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.
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.
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.
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.
* 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.
# 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.
*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
*
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
