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The Battle of Pilot Knob: Trans-Mississippi Musings, #1
The Battle of Pilot Knob: Trans-Mississippi Musings, #1
The Battle of Pilot Knob: Trans-Mississippi Musings, #1
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The Battle of Pilot Knob: Trans-Mississippi Musings, #1

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It's the summer of 1864 and things are not going well for the Confederate States of America. But Major-General Sterling Price, former Governor and Mexican War hero, has a daring plan to invade his home state of Missouri and capture it for the Confederacy. With 12,000 cavalry, Major-General Price enters Missouri in the fall of 1864, intent on capturing the state's largest city, Saint Louis. Many of the invading Confederates are Missourians intent on gaining control of their home state. Missouri is ripe for the taking. After a series of battles in 1861 and 1862, Confederate forces have been driven from the state. Although Missouri has been plagued constantly by guerrilla warfare, Federal authorities have continued to pull Federal forces out of Missouri to fight in other places. What few forces remain are scattered throughout the state. Major-General William S. Rosecrans is the Federal commander in Missouri and the Confederate invasion has him scrambling to mount a defense. Rosecrans orders Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing, Jr. to take command of a detachment of 1,200 Federal cavalry and infantry, along with a battery of field artillery. General Ewing assumes command of the detachment in Pilot Knob, a small town in southeastern Missouri. Here the Federals will occupy the earthworks of Fort Davidson to stand between the invading Confederates and Saint Louis. This book is a combination of narrative and eye-witness accounts that tell the story of what happened when 12,000 Confederates went up against 1,200 Federals in the Battle of Pilot Knob.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJul 5, 2014
ISBN9781501451669
The Battle of Pilot Knob: Trans-Mississippi Musings, #1
Author

Dick Titterington

Dick Titterington is theCivilWarMuse, an amateur historian with particular interest in the American Civil War. Dick maintains a website, theCivilWarMuse.com, providing virtual tours of Civil War battlefields with interesting facts about the battle and biographies of key individuals. The virtual tours allow you to travel back in time and personally take walking and auto tours of various battlefields and expeditions. Area maps, waypoints and pictures are provided to orient and guide you through your visit. Dick also has a blog Trans-Mississippi Musings (http://www.transmississippimusings.com/) writing about interesting stories that took place in the Trans-Mississippi theater during the American Civil War, including the Reconstruction era following the war. Dick is currently retired and living in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area after a 26-year career as an Information Technology professional. Dick is a volunteer docent at the Battle of Westport Visitor Center (http://battleofwestport.org/VisitorCenter.htm) in Kansas City, Missouri. Dick volunteers for SPARK (Senior Peers Actively Renewing Knowledge) teaching classes on the Civil War in Missouri. SPARK is an Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) and a member of the Road Scholar Institute Network (RSIN). SPARK partners with the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Follow Dick on Twitter @theCivilWarMuse

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    Great detailed series on the Trans-Mississippi campaigns of the Civil War.

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The Battle of Pilot Knob - Dick Titterington

Preface

A little more than twenty years ago I was living in Kansas City, Missouri when I, like many others, became interested in the American Civil War after watching the Ken Burns Documentary, The Civil War. The documentary introduced me to Shelby Foote. Shortly thereafter, I read Shelby Foote’s three volume The Civil War: A Narrative, soaking up everything he had to say about the war. Then I read more books that focused on individual battles of the war, Antietam, Shiloh and, of course, Gettysburg.

It was a number of years before I discovered that I was living in a state that was a hotbed of activity during the American Civil War. Indeed, according to Frederick Dyer in his A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, the state of Missouri experienced 1,162 fighting events during the American Civil War. Missouri was third behind Virginia (2,154) and Tennessee (1,462). [1]

Mr. Foote’s three volume Civil War Narrative did not emphasize events that took place west of the Mississippi River. Foote made no mention of Camp Jackson or Boonville, devoted a few pages to Wilson’s Creek and less than a page to Lexington. Mr. Foote covered the Battle of Pea Ridge in about 16 pages and Price’s 1864 Missouri Raid in about 12 pages.

It was about four years ago that I decided to partner with a good friend of mine and put together a website about the American Civil War. The website has focused on events taking place in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the war, which means everything west of the Mississippi River. The result of this collaboration was (and still is) www.thecivilwarmuse.com. I had enjoyed visiting Civil War battlefields and the website’s virtual tours became a way of describing for others what I saw during my visits. It then occurred to me that the next step would be to share my experiences with others face-to-face.

