Jim McGhee has provided the missing link for the battery in the Missouri forum based on Barlow's postwar remembrances. While it does not appear that anyone was in charge of the guns as an official battery at the time of Boonville, they were in the care of Capt. Sam Livingston of Morgan Rifles (Morgan county)--part of the 1st Rifles regiment of the Missouri State Guard 6th Division. (It also does not appear that this company was on the field at Boonville.) Barlow reported of the guns that Livingston was "glad to be rid of them."

Barlow reports taking charge of only THREE bronze pieces captured from the Liberty arsenal. This dovetails nicely with the Liberty arsenal commander's report of the loss of three bronze 6 pdrs and twelve iron 6 pdrs.

Various post war articles about the time between Boonville and Wilson's creek give me some clues as to where the 4th piece might have come from as well as why the guns were not available at Boonville.

In one article a retelling of Sgt. Hunt Wilson's account mentions an expedition while at Cowskin Prairie near Carthage to recover a piece that had been secreted away some time earlier in anticipation of coming warfare. While some of the account is confused and contradicting of some better known history, the recovery of this piece seems to fit with some other scraps of evidence.

Combining all this it appears that the guns were not available at Boonville and were instead being taken care of by the Morgan county men closer to their homes about 20 miles away. The guns lacked implements and Guibor improvised servicing the pieces initially with sponge staffs made from rails wrapped with rags as well as using burning rails to touch off the charge. So it is unclear if Gov. Jackson really attempted to call the guns up for use in Boonville's defense as several accounts state. If they had been called up it might not have even been possible to fire the weapons at the time. Field harness and such might also have been an issue in the initial delay of bringing up the pieces.