Sterling Price
Sterling Price commanded Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi West. Confederate President Jefferson Davis rendered a private verdict on him after a wartime meeting in Richmond: "the vainest man I ever met." Davis was not given to exaggeration, and the remark had a specific target. Price had spent decades advancing without authorization and expecting praise when the gamble paid off.
By the time Davis delivered that judgment, Price had already built an outsized career in Missouri politics. He had fought through the Mexican-American War and governed a state. What drove a man who publicly opposed secession to become one of the Confederacy's most prominent western generals? And what happens to a man like that when the war he chose is finally, irreversibly lost?
Sterling Price was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, near the town of Farmville. His parents, Pugh and Elizabeth Price, owned twelve slaves and were described as "moderately wealthy." The family was of Welsh origin. His birth date is disputed: Albert E. Castel and the State Historical Society of Missouri agree on the 11th of September 1809. Ezra J. Warner records it as September 20.
Price's father and his older brother served in the War of 1812. Price attended a grammar school whose name is now unknown, then worked on the family tobacco plantation. In the fall of 1826, he entered Hampden-Sydney College. He did not return for the 1827-28 session. His biographer Robert E. Shalhope speculates that poor examination results or financial difficulties were responsible.
He moved to Cumberland County to study law under the jurist Creed Taylor. Records show Taylor's school was not operating during 1828-29. Price became a court clerk's assistant in Prince Edward County in 1828. Shalhope concluded that Price received no more than "a minimal legal education." The county shaped him in a different way. Its political culture was defined by the influence of John Randolph of Roanoke. From that world, Price absorbed a lasting support for slavery, a dislike of debt, and a tendency to resist change.
Virginia's tobacco prices had surged in the mid-1810s and then collapsed, ruining merchants and shippers through the 1820s. Pugh Price resolved to move his family west. Missouri offered tobacco land and legal slavery. The family reached Missouri in either 1830 or 1831 and settled briefly near Fayette. In the summer of 1831, they relocated to the Keytesville vicinity in Chariton County. This region, known as the Boonslick, had attracted many former Virginia planters. On the 14th of May 1833, Price married Martha Head, the daughter of a local judge. The couple would have five sons, one daughter, and several children who did not survive childhood. His entry into the local merchant community and the county militia put him in position for what came next.
In January 1835, Price was chosen as Chariton County's representative to a Democratic state convention. The gathering nominated Martin Van Buren for president and Thomas Hart Benton for vice president. That same year, Price's father deeded Sterling most of the family farmland, making him one of Chariton County's largest landowners. He was appointed postmaster for Keytesville in April and won election to the Missouri House of Representatives before year's end.
The legislative session that opened on the 21st of November 1836 gave Price his first real platform. He promoted a state bank charter. A bill chartering a bank with limits on its powers passed in January 1837. The same session passed a law criminalizing incitement of slave rebellion. Price viewed slavery as essential to Southern aristocracy. He added an amendment to a separate bill requiring the state to compensate slaveholders for enslaved people executed by the government. The session adjourned on February 6.
Missouri in 1836 had designated Caldwell County specifically for Mormon settlement. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expanded beyond its borders, tensions with existing residents mounted. On the 6th of August 1838, a riot broke out in Gallatin when Mormons attempted to vote outside their assigned county. Chariton County sent Price and Edgar Flory to investigate. They attended the September 7 trial of Mormon leaders before judge Austin A. King. Then they met with the Mormon leaders and their counsel, Alexander Doniphan and David Rice Atchison, at the settlement of Far West. Price and Flory sent a letter home stating that the legal proceedings had been manufactured by Daviess County citizens to stir up trouble. Mormon conduct, they wrote, had not been as widely described.
On October 18, Mormon forces burned Gallatin and the community of Millport. Clashes continued through late October. Governor Lilburn Boggs issued the Mormon Extermination Order. It declared that "The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state." Price commanded the Chariton County militia. In early November, militia forces secured Far West. Price led a detachment that escorted captured Mormon leaders from Independence to Richmond. His men treated the prisoners roughly during the march. Price did not intervene.
Residents of Keytesville convened in January 1839. Price was part of a group that drafted a resolution endorsing Governor Boggs's actions. He did not seek reelection due to his role in the conflict. His merchant partnership with Walter Chiles had struggled, so he dissolved the firm, paid his debts, and formed a new enterprise with Lisbon Applegate. He was appointed to the Fayette branch of the state bank. By 1840, his farming had grown prosperous and he held several dozen slaves.
Price won election to the Missouri House of Representatives again in August 1840. Despite his limited legislative track record, there was talk of making him Speaker when the legislature convened in November. He was elected to the position unanimously. The Boonslick faction held considerable influence in Missouri politics at that time.
