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."