John,

First Lieutenant John H. Kendall commanded Co. L, 2nd Missouri Light Artillery during the Powder River Expedition. (His report is contained in O. R., Series I, Volume 48, Part I, page 388.)

Junius McMurray was still an officer in the 1st Missouri Light Artillery Regiment when the expedition began. He was serving as Col. Nelson Cole's "inspector of artillery" during the expedition. The order to muster McMurray out of service came while the he was in the field. Cole, as Chief of Artillery for the Department of Missouri, appointed him as captain of Co. L, 2nd Missouri Light Artillery, which he had the authority to do. McMurry exercised no direct command of the company during the expedition that I have been able to uncover.

You might like to know that Felix Bridger, the son of mountain man Jim Bridger, was a member of Co. L, 2nd Missouri Light Artillery. Albert Wachsman, who received a promotion to captain of Company A, 2nd Missouri Light Artillery at the end of 1864, married Bridger's eldest daughter in February 1864. (NOTE: Wachsman's Company A was not part of the Powder River Expedition.) Jim Bridger was employed as a guide for General Patrick E. Connor's western column during the expedition.

Gil