Iorie,

First, I wish you had placed this query in the Missouri in the Civil War Message Board so others with knowledge about COL John T. Coffee of Dade County could help you with this. Well, I will see what I can do, but you may be getting half the loaf.

COL John T. Coffee disappeared off my radar screen (and everyone else's) about late August and early September 1864 when his immediate superior, Confederate BG Jo Shelby, ordered COL Coffee at Batesville, Arkansas to report to COL Sidney Jackman's command in the region preparatory to being part of the great Missouri raid just about to get started. According to Jackman's autobiography, Coffee and Jackman did not see eye to eye on much, and I would think that COL Coffee said nothing to Shelby, but decided to pull himself out of the war rather then subordinate himself to Jackman. This may sound fantastic, but such behavior was common for the colorful Colonel Coffee. Colonel Coffee was not heard from any more during the war after Shelby's order. He did not participate in the great raid in Missouri.

Sources for the above are:
-- Hulston & Goodrich "John Trousdale Coffee," "Missouri Historical Review" April 1963, p. 292 which cites
--"Official Records of the War of the Rebellion" series 1, vol. 34, part 1, p. 928 and vol. 41, part 1, p. 27.
--This article also cites the "Coffee Family History" on file at the State Historical Society of Missouri at Columbia, MO. I have not seen that, but it may hold more answers for you.
--I also used Richard L. Norton, compiler, "Behind Enemy Lines: The Memoirs and Writings of Brigadier General Sidney Drake Jackman" published Springfield, MO: Oak Hills Publishing, 1997 for the stormy relationship between Jackman and Coffee earlier in the war.

Hulston and Goodrich's article also states that in late 1864 or 1865 John T. Coffee removed his family from Missouri (where: Dade County?--doesn't say) to Texas on the urging of the friends of his brother Franklin Brown Coffee, who had been a Texas Ranger. This also came out of the "Coffee Family History."

Colonel Coffee's last reported location in late August, early September 1864 was in Batesville, AR about two counties directly south of Howell County, MO. I wonder if he did travel to Howelll County and killed his kinsman like you suggested. After all, he was already thinking of handling family affairs (moving his immediate family to be near that of his brother Franklin in Texas).

I see that the 1860 Missouri census of Howell Township, Howell County shows 21-year-old farmer John B. Coffee in the household of 51-year-old, NC-born farmer Collins Coffee. I checked with the MO State Archives online at Jefferson City and found the record for a John B. Coffee who at age 22 in 1861 joined the Union regiment called Phelps' Regiment as 3rd sergeant. This John B. Coffee apparently later joined the 8th Missouri Cavalry Regiment (USA) as captain in 1862. If this is your kinsman, John joining a Yankee regiment as a NCO and later as an officer wouldn't exactly endear him to his Rebel kinsman Colonel John T. Coffee, would it?

There. That's a bunch of circumstantial evidence for you. No, I have no direct evidence to support the claim that John T. Coffee killed Collins Coffee at Collins' farm in Howell County on 8 September 1864. I have not heard that before. If it was anyone but John Trousdale Coffee I would doubt it. I only have all these pieces that tend to point in that same direction for you. I wish you good hunting.

Bruce Nichols