Sterling Price

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.

Early life and career

Price was born near Farmville, Prince Edward County in Virginia. He completed preparatory studies and attended Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where he studied law and worked at the courthouse near his home. Price 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, and 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.

Price served as a member of the Missouri Legislature in its House of Representatives from 1840–1844, serving as speaker. He was elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-ninth Congress and served from March 4, 1845, to August 12, 1846, when he resigned to participate in the Mexican War.

Mexican War

Price raised and was appointed Colonel of the Second Regiment, Missouri Mounted Volunteer Cavalry on August 12, 1846. Price marched with 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 in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Rosales on March 16, 1848. The battle was triggered when Price received false reports of a Mexican advance into New Mexico. Santa Cruz de Rosales is most notable today as the last battle of the war, taking place after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was ratified by the United States on March 10.

Following the war, Price was honorably discharged on November 25, 1848, and returned to Missouri, where he bought a farm and engaged in agricultural pursuits on the Bowling Green prairie. He became a slaveowner and major tobacco planter. Ever popular with the masses, he was easily elected Governor of Missouri and served from 1853 to 1857. He was instrumental in expanding the railroads in the state. Following 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 opposed secession.

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 in 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 southwestern Missouri for the Confederacy.

He later served in the Confederate States Army as a major general after merging his Missouri State Guard into the Army of the West. Among his more prominent battles during the Civil War were the following: the Battle of Wilson's Creek, Missouri, the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, the Battle of Corinth II, Mississippi, the Battle of Helena, Arkansas, the Battle of Lexington II, Missouri, the Battle of Carthage, Missouri, the Battle of Prairie D'Ane, Arkansas, the Battle of Pilot Knob, Missouri, the Battle of Westport, Missouri, and the 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 ended in defeat.

He commanded the famous Price's Missouri Raid of 1864 during which he led his army of previously Missouri State Guardsmen (now converted to regular Confederates) out of Arkansas and into Missouri. His first major engagement of the Raid occurred at Pilot Knob, where he unsuccessfully attempted to capture Fort Davidson, thus causing the needless slaughter of many of his men. From Pilot Knob, Price swung west away from his objective of Saint Louis and towards Kansas City, Missouri. Just southeast of town, Price was boxed in by two separate Federal armies and was forced to fight. In late 1864, Price waged battle at Westport (now a part of Kansas City). The battle did not go in his favor, and he was forced to retreat to Kansas. Later in 1864, once again, Price was forced to fight, and yet again met defeat at Mine Creek, Kansas. His battered and broken army was forced into permanent retreat to Texas. Instead of officially surrendering, he led what was left of his army to Mexico in exile, where he sought service with the Emperor Maximilian.

Price was a leader of a Confederate exile colony in Carlota, Veracruz. When the colony proved to be an utter failure, he returned to Missouri, impoverished and in poor health. He died in St. Louis, Missouri, and was buried in Bellefontaine Cemetery.

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.

Notes

According to the Dictionary of Missouri Biography (Univ. of Missouri Press, 1999), four of the five surviving children were named Edwin W., Celsus, Martha Sterling, and Quintus.

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

External links