As Speaker, Price introduced resolutions on slavery that drew national attention. Missouri's Governor Thomas Reynolds had received a letter from Virginia's governor about New York's refusal to allow the return of escaped enslaved people. New York's Governor William H. Seward had stated he would not permit such returns. Price's resolutions accused Seward of violating the Constitution, pledged Missouri's solidarity with "the said slaveholding States," and called for a boycott of New York goods. The boycott portion was struck. The rest passed.
By 1844, Price was working to hold the Missouri Democratic Party together through a contentious nominating convention. Price was elected to the United States House of Representatives that year. Claiborne Fox Jackson succeeded him as Speaker. Price arrived in Washington in November 1845 and the 29th United States Congress convened on December 1. Among his early votes was support for Texas's admission to the United States. On the Oregon boundary question, Price initially backed "54-40 or Fight" before Thomas Hart Benton convinced him to accept the 49th parallel. The shift damaged his standing in Missouri.
On the 11th of May 1846, President James Knox Polk submitted a message to Congress calling for war with Mexico. Price voted in favor. Back in Missouri, a nominating convention had already passed him over in favor of James S. Green. His retreat on Oregon and his opposition to the Rivers and Harbors Bill had cost him support. Price resigned his congressional seat in August. Thomas Hart Benton helped secure his appointment as a colonel in a Missouri regiment being organized for the war. Price had introduced only two bills in Congress: one examining the feasibility of a mail route, and one seeking compensation for Missouri soldiers who lost horses during the Seminole Wars.
Price's command was the 2nd Missouri Mounted Infantry Regiment, assigned to Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny. Kearny wanted the unit raised as infantry. Price organized it as cavalry instead, a decision Shalhope attributes to "a certain vanity." The regiment left Fort Leavenworth for Santa Fe in the summer of 1846 and arrived on September 28.
Price fell ill with cholera during the journey and suffered a recurrence in November and December. He commanded United States forces in Santa Fe. According to Albert E. Castel, Price displayed a quarrelsome disposition there, a tendency toward decisions that bordered on insubordination, and a laxness in maintaining discipline. Shalhope connects the intestinal problems that troubled Price for the rest of his life to those bouts of cholera in New Mexico.
The Taos Revolt began in January 1847. Charles Bent, the United States Governor of New Mexico, was killed in the uprising. Price mobilized, leaving a garrison in Santa Fe and marching toward Taos with 353 men and four mountain howitzers. He departed on January 23. His men defeated a superior force at the Battle of Canada on January 24. Reinforcements brought his strength to 479 men. After winning the Battle of Embudo Pass, Price's column reached Taos on February 2. Revolt leaders had fortified positions at the Taos Pueblo complex. Price ordered an artillery bombardment on February 3. A successful assault on February 4 followed. Of the two revolt leaders captured, one was executed later that year and one was murdered in prison. Shalhope wrote that Price "displayed considerable skill" throughout the Taos campaign.
Critical reports appeared in the Missouri press once the troops returned to garrison duty. Morale among the soldiers deteriorated. In July 1847, Price was promoted to brigadier general and named military governor of Chihuahua. Thomas Hart Benton likely played a role in securing the promotion. Most of Price's men's enlistments expired in August and September, and they went home. Price followed, visiting family and traveling to Jefferson City and St. Louis before returning to Fort Leavenworth on November 10. He reached Santa Fe in January 1848.
Price had been corresponding with Adjutant General Roger Jones about an expedition into Chihuahua and Durango. Secretary of War William L. Marcy replied that such a campaign would be better launched from elsewhere. Price was authorized to make demonstrations if Mexican forces threatened New Mexico. Price received reports that Mexican General Jose de Urrea was advancing on El Paso. He rode out on February 23 to investigate. The threat did not exist.
Despite no authorization and no threat, Price invaded Chihuahua anyway. Thomas Hart Benton had promised to shield him politically. When his supply train fell behind, Price advanced without it. A Mexican delegation met him on the road and informed him that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been signed and the war was over. Price did not believe them. He continued toward Santa Cruz de Rosales, arriving with only 250 men after most of his horses gave out. Price waited from March 9 to March 16 while small reinforcements arrived, then attacked. His men won in close combat and inflicted heavy losses. The war had ended more than a month before the battle. The press praised Price regardless, and President Polk joined in. Price left Chihuahua in July and was back in Missouri in October.
Shalhope identified three habits Price developed in Mexico that would carry into the Civil War. The first was a willingness to disobey orders. The second was experience commanding volunteer soldiers. The third was a tendency to ignore logistical problems.
Price returned to Missouri in October 1848 carrying sizable political capital from his wartime campaigns. He settled as a tobacco planter on the Bowling Green prairie. His reputation made him an easy winner in the 1852 governor's race. He served from 1853 to 1857. During his tenure, Washington University in St. Louis was established. The state's public school system was restructured. The Missouri State Teachers Association was created. The railroad network was expanded and a geological survey was launched. When the legislature voted to raise the governor's salary, Price refused to accept more than the salary for which he had been elected.
