Battle of Westport
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| Battle of Westport | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of American Civil War | |||||||
 Major General Samuel R. Curtis |
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| Combatants | |||||||
| United States of America | Confederate States of America | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Samuel R. Curtis | Sterling Price | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Army of the Border (22,000) | Army of Missouri (8,500) | ||||||
| Casualties | |||||||
| 1,500 | 1,500 | ||||||
| Price's Missouri Expedition |
|---|
| Fort Davidson – Glasgow – 2nd Lexington – Little Blue River – 2nd Independence – Byram's Ford – Westport – Marais des Cygnes – Mine Creek – Marmiton River – 2nd Newtonia |
The Battle of Westport, sometimes referred to as the "Gettysburg of Missouri," was fought on October 23, 1864, in present-day Kansas City, Missouri, during the American Civil War. U.S. Army forces under Major General Samuel R. Curtis decisively defeated an outnumbered Confederate Army force under Major General Sterling Price. The conflict was the turning point of Price's Missouri Expedition and helped force his army to retreat.
Contents |
[edit] Westport
Westport (which is now within the boundaries of present-day Kansas City) was already a historic city by the time Union and Confederate forces clashed there in 1864. Pioneers traveling along the Oregon, California and Santa Fe Trails had all passed through this town on their way West via Wakarusa watershed ridgelines.
- Rivers are both byways and barriers.
- To understand history, first understand rivers.
Source: Kansas Miltary History Journal - (Cimarron) Current Events Department
[edit] Price's Missouri Expedition
In September of 1864, Sterling Price led his Army of Missouri into Missouri. Major General William S. Rosecrans, commanding the Federal Department of the Missouri, began assembling troops to repel the invasion. Rosecrans's cavalry, under Major General Alfred Pleasonton, was in pursuit of Price with a large detachment of infantry from the Army of the Tennessee under Andrew J. Smith. Finding St. Louis too heavily fortified, Price moved further west to threaten Jefferson City. After light skirmishing, Price again decided his target was too heavily fortified and moved west once again towards Fort Leavenworth.
Major General Samuel R. Curtis, commander of the Federal Department of Kansas, now faced the threat of Price's army moving into his department. Curtis assembled the troops of his department into the Army of the Border. James G. Blunt was recalled from Indian campaigns to lead the 1st Division composed mostly of volunteers regiments and some Kansas militia. George Dietzler, overall commander of the state militia organized the rest of the militia regiments into a second division.
[edit] Opposing Forces at Westport
[edit] Union
Army of the Border - Major General Samuel Ryan Curtis
- 1st Division - Major General James G. Blunt
- 1st Brigade - Colonel Charles R. Jennison
- 2nd Brigade - Colonel Thomas Moonlight
- 3rd Brigade - Colonel Charles W. Blair
- 4th Brigade - Colonel James Hobart Ford
- Kansas State Militia - Major General George W. Dietzler
- 1st Brigade - Brigadier General M. S. Grant
- 2nd Brigade - Brigadier General Byron Sherry (manned Kansas City defenses)
- 3rd Brigade - Brigadier Genreral William Fishbeck (attached to 3rd Brigade, 1st Division)
- 4th Brigade - Brigadier Genreal J. B. Scott
Department of the Missouri - Major General William S. Rosecrans
- Provisional Cavalry Division - Major General Alfred Pleasonton
- 1st Brigade - Brigadier General John B. Sanborn
- 2nd Brigade - Brigadier General John McNeil
- 3rd Brigade - Brigadier General Egbert B. Brown
- 4th Brigade - Colonel Edward F. Winslow
[edit] Confederate
Army of Missouri - Major General Sterling Price
- Fagan's Division - Major General James F. Fagan
- Dobbin's Brigade - Colonel Archiblad Dobbin
- Marmaduke's Division - Brigadier General John S. Marmaduke
- Marmaduke's Brigade - Brigadier General John B. Clark II
- Freeman's Brigade - Colonel Thomas Freeman
- Shelby's Division - Brigadier Joseph O. Shelby
- Iron Brigade - Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson
- Jackman's Brigade - Colonel Sidney D. Jackman
[edit] The battle
Curtis placed Blunt's division in a defensive position along Brush Creek with Dietzler's militia on the right flank. Price hoped to defeat Curtis's main force before Pleasonton joined him. He planned to strike Blunt's division with Shelby and Fagan while Marmaduke was to guard Byram's Ford across the Blue River to prevent Pleasonton from joining Curtis. At dawn on October 23, Price attacked and drove back the Union forces. Curtis counter-attacked and drove the Confederates back across Brush Creek. For four hours the fighting see-sawed back and forth across Brush Creek. Finally a brigade under Col. Thomas Moonlight found its way through a small ravine and hit Price's exposed left flank. The Confederates fell back to a new defensive line, with Curtis now taking the offensive. At this time Pleasonton arrived and routed Marmaduke's force at Byram's Ford. Another Union cavalry force had been sent south to attack Price's rear guard. The Union army was converging on three sides and Price was forced to retreat.