So for the last two years I have been teaching a series of classes on the American Civil War for an organization called SPARK. These classes have focused on events during the 1850s and 1860s in Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas. SPARK is an acronym that stands for Senior Peers Actively Renewing Knowledge. SPARK is an Elderhostel Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) and a member of the Elderhostel Institute Network. SPARK partners with the University of Missouri-Kansas City, which allows SPARK to operate in a collegiate environment supported by the intellectual and cultural resources of the university.

Trans-Mississippi Musings are meant to be eBooks that cover an event taking place in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War. The books are intended to be part narrative and part eye-witness accounts. These books tell the stories using the words of the individuals who were present when the event took place. I use original source material from letters, diaries, official records and memoirs. What really appeals to me when reading the accounts written by the participants is how dramatic their accounts can be. I can only imagine this, but I expect their adrenaline was flowing when they recounted the events. I have decided not to edit the eye-witness accounts to correct either spelling or grammar.

I am sure many of you are familiar with the old adage that history is written by the winners. This definitely applies to the American Civil War. It is especially true regarding the public perception of the events along the Missouri-Kansas border. Many people are familiar with the story of how William Quantrill led a raid on Lawrence, Kansas that resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Kansans. Far fewer people are familiar with the raiding led by Charles Jennison and James Lane that resulted in the deaths of many Missourians.

Sometimes the participants tend to embellish their stories, but that is only human nature. I have tried to include testimonies from both sides. I want to provide a fair and balanced account of these historical events. Just like everyone else, I am persuaded by one argument but not another. So, of course, my writings will contain those points of view that I find compelling. I hope you concur with my judgment. But at least you can go back to the original sources and judge for yourself.

I hope you enjoy the result.

Dick Titterington, November 20, 2012

Prologue

Born in Tennessee in 1842, Henry Clay Wilkinson moved with his family to Wayne County, Missouri in the spring of 1859. Wilkinson and his family settled near Coldwater along Cedar Creek, but eventually relocated a little to the north in Madison County. After the start of the war, Wilkinson joined the Union Home Guard in southeastern Missouri. Since the start of the war, Missouri had been the scene of internecine warfare between pro-southern and pro-northern Missourians. But the Federal Provost-Marshal system in Missouri and punitive patrols against guerrillas had proven somewhat effective. Henry Wilkinson recalled that southeastern Missouri in 1864 had had a bit of a respite from the guerrilla warfare that had torn Missouri apart for 3 long years. [2]

As to local affairs, the spring and early summer of 1864, we had comparatively quiet times, generally in southeast Missouri. In good confidence, the farmer ‘plowed in hope’, not dreaming that he was then plowing to grow corn to feed Gen. Sterling Price’s army of over 20,000 men! As to our family, we had removed to a farm near the mouth of Cedar Creek, and pitched a fairly good crop of corn and tobacco and watermelons enough for all our neighbors. Of course, we were on the watch all the time. We never thought of going anywhere, even to church, without our arms. We always slept with our guns and our revolvers in easy reach, but fortunately, we were not called upon to use them at our homes.

But all that was going to change.

1864 in the Confederacy

The people of Missouri are ready for a general uprising.Sterling Price

It’s July 1864 and events are not going well for the Confederate States of America. Three Federal armies under the command of Major-General William T. Sherman are threatening the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Confederate Lieutenant-General John Bell Hood will soon be forced to abandon Atlanta to the Federals. Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant has Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia bottled up behind the fortifications protecting Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia.

Let’s let Confederate General Braxton Bragg, the Chief-of-Staff to CSA President Jefferson Davis, describe the situation. On July 29, 1864, General Braxton Bragg sent the following letter to Lieutenant-General Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederacy’s Trans-Mississippi Department. General Bragg hoped to convince Smith to see the pressing necessity for the movement of your troops across the Mississippi River. [3]

At Petersburg General Lee has a formidable army in his front and in a position whence it can at all times seriously interrupt his communications south. Early, with his corps in the Valley, is meeting resistance, and his whole command is required there to protect and get out the grain and prevent an advance from that quarter. No troops can possibly be spared from Virginia for other points ... General Hood’s army (formerly Johnston’s) has retired to the immediate vicinity of Atlanta, and Sherman is threatening that place with an army superior in numbers and in fine condition ... Every available man in General Hood’s department has been sent to the front, including the operatives in the Government shops. Still more troops are urgently needed.

General Braxton Bragg (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress).

CSA President Jefferson Davis (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress).

Lieutenant-General Kirby Smith (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress).

