MO-CW-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: Green Hancock in Southern Service
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 18:19:39 EDT

J.
Unfortunately, I cannot shed light on the identity of your ascendants,
but perhaps I found a clue in your ancestor's military service record to
where he spent his youth. Namely, Platte County.
Let me elaborate. I looked up Green Hancock' military service record in
the online Missouri Secretary of State's Office website (just plug that in
with quotation marks around it in Google.com). The Missouri State Archives at
the Secretary of State's building in Jefferson City seems to have several
cards for Green, so the following is a combination of those. Private Green
(nickname "Spruce") Hancock served in Captain W. H. Frazer's Company B of the 10th
Cavalry Regiment (CSA). He enlisted 5 Aug 1862 in Vernon County (see
paragraph below). Evidently Green served the rest of the war in this company and
regiment because he surrendered at New Orleans 26 May 1865 and was paroled at
Shreveport, LA on 7 June 1865. His residence is listed as Platte County,
Missouri at the time of his surrender and parole (which leads me to suspect he was
raised in Platte County, or that he was fearful his Bates County family would
suffer if he stated his residence was in Bates County).
You mentioned the family story that at the Battle of Pilot Knob Green
pulled the wounded Billy Kemper off the field. I found two cards for a
Private W. T. Kemper or William Kemper also of Company B (and Company A) of the
10th Missouri Cavalry Regiment of Major General John Sappington Marmaduke's
Dviision. Kemper's home was Papinsville, of the southeast corner of Bates County,
located very close to Pleasant Gap. If Green Hancock did assist a wounded
Billy Kemper it must have worked, since Kemper survived to attend the 9th
Reunion of Ex-Confederates in Kansas City in 1891 and also the 6th Annual Reunion
of the U.C.V., Marmaduke Camp No. 615 at Butler, Bates County on 2 Aug 1902.
The date and place of Green's enlistment tells me he enlisted during
the lightning fast large-scale recruiting drive that several Confederate
colonels orchestrated across southwest and west-central Missouri in August 1862
under pressure from pursuing Union cavalry. Note that this was hundreds of miles
behind Union military lines. Under these circumstances, it is possible that
the closest of these recruiting parties to where Green was living in August
1862 was in neighboring Vernon County.
That is the extent of my ability to advise you about Green Hancock's
military experience based on what I found. I cannot speak further about Green's
Company B of the 10th Missouri Cavalry, because my specialty is guerrilla
warfare in Missouri and someone more conversant about regular southern forces
will have to tell you more about what the 10th accomplished.
I hope that helps.
Bruce Nichols

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