[edit] Results
The Battle of Westport was one of the largest battles west of the Mississippi River, with over 30,000 troops involved and roughly 1,500 casualties on each side. The Union victory put an end to Price's threat to Missouri. The greatly contested border state of Missouri was now firmly in Union control. Price continued to fight mostly rear guard actions on his retreat to Arkansas, where his expedition officially ended November 1, 1864. This was the last campaign in the Trans-Mississippi Theater and the last major Confederate threat to any northern state.
[edit] History of Preservation of Battle of Westport Sites and Byram's Ford
(As described in the Monnett Battle of Westport Fund Interpretive and Development Plan)
At the beginning of the twentieth century, public interest was sparked to commemorate the events of the Battle of Westport. In 1906, Paul D. Jenkins published the early book Battle of Westport which stimulated the public preservation effort. In the summer of 1912, a reenactment of the battle at Byram's Ford was staged in Swope Park. (Kansas City Star, September 6,1912)
During the decade following the First World War, Kansas City's civic leaders under the direction of H. H. Crittenden, president of the Missouri Valley Historical Society, presented a concerted effort to have the Battle of Westport sites near present-day Loose Park and at Byram's Ford. Crittenden's father was Col. Thomas Crittenden who lead one of the Union cavalry brigades at Byram's Ford on October 23, 1864 and later served as governor of Missouri.
The mayor and City council of Kansas City passed ordinances recognizing the sites associated with the Battle of Westport and Byram's Ford in 1923. These activities were followed by the introduction of a bills in 1924 in the United States Congress to create a national military park to commemorate the Battle of Westport. The first proposal provided for acquisition of a site in the present Loose Park area on Wornall Road at 55th Street.
When this tract became unavailable, then efforts for a national memorial focused in 1925 and 1926 on the Byram’s Ford Big Blue River site. In the testimony before the Congress, the proponents of the Big Blue site advocated the acquisition of the Hagerman tract located on the slope of Bloody Hill. The witnesses testified in 1926 that one of the log houses that was present during the battles in 1864 still stood on this Hagerman tract in 1926. This effort was unsuccessful and the project then ceased for several years.
During the 1950s much of the battlefield was disturbed by the construction of commercial and industrial buildings beginning in 1955 with the construction of an office building facing 63rd Street atop the ridge of Bloody Hill on the former Hagerman tract. This structure was used by Allstate Insurance and then by the Burns and McDonell engineering firm. Between 1956 and 1962 the Meadow area of the site was heavily damaged by the construction of eight buildings for the Byram’s Ford Industrial Park. Two large industrial plants were built on the ridge to the north of the old Byram’s Ford Road. The developer of the industrial park erected a memorial to the Civil War at the crossing of Manchester Trafficway near the historic route of the Byram’s Ford Road.