Earlier in the year the Confederacy had experienced some success in the Trans-Mississippi against Union forces in the Red River and Camden Campaigns. Sterling Price, former Missouri Governor and now a Major-General in the Confederate States Army, had spent most of the war trying to position his forces to retake control of Missouri for the Confederacy. During the summer of 1864, Major-General Sterling Price had command of the District of Arkansas in the Confederacy’s Trans-Mississippi Department. Its recent military successes probably had turned Price’s thoughts north to his home state.

Major-General Sterling Price (Image courtesy of the Library of Congress).

Thomas C. Reynolds had been inaugurated as Missouri’s Lieutenant Governor in January of 1861. He was among the many pro-secession state officials who had gone into exile when Federal troops under the command of Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon had occupied the State Capital, Jefferson City. Following the death of Missouri Governor-in-exile Claiborne Fox Jackson in 1862, Reynolds assumed the position of Governor of Missouri in the Confederate States of America. On July 18, 1864, Reynolds wrote a long letter from Marshall, Texas to Confederate Major-General Sterling Price in Arkansas. [4]

Our affairs in the eastern half of our Confederacy are in critical condition ... [and] the President and Secretary of War are impatient for an advance into Missouri ... Could not a powerful diversion be made by cavalry ... [in order to] gain time for us in Georgia or avert an attack on Mobile by compelling the enemy to send large forces to Missouri. If successful in maintaining itself the cavalry might be re-enforced ... by recruiting within our State. But the main point of view from which I suggest such an expedition is, that it may take off some of the pressure on us in Virginia and Georgia ... The main object of this letter is to learn from you at your earliest convenience in a few lines whether you approve of such an expedition; whether you would be willing to take command of it.

Missouri Governor-in-Exile Thomas C. Reynolds (Image from the Portrait Gallery at Missouri State Capitol).

Before the start of the war, Sterling Price had been an elder statesman in Missouri, overseeing his farm in Keytesville. In March of 1861, Price had presided over the State Convention that voted against seceding from the Union. But Price was outraged when Federal volunteer forces had surrounded and captured Missouri State Militia forces at Camp Jackson two months later in May. Governor Claiborne F. Jackson had appointed Sterling Price to be a Major-General in command of the Missouri State Guard. Price led his Missouri State Guard against Federal forces in the Battles of Wilson’s Creek, Lexington, and Pea Ridge. Following the Battle of Pea Ridge, Sterling Price accepted a commission as a Major-General in the Confederate States Army, taking many of his Missouri State Guard troops into Confederate service.

But the war had been hard on Sterling Price. He had been away from his home for over three years. He would turn 55 years old in September and probably felt his age. Price was six foot and two inches tall and at this point in the war weighed over 300 pounds. Price was so heavy that he could not ride a horse for very long. By the summer of 1864, Sterling Price was eager to return to Missouri, and it took him only four days to reply to Governor Reynolds. [5]

I consider such an expedition practicable, and in the contingency you suggest desirable and important ... I would like to take command of the expedition ... 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 ... I have confidence of the happiest results from the expedition you suggest.

Reynolds had said in his letter to Price that CS President Jefferson Davis was impatient for an advance into Missouri. It’s unlikely that Davis was paying close attention to the Trans-Mississippi Department. Although stymied, Grant’s forces were only 20 miles away from the Confederate Capital of Richmond. And the great Confederate city of Atlanta was being hard pressed by Sherman. So maybe it was fate when Captain J. Henry Behan, the Assistant Commissary of Subsistence for the Department of Alabama, Mississippi and East Louisiana, took a chance and sent a letter to President Jefferson Davis on July 23, 1864. [6]

I take the liberty of communicating with you on a subject which probably I have no right to, but prompted by my desire for our speedy success and independence I am not reluctant in so doing. While the enemy have almost entirely withdrawn from the Trans-Mississippi Department, being compelled to do so by the many reverses they have met with in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, I would respectfully suggest that the armies of Generals Magruder, Taylor, and Price be massed under the command of General E. Kirby Smith ... and ... go through Arkansas and Missouri, capturing Franklin and Saint Louis, [then] cross the Mississippi River into Kentucky, go along the Ohio River, subsisting on the rich country they will pass through, take Louisville, Ky., thence down to Nashville ...from thence they can move on Chattanooga, cutting off all of Sherman’s supplies, and necessarily, with General Hood in front and this army in rear, we will be able to capture the whole of the Yankee army under Sherman. This may seem a wild plan.

Captain Behan even had the audacity to send two follow up letters, on July 25 and 27, encouraging Davis to act. Davis must have been intrigued, for on August 15 he forwarded it on to his Chief-of-Staff, General Braxton Bragg, for his perusal and attention. When Bragg halfheartedly endorsed the plan, Davis decided to ask Secretary of War James Seddon to weigh in on the plan. Seddon felt the

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