Sterling Price
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Sterling "Old Pap" Price (September 20, 1809 – September 29, 1867) was an antebellum politician from the U.S. state of Missouri and a Confederate major general during the American Civil War. He led an army back into Missouri in 1864 on an ill-fated expedition to recapture the state for the Confederacy. He took his remaining troops to Mexico following the war rather than surrender to the Union Army.
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[edit] Early life and career
Price was born near Farmville, in Prince Edward County, Virginia. He attended Hampden-Sydney College, where he studied law and worked at the courthouse near his home. He was admitted to the bar and established a law practice. In the fall of 1831, he and his family moved to Fayette, Missouri. A year later, he moved to Keytesville, Missouri, where he ran a hotel and a merchandise store. On May 14, 1833, he married Martha Head of Randolph County, Missouri. They would have seven children, five of whom survived to adulthood.
During the 1838 Mormon War, Price was a member of a delegation from Chariton County, Missouri sent to investigate reported disturbances between Latter-day Saints and anti-Mormon mobs operating in the western part of that state. His report was favorable to the Mormons, stating that they were not guilty, in his opinion, of the charges levied against them by their enemies.[1] Following the Mormon surrender in November of 1838, Price was ordered by Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs to Caldwell County with a company of men to protect the Mormons from further depredations following their defeat.[2]
Price was elected to Missouri House of Representatives in 1840, serving four years. He was chosen as its speaker. He was then elected as a Democrat to the 29th United States Congress and served from March 4, 1845, to August 12, 1846, when he resigned to participate in the Mexican-American War.
[edit] Mexican-American War
Price raised the Second Regiment, Missouri Mounted Volunteer Cavalry and was appointed its Colonel on August 12, 1846. He marched his regiment to Santa Fe, where he assumed command of the Territory of New Mexico after General Kearney departed for California. Price served as military governor of New Mexico, where he put down the Taos Revolt, an uprising of Native Americans and Mexicans in January 1847. President James K. Polk promoted Price to brigadier general of volunteers on July 20, 1847.
Price commanded the Army of the West at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Rosales, Chihuahua, on March 16, 1848. The battle was fought because Price received false reports of a Mexican advance into New Mexico. It is notable today because it was the last battle of the war, taking place after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been ratified by the United States Congress on March 10.
Following the war, Price was discharged on November 25, 1848, and returned to Missouri. He bought a farm and engaged in agricultural on the Bowling Green prairie. He became a slaveowner and a tobacco planter. Always popular, he was easily elected Governor of Missouri and served from 1853 to 1857. As governor, he was instrumental in expanding the railroad network in the state. After the expiration of his term, he became the State Bank Commissioner from 1857 to 1861. Price was elected presiding officer of the Missouri State Convention on February 28, 1861, which voted against secession.
[edit] Civil War
Price initially opposed Missouri's secession, but when Francis P. Blair, Jr. and Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon seized the state militia's Camp Jackson at St. Louis, Price was outraged. He was assigned by Gov. Claiborne Fox Jackson to command the newly reformed Missouri State Guard in May of 1861. He led his young recruits (who affectionately nicknamed him "Old Pap") in a campaign to secure Missouri for the Confederacy.
Price later was commissioned in the Confederate States Army as a major general, merging his Missouri State Guard into the Army of the West. Among his battles during the Civil War were: Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri, Battle of Lexington I, Missouri, Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, Battle of Corinth II, Mississippi, Battle of Helena, Arkansas, Battle of Lexington II, Missouri, Battle of Carthage, Missouri, Battle of Prairie D'Ane, Arkansas, Battle of Pilot Knob, Missouri, Battle of Westport, Missouri, and Battle of Mine Creek, Kansas. Although he was devoted to the Southern cause, he saw military operations only in terms of liberating Missouri. Most of his later battles were fought against overwhelming odds and ended in defeat.
He commanded the Army of Missouri during Price's Missouri Raid of 1864, during which he led his army of previously Missouri State Guardsmen (now Confederates) from Arkansas and across Missouri. The first major engagement occurred at Pilot Knob, where he unsuccessfully attempted to capture Fort Davidson, causing the needless slaughter of many of his men. From Pilot Knob, he swung west away from St. Louis and towards Kansas City, Missouri. Just southeast of town, he was boxed in by two separate Federal armies and forced to fight. Price gave battle at Westport (now a part of Kansas City), but it did not go in his favor and he was forced to retreat to Kansas. Price was once again forced to fight, and suffered another defeat at Mine Creek. His battered and broken army was forced to retreat to the state of Texas.
[edit] Post-war
Instead of surrendering at the war's end, he led what was left of his army into Mexico, where he unsuccessfully sought service with the Emperor Maximilian.
Price was a leader of a Confederate exile colony in Carlota, Veracruz. When the colony proved to be a failure, he returned to Missouri, impoverished and in poor health. He died in St. Louis, Missouri in 1867 at the age of 58, and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.
[edit] In memoriam
- Sterling Price Camp #145, Sons of Confederate Veterans, in St. Louis is named in his honor.
- During the Civil War, a wooden river steamer built at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1856 as the Laurent Millaudon was taken into the Confederate service and renamed the CSS General Sterling Price. She was sunk during the battle of Memphis, raised, repaired, and served in the Union navy under the name USS General Price although she continued to be referred to as the "General Sterling Price" in Union dispatches.
- There is a statue of Price in Keytesville, Missouri, and a Sterling Price Museum. The tiny city park where it stands is named after him, and the town's chapter of the SCV Post #1743 annually hosts the Sterling Price Days (festival and parade).
- Another monument to Price stands in the Springfield National Cemetery (Springfield, Missouri). Dedicated August 10, 1901, the bronze figure is in honor of Missouri soldiers and General Price. It was commissioned by the United Confederate Veterans of Missouri..
[edit] In popular media
In the motion pictures True Grit and Rooster Cogburn, the title character, portrayed by John Wayne, has a cat named General Sterling Price.
[edit] Notes
- ^ According to the Dictionary of Missouri Biography (Univ. of Missouri Press, 1999), four of the five surviving children were named Elswin P, Celsus, Martha Sterling, and Quintus.
[edit] References
- Rea, Ralph R., Sterling Price, the Lee of the West, Little Rock, Arkansas: Pioneer Press, 1959
- Twitchell, Ralph Emerson, The History of the Military Occupation of the Territory of New Mexico from 1846 to 1851, Denver, Colorado: The Smith-Brooks Company Publishers, 1909
- The Battle of Lexington, Fought in and About the City of Lexington, Missouri on September 18th, 19th and 20th, 1861. Lexington Historical Society. 1903.
[edit] External links
- Sterling Price Camp #145, Sons of Confederate Veterans
- Photo Gallery of Sterling Price
- History of the ship, CSS General Sterling Price
- Greene County biography of Price
- Biographic sketch at U.S. Congress website
- Charter, constitution and by-laws, officers and members of Sterling Price Camp, United Confederate Veterans, Camp No. 31: organized, October 13th, 1889, in the city of Dallas, Texas. published 1893, hosted by the Portal to Texas History.
| Preceded by John Jameson |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri's At-large congressional district 1845-1846 |
Succeeded by William McDaniel |
| Preceded by Augstin Augustus King |
Governor of Missouri 1853-1857 |
Succeeded by Trusten Polk |
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