After leaving office, Price was appointed Bank Commissioner of Missouri, a post he held from 1857 to 1861. He secured a rail line through his home county that was later incorporated into the Norfolk and Western Railway. He backed Stephen A. Douglas for president in 1860. On the 28th of February 1861, Price was elected presiding officer of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1861-1863. The convention voted against the state leaving the Union.
In private, Price was working toward a very different outcome. He conspired with pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson to have Confederate weapons delivered secretly to the state militia. Their goal was to seize the St. Louis Arsenal and use it to take control of Missouri. The plot failed in May 1861. Federal forces under Captain Nathaniel Lyon seized the militia's Camp Jackson near St. Louis, where the Confederate weapons had been stored. With his private intentions exposed, Price joined calls for the Confederacy to occupy Missouri and accepted command of the new Missouri State Guard.
Price's recruits in the Missouri State Guard called him "Old Pap." He led them in a campaign to drive Lyon's federal troops from the state. The state's pro-Union Constitutional Convention voted to remove Jackson from office. Hamilton Rowan Gamble, a former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, was installed as governor in his place.
The decisive early engagement was the Battle of Wilson's Creek on the 10th of August 1861. Price's State Guard, fighting alongside Confederate forces under Brigadier General Benjamin McCulloch, soundly defeated Lyon's army. Lyon was killed in the action, the first Union general to die in the Civil War. Price's men then drove north into Missouri and defeated Colonel James Mulligan's federal forces at the First Battle of Lexington. Union reinforcements poured into the state and forced Price and Jackson to fall back to the Arkansas border. The Union held most of Missouri for the rest of the war.
Price and McCulloch could not agree on a strategy. The friction threatened to fracture what might have been a substantial Confederate force in the West. Their rivalry grew severe enough that the Confederacy appointed Major-General Earl Van Dorn as overall commander of the Trans-Mississippi district. Van Dorn merged their commands into the Army of the West. On the 6th of March 1862, Price received his commission as a Major-General in the Confederate States Army. Van Dorn attacked Union forces under Brigadier General Samuel R. Curtis at Pea Ridge on March 7-8. Price was wounded in the fighting but pushed Curtis back at Elkhorn Tavern on March 7. A Federal counterattack on the 8th turned the battle against the Confederates.
Price crossed the Mississippi River with Van Dorn to reinforce General P. G. T. Beauregard's army in northern Mississippi after Beauregard's loss at Shiloh. Van Dorn's command held the Confederate right flank during the Siege of Corinth. When Braxton Bragg launched his Confederate Heartland Offensive, Van Dorn went west while Price took command of the District of Tennessee. On the 19th of September 1862, Major General William S. Rosecrans drove Price back at the Battle of Iuka. Price suffered another defeat at the Second Battle of Corinth on October 3-4. Van Dorn was replaced by Major General John C. Pemberton. Price, deeply dissatisfied with Van Dorn, obtained leave to visit Richmond. Davis heard his grievances, questioned his loyalty to the Confederate cause, and granted permission for Price to return to Missouri, minus his troops.
Price spent much of 1863 contesting Union control of Arkansas. He won some engagements but could not dislodge federal forces from the state and abandoned Little Rock for southern Arkansas. Despite those setbacks, Price convinced his superiors to authorize a Missouri invasion in the fall of 1864. His aim was to seize Missouri for the Confederacy or imperil Abraham Lincoln's chances of reelection. General Kirby Smith approved the plan but was forced to divert the infantry brigades originally assigned to Price. The operation changed from a full invasion to a large cavalry raid.
Price assembled 12,000 horsemen and fourteen pieces of artillery. The first major action came at Pilot Knob, where he captured the Union-held Fort Davidson. The casualties his men sustained were far greater than any strategic gain, and the Union garrison escaped. Price turned west from Pilot Knob, moving toward Kansas City, Missouri, and nearby Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, away from St. Louis. He was forced to bypass heavily fortified Jefferson City. His army carved a destructive path through his home state even as battlefield losses, disease, and desertion steadily thinned its ranks. Price defeated inferior Union forces at Boonville, Glasgow, Lexington, the Little Blue River, and Independence.
Two Northern armies then converged on Price at Westport, in what is today Kansas City. The engagement on the 23rd of October 1864 became known afterward as "The Gettysburg of the West." Price was forced to retreat into Kansas. Further defeats followed, and his diminished army was pushed south toward Arkansas and then into Texas. Price's Raid was his final significant military operation and the last major Confederate campaign west of the Mississippi River.
