- ANTONE PIERUCCI
- Posted On
This Week in History: The Civil War’s Trans-Mississippi Theater
It was the largest cavalry raid of the American Civil War – it was the largest cavalry raid ever conducted on American soil. And it was a spectacular failure.
By the summer of 1864, things were looking rather grim for the survival of the Confederacy. General Grant had General Lee backed up against Richmond and General Sherman besieged Atlanta. On all fronts, the Union forces had the Confederacy in retreat. Well, almost all fronts.
The Trans-Mississippi Theater is quite possibly the most overlooked theater of the Civil War. Encompassing the region of, you guessed it, Mississippi along with Missouri, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kansas, Texas and the Indian Territory (modern day Nebraska), this region early in the war had had the potential to become quite contested.
After all, whoever gained control in this area, gained control of the Mississippi River, the greatest waterway in America. Early Union victories, however, clinched the region for the Federals, and it had remained this way ever since.
Things changed in 1864. While the rest of the Confederacy was getting walloped, the Confederate forces in the Trans-Mississippi battered the Union forces over the course of what has since become known as the Red River Campaign.
At the end of the campaign, the Confederacy once more held control of large swathes of northeast Arkansas and had beat back a significant Union incursion into Louisiana along the Red River.
Riding high on his success in the recent campaign, Confederate general Kirby Smith, overall commander of the theater for the Confederacy, decided to follow this up with a bold move.
Ever since 1861, the state of Missouri had been under the control of the Union, although vicious guerilla warfare by Confederate sympathizers made it clear to the Federals that not everyone was content with how things stood.
Hoping to wrestle the state back from the Union, and divert Union troops away from the fighting in the east, General Kirby Smith placed Missouri general Sterling Price in control of the expedition to invade Missouri.
Throughout the war, the southern troops in the Trans-Mississippi theater had been chronically under-supplied. The already hard-pressed Confederate government in Richmond sent its generals in the west only enough supplies to keep men in the field – and hardly even that much.
The result was that while the Federal troops were well provisioned – and had recently been sporting new repeating rifles – the men they opposed in the field often made do with torn britches and squirrel guns. So poorly supplied were they, that many Confederate regiments had begun wearing Union blue – uniforms they had stolen from their dead and captured enemy.
Nevertheless, General Price made preparations. He was a Missourian himself and he itched to take back control of his state. He had on hand some 12,000 men, mostly cavalry and the rest mounted riflemen – only 8,000 of these were armed.
Although poorly supplied, Price intended to enter Missouri and pilfer what supplies he could on his way to St. Louis. The capture of St. Louis was the first objective of the campaign. If the general found the city too well fortified, he was to proceed rapidly westward to capture the capital city and, from there, continue west to Kansas City and Fort Leavenworth with its massive stockpile of arms and ammunition.
With his rag-tag mounted army, General Price entered Missouri on Sept. 19, 1864.
A month into the campaign found General Price despondent, if only secretly. His army had won some individual victories on its way to St. Louis, but had faced debilitating losses, thanks in large part to his own foolish decisions – like choosing to attack Fort Davidson, which held no strategic importance, and losing 800 men in the gamble.
By the time Price got within range of St. Louis, he found the city too well defended to risk an engagement, so he moved westward toward the capital of Jefferson City – only to find that city also too well defended.
As his army bypassed Jefferson City, some 5,500 Union cavalrymen under Major General Alfred Pleasonton pursued them westward. Hoping now to achieve at least one objective in this raid, Price rushed his army westward towards Kansas City, where Union General Samuel Ryan Curtis’ Army of the Border awaited him, some 15,000 men strong. If he didn’t smash his way through the Army of the Border, Price would find himself crushed in a vise, with one enemy force to the east and another to the west.
Under these circumstances, Price’s army took the first moves in what would become known as the Battle of Westport on Oct. 23, 1864.
General Curtis’ Army of the Border made a stand along the banks of the Big Blue River and its tributaries. Early in the morning, the bulk of Prices’ army charged across and forced the Federals back.
Their advantage, however, was quickly nullified when they had to halt their advance to replenish their ammunition – once more cursing their inadequate supplies. The delay at the Big Blue allowed General Pleasonton time to bring his army up from the east, and General Price soon realized his worst nightmare: his army was about to be surrounded.
Ferocious fighting on all fronts broke out as the Union army attempted to crush its opponents and Price’s men fought for their lives. A gallant stand by Confederate General Shelby stopped both Union forces long enough for the bulk of Price’s army to flee southward towards Little Santa Fe along the Missouri-Kansas border.
At the end of the Battle of Westport, the Confederate Army had given up on its final objective of taking Kansas City and the fort nearby. Now all it could think about was escaping back to Arkansas.
The following day, however, weighed down by some 500 wagons full of loot stolen along their ill-fated raid, the Confederate forces were once again confronted by Pleasonton and Curtis.
This time, with the help of their new repeating rifles and fresh men, the Union forces utterly crushed the Confederates at the Battle of Mine Creek on Oct. 25, thereby effectively bringing an end to the fighting in that theater.
Antone Pierucci is curator of history at the Riverside County Park and Open Space District and a freelance writer whose work has been featured in such magazines as Archaeology and Wild West as well as regional California newspapers.
