he organized, from the men who had accompanied him and others whom he found in Arkansas, a regiment of Missouri Confederate cavalry. From Pocahontas, Arkansas, in the latter part of December 1862, as acting brigadier, he moved with his command and the battalions of Cols. Colton Greene and J. Q. A. Burbridge, to cooperate with Gen. John S. Marmaduke in his attack on Springfield. Through a mistake of Gen. Marmaduke, Col. Porter's command did not participate in this attack. It moved on a line far to the east. After the expedition had failed, the commands of Marmaduke and Porter united east of Marshfield, and started to retreat into Arkansas. At the Battle of Hartville, in Wright Country on January 11, 1863, a small Federal force was encountered and defeated, although at severe loss to the Confederates, who had many valuable officers killed and mortally wounded. Among the latter was Colonel Porter, commanding a brigade, shot from his horse with wounds to the leg from an artillery shell. In Oates's account, (118-119), Porter died an hour later. According to Mudd, however, Porter was shot from his horse with wounds to the leg and the hand while leading a charge; in this account, Porter managed to accompany the army on a difficult trek into Arkansas, arriving at Camp Sallado on January 20, and at Batesville January 25, where he died from his wounds on February 18, 1863. The early date is refuted by Porter's own report, dated February 3, referencing the journey after the battle, as well as eyewitness Major G.W.C. Bennett's reference to "Porter's column" on the march several days after and dozens of miles away from the battle, and finally by Marmaduke's noting Porter among the wounded, in contrast to the listing of officers killed; additional near-contemporary sources also affirm Porter's survival of the journey to Arkansas. The January 11 date seems to originate with General Fitz Henry Warren, who reported as fact the speculation that a burial observed by a recently paroled Lieutenant Brown was that of Porter. The location of Col. Porter's grave remains unknown. Oral traditions suggest that he was at some point buried on the farm of his cousin Ezekiel Porter (said to be a volunteer ambulance driver during the war), just north of Hartville, in what is now known as Porter's Cemetery, near Competition, Missouri. Legacy and evaluation Porter is credited variously with five and