[2][3] The label guerrilla may be disputed; U.S. Army general Don Buell later told a military commission investigating his strategic decisions in 1862, "I object to this term 'guerrillas' as applied to these troops.

'"[5] Whether Mat Luxton was a cavalry raider or a guerrilla—defined as "small bands of unorganized bushwhackers"[4]—was seemingly decided in the affirmative by a court of 1865, but may have been a fluid situation during the course of the war.

It is understood that Forrest strongly reprobated Luxton's course in West Tennessee, and sent several times to have him and his men arrested.

"[10] According to the regimental history of the 7th Indiana Cavalry, "On the 7th of June, 1865, Lieutenant Blackford was detailed to serve on a military commission at Memphis, Tennessee, of which Colonel George W. McKeaig was president.

Before that commission, Mat Luxton, a notorious guerrilla, and a half-brother of the rebel General N. B. Forrest, was brought for trial for his crimes.

Owing to the difficulty the Government had in getting witnesses, the trial dragged along for eighty days...His friends offered thousands of dollars for his release.

"[3] On September 13, 1865, a letter was sent on his behalf, requesting removal of irons during trial, along with solemn promises that Luxton would not attempt to escape.

[3] Recollections of 19th-century Grenada, Mississippi that were recorded by a university master's student in the 1920s mention Luxton:[14] John Forrest moved to the old Hundley house which was located back of the residence of Mrs. Ida Campbell.

[14]On January 19–20, 1866, there were reportedly two shootings in Grenada that were said to be associated with the Luxton trial: "On Friday last a man named Greene, while standing in his store door at Grenado, Miss., was shot by some person, unknown, and almost immediately killed.

[17] After the war Mat Luxton reportedly "had a store at Forrest Hill, on the Memphis and Charleston railroad, in 1866–67.

[20] Luxton died in Uvalde, Texas in 1924 and is buried in Reagan Wells Cemetery there under a veterans' headstone denoting his American Civil War service as a sergeant in the 3rd Tennessee Cavalry.