On the eve of the Civil War centennial in 1958, the Civil War Round Table of Kansas City was formed with former President Harry S. Truman as one of its charter members. Dr. Howard N. Monnett of the Round Table researched, spoke and wrote extensively about the Action Before Westport. Dr. Monnett’s book by that title was published in 1964 at the time of centennial of the Battle of Westport. Dr. Monnett’s enthusiasm for the subject within the Kansas City Round Table led to the discussion of creating an automobile tour of the widely dispersed sites associated with the three-day conflict.
As a memorial to his vision, the leaders of the Kansas City Round Table in 1975 formed the Howard N. Monnett Battle of Westport Fund, Inc. as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation for the purpose of commemorating and interpreting for the public the sites and battlefields associated with the Battle of Westport. By 1979 the founders of the Monnett Fund had successfully raised funds from throughout the community to purchase and erect permanent signage and monument markers at 25 sites and had created a self-guided automobile tour. These markers included a monument marker in the Meadow site and several wayside markers on Bloody Hill.
In 1979 and 1980, the leaders of the Monnett Fund began the initial efforts to place portions of the Byram’s Ford site on the National Register of Historic Places. This effort was stymied by the confused ownership of many of the tracts in the environs of the Ford and by the unwillingness of owners to voluntarily agree to the site’s nomination to the Register.
The Monnett Fund in 1983 began its role as an actual owner and steward of a portion of the tracts comprising the Big Blue Battlefield. The Monnett Fund’s leaders obtained the donation from Commerce Bank of fifty acres of the battlefield and adjacent tracts which had been subject to foreclosure. This donation included the site of Byram’s Ford crossing on the Big Blue River.
The Historic District was nominated and entered upon the National Register in 1989. The District is Byram's Ford Road Site on the east side of Hardesty Avenue as the old road descends from the east bluff above the Blue River. The second tract is at the ford itself and designated as "Byram's Ford Site." (Marmor at 19)
The Byram's Ford Road Site of the Historic District was acquired in 1995 through a joint effort of The Fund and the APCWS. Title was transferred to the Kansas City Parks Department in April 1995.
Recent intensive archaeological survey in 1996 on behalf of the United States Army Corps of Engineers have provided artifact documentation of the fighting which took place on the area between Byram's Ford and rock out cropping west of the ford. As a result, it has been recommended that the Historic District be amended to include generally that tract which is currently owned by the Fund. (The legal description for the tract is Lot 6 of the Byram's Ford Industrial Park). (Marmor at 60)
Further work in the form of intensive metal detecting and artifact analysis was recommended as appropriate treatment of the site. The projected levee work by the Corps was noted to have an adverse impact upon the additional tract, and mitigation was recommended. (Marmor at 1 "Abstract")
See www.battleofwestport.org [1] for more information about the Monnett Battle of Westport Fund, its preservation efforts, and its capital campaign to raise money for the acquisition of key tracts of land. Additionally, the Fund is currently working to raise money to support the opening and operation of a visitors centor. The group's website includes the video Saving Kansas City's Battlefield[2], which shows what the battlefield will look like following full restoration to its 1864 appearance.
[edit] Memorial
A memorial walking tour of battle sites exists throughout Kansas City. The main memorial for the battle is located at the main battlefield in the Sunset Hill neighborhood just south of the Country Club Plaza, comprising present-day Loose Park and a portion of what is now the lower (Wornall) campus of The Pembroke Hill School. A driving tour starts in Westport, Kansas City at Kelly's Westport Inn, the oldest standing building in Kansas City, Missouri. The self-guided tour has several battlefield stops including the Wornall House, which served as a hospital during the battle, and Forest Hill Cemetery, the final resting place of many men and officers of General Joseph Shelby's "Iron Brigade".
[edit] References
- National Park Service battle description
- Howard N. Monnett: Action Before Westport, 1864. Westport Historical Society, 1995 (1964) ISBN 0-87081-413-3
- Fred L. Lee: The Battle of Westport, October 21-23, 1864. Westport Historical Society, 1996 (1976) ISBN 0-913504-38-6 (battlefield tour guide).
