Battle of Westport

By Terry Beckenbaugh, U. S. Air Force Command and Staff College

The Battle of the Little Blue, fought just east of Independence in Jackson County, Missouri, on October 21, 1864, was part of Sterling Price’s “Missouri Expedition” and a prelude to the larger and more decisive Battle of Westport two days later. The Battle of the Little Blue was an attempt by the federal Army of the Border’s vanguard (led by Major General James G. Blunt) to delay the Confederate Army of Missouri (commanded by Major General Sterling Price) until the pursuing Union force of the Department of the Missouri, commanded by Major General Alfred Pleasonton, could hit the rebels from behind. Although the outcome of the Battle of the Little Blue was a tactical Confederate victory, Blunt’s delaying action bought valuable time for Pleasonton to catch up with Price’s rearguard two days later at Westport.

By William D. Hickox, University of Kansas

Alfred Pleasonton was a Union cavalry general during the Civil War. While he is best known for leading the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps in the Gettysburg Campaign, Pleasonton also played a crucial role on the Western Border. After being transferred to the Department of the Missouri, Pleasonton helped to defeat Sterling Price’s epic cavalry raid in October 1864.

Foreword on the Civil War in Kansas City

Why do Little Dixie battle flags still flap in some Missouri cemeteries? What on earth is a jayhawker? Or a bushwhacker? Why does the name “Quantrill,” for some Missourians, evoke a legacy almost equal to that of the raging abolitionist John Brown on the Kansas side? The history behind all of this speaks to divisions that persist in the Kansas City area.

Rick Montgomery
The Kansas City Star

By Terry Beckenbaugh, U. S. Air Force Command and Staff College

Samuel Ryan Curtis was the most successful federal general west of the Mississippi River during the American Civil War. He is primarily remembered as the victor at the battles of Pea Ridge and Westport. But Curtis was far more than just a general; he played a key role in the opening and exploitation of the American West as an engineer, politician, railroad advocate, and soldier.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Sterling Price, a U.S. congressman, governor of Missouri, and Confederate major general, was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, to a slave-owning planter family. He eventually became one of the most important Confederate generals operating in Arkansas and Missouri.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Major General Sterling Price’s unsuccessful cavalry raid of September and October 1864, the largest Confederate cavalry raid of the war, sought to capture St. Louis and recover Missouri for the Confederacy. Price believed the expedition would spur recruiting, contribute to Abraham Lincoln’s defeat in the November presidential election, and perhaps end the war.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Joseph Orville Shelby, Confederate cavalry commander, was born in Lexington, Kentucky on December 12, 1830. Educated at Transylvania University in Kentucky, he moved to Waverly, Missouri, in 1852, becoming a rope manufacturer and hemp planter and one of the state’s largest slave owners. During the Missouri-Kansas border troubles, he led two armed forays of proslavery activists into Kansas, one of which participated in the Sack of Lawrence.

By Christopher Phillips, University of Cincinnati

Charles R. Jennison, abolitionist and federal cavalry colonel, was born on June 6, 1834, in Antwerp, in upstate New York’s famed “Burned-Over District,” so named for its fervid evangelical religious revivals that were foundational to Northern antislavery reform. In 1857 he moved his young family to Osawatomie, Kansas, perhaps not coincidentally the home of John Brown, whose by then notorious radical politics Jennison would soon emulate.

By Terry Beckenbaugh, U. S. Air Force Command and Staff College

As the war turned against the Confederacy in late 1864, Confederate Major General Sterling Price led his cavalry forces on an epic raid into Missouri, hoping to install secessionist Thomas Reynolds as state governor in Jefferson City and to establish the Confederate state government’s legitimacy. Presumably, the loss of a border state would impede President Lincoln’s chances for reelection the following month and give the Confederacy an opportunity to negotiate a peaceful settlement. At the Battle of Westport, however, Price’s Raid (or Price’s “Missouri Expedition”) came to an inglorious climax.

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