Rather than surrender, Price emigrated to Mexico. He settled in the Confederate exile colony at Carlota, in Veracruz, alongside compatriots who had made the same choice. He sought service with Emperor Maximilian but was unsuccessful. When the colony dissolved, he returned to Missouri.
Price's intestinal problems had been worsening for years, a condition tracing back to the cholera he contracted in New Mexico. In August 1866, he developed typhoid fever. Impoverished and in failing health, he died in St. Louis. His death certificate listed the cause as "chronic diarrhea," though the condition has also been described as cholera. His funeral was held on the 3rd of October 1867, at the First Methodist Episcopal Church, at the corner of Eighth and Washington in St. Louis. A black hearse drawn by six matching black horses carried his body to Bellefontaine Cemetery. The procession was the largest St. Louis had seen to that point. A bronze monument honoring Price and the Missouri soldiers he commanded was dedicated at the Springfield National Cemetery on the 10th of August 1901.
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Common questions
Who was Sterling Price and what was his role in the American Civil War?
Sterling Price was a Missouri politician, governor, and Confederate general who commanded forces in the Trans-Mississippi West. He received his commission as Major-General in the Confederate States Army on the 6th of March 1862, and led campaigns in Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi. He is best remembered for commanding Price's Raid in 1864, the last major Confederate campaign west of the Mississippi River.
What was Sterling Price's role in the Missouri Mormon War of 1838?
Price commanded the Chariton County militia during the Missouri Mormon War and led a detachment that escorted captured Mormon leaders from Independence to Richmond. He had initially been sent to investigate the conflict and reported that Mormon conduct had not been as widely described, but he later endorsed Governor Lilburn Boggs's actions through a resolution drafted in January 1839.
Why was the Battle of Westport called the Gettysburg of the West?
The Battle of Westport, fought on the 23rd of October 1864, was called "The Gettysburg of the West" because it was the decisive defeat that ended Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition. Price's army was boxed in at Westport by two Northern armies and forced to retreat into Kansas, ending the last major Confederate offensive in the Trans-Mississippi theater.
What did Jefferson Davis privately say about Sterling Price?
Jefferson Davis called Price "the vainest man I ever met" after Price visited Richmond to present his wartime grievances and request a return to Missouri with his troops. Davis questioned Price's loyalty to the Confederate cause and sent him back to the Trans-Mississippi West without the troops he had requested.
Why did Sterling Price emigrate to Mexico after the Civil War?
Rather than surrender after the Confederacy's defeat, Price emigrated to Mexico and settled in a Confederate exile colony at Carlota, in Veracruz. He sought military service under Emperor Maximilian but was unsuccessful. When the colony failed, he returned to Missouri.
How did Sterling Price die and where is he buried?
Price died in St. Louis in 1867. His death certificate listed the cause as "chronic diarrhea," though the condition has also been described as cholera, tracing to cholera he first contracted during the Mexican-American War. His funeral was held on the 3rd of October 1867, at the First Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Louis, and he is buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery.
All sources
25 references cited across the entry
- 2Sterling PriceHistory, Art, and Archives: United States House of Representatives
- 3Sterling PriceState Historical Society of Missouri
- 4Sterling Price, 18531857Missouri Digital Heritage
- 5NewsTrail Dust: Gen. Sterling Price Won Pointless Victory in 1848Marc Simmons — October 1, 2010
- 9Eicher, p. 440.
- 12BookMedical Histories of Confederate GeneralsWelsh, Jack D. — Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press — 1995
- 13BookSterling Price: Portrait of a SouthernerShalhope, Robert E. — University of Missouri Press — 1971
- 16Sedalia (MO) Democrat, p. 10, September 17, 1939.
- 17BookGeneral Sterling Price and the Civil War in the WestAlbert E. Castel — Louisiana State University Press — 1993
- 18BookHarper Encyclopedia of Military BiographyTrevor N. Dupuy et al. — Harper Collins — 1992
- 19BookSo Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846–1848John S. D. Eisenhower — University of Oklahoma Press — 2000
- 20JournalAlexander William Doniphan and the 1838 Mormon War in MissouriRoger D. Launius — 1998
- 21BookThe 1838 Mormon War in MissouriStephen C. LeSueur — University of Missouri Press — 1987
- 22BookThe Lost Cause: A New Southern History of the War of the Confederates: Comprising a Full and Authentic Account of the Rise and Progress of the Late Southern Confederacy—the Campaigns, Battles, Incidents, and Adventures of the Most Gigantic Struggle of the World's HistoryEdward A. Pollard — E.B. Treat & Co., Publishers — 1867
- 23BookSterling Price: Portrait of a SouthernerRobert E. Shalhope — University of Missouri Press — 1971
- 24BookGenerals in GrayEzra J. Warner — Louisiana State University Press — 2006
- 25BookMedical Histories of Confederate GeneralsJack D. Welsh — Kent State University Press — 1995