The Great Missouri Raid

In 1864, General Sterling Price with an army of 12,000 ragtag Confederates invaded Missouri in an effort to wrest it from the United States Army’s Department of Missouri. Price hoped his campaign would sway the 1864 presidential election, convincing war-weary Northern voters to cast their ballots for a peace candidate rather than Abraham Lincoln. It was the South’s last invasion of Northern territory.
But it was simply too late in the war for the South to achieve such an outcome, and Price grossly mismanaged the campaign, guaranteeing the defeat of his force and of the Confederate States. This book chronicles the Confederacy’s desperate, final, ill-fated attempt to win a decisive victory.

Colonel Michael J. Forsyth (U.S. Army) formerly commanded the 196th Infantry Brigade and now serves as chief of staff of the Alaskan Command. He writes articles for Gettysburg Magazine, Field Artillery Journal, Small Wars Journal and Military Review.

Michael J. Forsyth
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 292
Bibliographic Info: 23 photos, 5 maps, appendices, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-7695-4
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1923-1
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Preface 1
Introduction 5
1. “It looks very much like war…” 11
2. A Passion for Missouri: The Rebel Invaders 27
3. A Team of Outcasts: The Yankees 58
4. “A blow that had destiny in it” 93
5. Crossing the River 106
6. “Thermopylae” 118
7. Lost Opportunities 141
8. The “Picnic Period” 158
9. Westport 171
10. “This has been a disastrous day!” 200
11. “This unfortunate campaign” 216
12. Epilogue 229
Appendix A—Chronology 237
Appendix B—Order of Battle 242
Chapter Notes 253
Bibliography 271
Index 277

“Forsyth continues his streak of quality works on campaigns in the Trans-Mississippi with this book…anyone interested in the war in the Trans-Mississippi would be wise to pick up this title”—Civil War News; “well written”—The Journal of America’s Military Past.