Price's Missouri Expedition

Price's Missouri Expedition, also known as Price's Raid, was a Confederate cavalry raid through the states of Missouri and Kansas in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War during the autumn of 1864. Led by Confederate Major General Sterling Price, the campaign's intention was to recapture Missouri and renew Confederate initiative in the larger war.

Despite winning several early victories, Price was ultimately defeated at the Battle of Westport by Union forces under Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis in late October, and again by cavalry under Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton at the Battle of Mine Creek, forcing his retreat back into Arkansas. Price's expedition proved to be the final significant Southern operation west of the Mississippi River. Its failure bolstered confidence in an ultimate Union victory in the war, thereby contributing to President Abraham Lincoln's re-election, and cemented Federal control over the hotly contested border state of Missouri.

After three years of bloody and inconclusive fighting, Confederate authorities were becoming desperate as the U.S. presidential election approached in the fall of 1864. Although the fortunes of war had largely favored the South prior to 1863, events were now starting to favor the Union. In the Eastern Theater, Ulysses S. Grant had Robert E. Lee pinned down in the Siege of Petersburg; Jubal Early had been driven back from the outskirts of Washington, D.C., while Philip Sheridan was now pursuing him in the Shenandoah Valley; and William T. Sherman had captured Atlanta. With foreign recognition for the Confederacy not forthcoming, Southerners realized that President Abraham Lincoln's re-election would be disastrous for their cause, especially as Lincoln's primary opponent, George McClellan, had campaigned on the promise of conciliating the South with offers of peace.

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