Quantrill's Richmond Trip

In a couple of my previous posts, I've mentioned Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill making a trip to Richmond, Virginia during the winter of 1862-63 in quest of a colonel's commission. There's no written record that he received a colonel's commission in Richmond, but he may have or he may have received a field commission later, because some of Quantrill's men did refer to their leader as "Colonel Quantrill," even after the war.
In the past, there has been some scholarly disagreement on whether Quantrill even made such a journey to Richmond, but this question can be laid to rest. Quantrill's military service file alone provides enough evidence to prove that he did make such a journey, because it shows him, for instance, drawing pay from a Confederate paymaster in Alabama in early March of 1863 (presumably on his way back from Richmond). Also, an item in a Leavenworth newspaper in the spring of 1863, after the guerrilla leader and his men arrived back in their Jackson County stomping grounds, announced that Quantrill had just returned from Richmond.
While Quantrill, accompanied by one or two of his men, made the trip back east, most of the guerrillas attached themselves, under William Gregg, to Shelby's command of Marmaduke's division and fought at Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, Springfield, and Hartville during Marmaduke's winter campaign of 1862-1863.