Richard McKinney

Co. E, 21st Regiment, Missouri Volunteer Infantry

Richard McKinney was born ca. 1837 in Indiana, the oldest child of William and Catherine (Smiley) McKinney. The family moved to Knox, Co, MO in about 1842 from Indiana settling in the Benton Twp. area of the county. Richard and his younger brother, William, served in the 21st Missouri Regiment in Company E along with their stepbrothers, William and Moses Burk.

He was united in marriage with Mary A. Quir, daughter of Peter and Faietta Quir, about 1860 in Knox County, Missouri. Their son, William Washington McKinney was born 16 September 1863 in Knox County, Missouri.

Richard was murdered 17 September 1865 in Clairborne, Alabama. The following passage is borrowed from:

The Twenty-first Missouri: From Home Guard to Union Regiment by Leslie Anders.

"Richard McKinney, a twenty-eight-year-old teamster of Company E, fell victim of a bushwhack murder September 17 near Claiborne, an Alabama River town northeast of Mobile. The killer was never brought to temporal justice. The dead man, an original soldier of his company, had returned to service in January 1864 after being invalided out for typhoid in 1862. His wife having drowned in Knox County a month earlier, their infant son was left in the care of relatives."

Biographical information was generously provided by his great-great-niece Brenda Schnurrer.

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