
 
The paw paw militia was EMM, its the act the unit was raised under, there is no separate Paw Paw Militia act, it was simply an EMM unit under Col Moss, after Lawrence Moss used the jayhawker retribution to get his EMM regt called back up into service.......it was always a EMM unit though
Again T J Stiles essay

"Colonel James H. Moss was determined to stop the cycle. He convinced Governor Hamilton Gamble, a fellow former Whig, to give him control again of Clay County, to protect it from retaliation by angry Kansans. Indeed, raids from Kansas by “Red Legs”—ideological Jayhawkers or just plain bandits—had been a big problem for Western Missouri. But Moss’s main concern was the radicalization of the militia. He wrote to Alexander Doniphan, “When I reached home I found that the entire military force . . . was nothing more or less than an armed mob. My arrival was like the falling of a thunder bolt in their midst.”

In a public speech, Moss denounced the radicals, and he dismissed antislavery officers. He refused to hand over prisoners to the provost marshal, and he even enlisted former Confederate soldiers, the better to fight Red Legs. All this upset local Unionists, including O.P. Moss. “I remarked to my brother that we were running considerable risk in putting arms into the hands of such men indiscriminately.” The Colonel dismissed the argument, saying, “The war was far down South.”

Unionists soon began to complain about Moss’s force, dubbing it the Paw-Paw Militia, after the plants that filled the creek bottoms where the guerrillas hid. When Red Legs raided Clay County, the Paw-Paws put up a good fight; when the bushwhackers showed up, the Paw-Paws disappeared—or defected."

Its still EMM units under Col Moss being called back into service, The EMM act was in effect for the whole war. Its the constant struggle between conservatives and radicals, and who was in charge of what when.
 
The paw paw militia was EMM, its the act the unit was raised under, there is no separate Paw Paw Militia act, it was simply an EMM unit under Col Moss, after Lawrence Moss used the jayhawker retribution to get his EMM regt called back up into service.......it was always a EMM unit though
I understand there was no separate Paw Paw act. That wasn't the nature of my comment.
 
In a public speech, Moss denounced the radicals, and he dismissed antislavery officers. He refused to hand over prisoners to the provost marshal, and he even enlisted former Confederate soldiers, the better to fight Red Legs. All this upset local Unionists, including O.P. Moss. “I remarked to my brother that we were running considerable risk in putting arms into the hands of such men indiscriminately.” The Colonel dismissed the argument, saying, “The war was far down South.”

Unionists soon began to complain about Moss’s force, dubbing it the Paw-Paw Militia, after the plants that filled the creek bottoms where the guerrillas hid. When Red Legs raided Clay County, the Paw-Paws put up a good fight; when the bushwhackers showed up, the Paw-Paws disappeared—or defected."

This answers my first post and confirms my understanding of the Paw Paw militia.
 
This answers my first post and confirms my understanding of the Paw Paw militia.
Earlier it was implied the EMM was unreliable, when it wasn't, Stiles notes the EMM went both ways as far as sympathy, actions, and leadership, its why i stress paw paw wasn't separate, nor represents most EMM. It was as likely one lived in an area where the EMM represented brutal occupation then southern sympathy

From the history of Clay county "The leader of the conservative Union men of northwest Missouri was Col James H Moss brother of Capt Oliver P Moss a brother in law of Hon John J Crittenden of Kentucky It was Colonel Moss and the men of his regiment composed of men from Clay and Platte Counties who did more than all other agencies combined from 1862 to the end of the war between the states to protect Clay and Platte Counties from marauders thieves and villains military and otherwise"
 
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Archie, I have never stated that the EMM was unreliable. On the other hand, I have often criticized them in the same way that Stiles did.
 
when Stiles says "When Red Legs raided Clay County, the Paw-Paws put up a good fight; when the bushwhackers showed up, the Paw-Paws disappeared—or defected." It could pretty much be equally said the MSM or radicals would put up a good fight against southern guerrillas, but when jayhawkers or radical criminals showed up, would often disappear likewise. Neither one seemed to have alot of enthusiasm for prosecuting criminals equally.......

Which is why it was so lawless, as justice is supposed to be blind and without bias......Each party when out of charge, would have to seek its own justice outside the law, because the other party would turn a blind eye to whatever it sympathized with
 
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when Stiles says "When Red Legs raided Clay County, the Paw-Paws put up a good fight; when the bushwhackers showed up, the Paw-Paws disappeared—or defected." It could pretty much be equally said the MSM or radicals would put up a good fight against southern guerrillas, but when jayhawkers or radical criminals showed up, would often disappear likewise. Neither one seemed to have alot of enthusiasm for prosecuting criminals equally.......

Which is why it was so lawless, as justice is supposed to be blind and without bias......Each party when out of charge, would have to seek its own justice outside the law, because the other party would turn a blind eye to whatever it sympathized with
Nothing new under the sun. Sounds like today.
 
Hays halted them, shot them, and took from the body of the youngest a list of the names of certain citizens whose houses were to be burnt the next day."

This was a common Union tactic in almost every rural area of the State. Burn out the Southern people in order to subdue Missouri. And the vast majority of these families owned no ______ (word banned per orders of management).
 
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