August 28, 1864 – Major General Sterling “Pap” Price organized a new Confederate army to move north into Missouri and claim that state for the Confederacy.
Price, a former Missouri governor, now commanded Confederates at Camden, Arkansas. He had been urging his superiors to let him take the offensive so that he might drive Federal influence out of his home state. In July, Price wrote:
“My opinion is that the people of Missouri are ready for a general uprising, and that the time was never more propitious for an advance of our forces into Missouri. Our friends should be encouraged and supported promptly. Delay will be dangerous. Unsustained, they may be overwhelmed by superior numbers, become dispirited, and, finally, disheartened and hopeless.”
Price traveled to Shreveport, Louisiana, to meet with General Edmund Kirby Smith, commanding the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, and Texas Governor Thomas Reynolds. Both Smith and Reynolds approved the expedition, but only if someone besides Price led it. Realizing they had nobody else, they reluctantly gave Price the assignment. Reynolds urged Smith to ensure that Price had “the best division and brigade commanders and an unusually efficient staff.”
Smith issued orders for Price to “make immediate arrangements for a movement into Missouri, with the entire cavalry force of your district.” Price would collect the forces scattered around the District of Arkansas to form the 12,000-man Army of Missouri, which consisted of three cavalry divisions under Brigadier Generals James F. Fagan, John S. Marmaduke, and Joseph O. “Jo” Shelby.
Price instructed his commanders: “Make Saint Louis the objective point of your movement, which, if rapidly made, will put you in possession of that place, its supplies, and military stores, and which will do more toward rallying Missouri to your standard than the possession of any other point.” The commanders were to–
“… scrupulously avoid all wanton acts of destruction and devastation, restrain your men, and impress upon them that their aim should be to secure success in a just and holy cause and not to gratify personal feeling and revenge. Rally the loyal men of Missouri, and remember that our great want is men, and that your object should be, if you cannot maintain yourself in that country, to bring as large an accession as possible to our force.”
The Confederates were to capture supplies at both St. Louis and Jefferson City, redeem Missouri from the Unionists, and then ride back south through Kansas and the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
The operation was delayed over three weeks due to lack of ammunition. Price took command of the divisions of Fagan and Marmaduke at Princeton on the 28th, but he feared that the Federals had found out about his line of march. Price therefore led the two divisions back to Little Rock, from which he could link with Shelby’s division at Batesville. Such a roundabout movement was not a good sign of things to come for Price.
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References
CivilWarDailyGazette.com; Foote, Shelby, The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Kindle Edition, 2011), Loc 12075-95; Fredriksen, John C., Civil War Almanac (New York: Checkmark Books, 2007), p. 480, 491; Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day (New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971), p. 562