secessionist government or Gamble's provisional government was the legitimate government of Missouri. Jackson supporters claimed their status as the popularly elected government of Missouri to bolster their legitimacy, whereas Gamble had control of the old state capitol and had also been placed in office by a body elected by the state to determine the state's place in the Union. Perhaps the biggest mystery of Neosho is whether Jackson's legislature had a quorum to permit it to convene—a mystery that has prompted many historians to dismiss the Neosho government as a "rump legislature". The controversy exists for two reasons. First, surviving letters from earlier in the fall indicate that the vote was delayed until the end of October to obtain a quorum, which had been lacking. Second, the journals of the legislature which might have contained that information disappeared sometime during the war. The Senate journal was rediscovered in recent years among artifacts at the Wilson's Creek National Battlefield, and the House journal has only recently been found. Evidence In addition to the Senate journal, evidence of a House quorum has been speculated about on several grounds. Records of the secession bill itself show that Speaker of the House John McAfee presided over the session that adopted the bill. Clerk of the House Thomas H. Murry's signature also attests to the document's engrossment. The bill is also known to have been sponsored in the House by legislator George Graham Vest. Reports of a quorum and even vote totals for both bodies also appeared quickly in some newspapers. Their reliability, however, is unknown. The [Columbia] Missouri Statesman on November 15, 1861, claimed a quorum was reached by October 22. The Charleston Mercury of November 25, 1861, reported the session as follows: The meeting of the Missouri State Legislature, which passed the ordinance of secession at Neosho on the 2d inst. Was well attended—a full quorum being present, including 23 members of the Upper and 77 of the Lower House; 19 of the former and 68 of the latter constitute a quorum. The ordinance of secession was passed unanimously, and without a dissenting voice. It was dispatched to Richmond by a special messenger to the President, leaving Memphis yesterday morning en route. One of the earliest historical accounts of Missouri's role in the Civil War written by former Confederate Col. John C. Moore, who also states that a quorum was present at the