Fort Davidson

Near Pilot Knob, Missouri, on September 27, 1864, forces clashed in what became known as the Battle of Fort Davidson, sometimes called the Battle of Pilot Knob, one engagement within Price's Missouri Expedition. Major-General Sterling Price had led his Confederate command into the state that September, aiming to contest Union authority there. Word reached Price on September 24 that Pilot Knob was in Union hands. Two days afterward, he dispatched a portion of his forces northward to cause disruption while he advanced on Pilot Knob with the remainder of his army. By September 26 and into the following morning, the Confederate divisions led by Major-General James Fagan and Brigadier-General John Marmaduke had pushed Union defenders, commanded by Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing and Major James Wilson, out of the lower Arcadia Valley and back into Fort Davidson itself.

As afternoon arrived on the 27th, Price positioned his forces to strike the fort from several directions at once. Although coordinated simultaneous assaults had been the plan, the attacks instead unfolded one after another, each meeting the same fate of repulsion. Brigadier-General William Cabell's brigade mounted three distinct assaults on the fort; on the last attempt his men managed to cross the moat, yet still could not breach the fort's defenses. When darkness fell, Ewing made the choice to abandon the position. His troops destroyed the fort's magazine with an explosion and managed to pass undetected through the Confederate cordon meant to block any retreat. Beginning the next day, some of Price's soldiers pursued the fleeing Union troops for a time before abandoning the chase to rejoin the main Confederate force. Given how the failed assaults on Fort Davidson had demoralized his men, Price chose not to move against St. Louis. Instead, his army turned west, only to suffer defeat later at the Battle of Westport on October 23. What followed was a retreat toward Texas marked by further defeats and sustained pursuit for much of the journey. Today the grounds where Fort Davidson once stood are maintained as a historic site, earning a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Background

When the Civil War began in 1861, Missouri remained a slave state that stopped short of leaving the Union, though its politics were split down the middle. Governor Claiborne Jackson and the Missouri State Guard backed the rebellion and secession, whereas Brigadier-General Nathaniel Lyon and the Union Army stood against secession and for the United States. Major-General Sterling Price led the Missouri State Guard to victories over Union forces that year, first at Wilson's Creek and then at Lexington, yet by year's end his troops had been pushed back into the state's southwestern corner. During this same period, Jackson and part of the legislature pushed through a vote to join the Confederacy, while a rival faction of lawmakers rejected that move, leaving Missouri with two competing governments. The following March, a Confederate loss at Pea Ridge in Arkansas handed the Union control over Missouri, and for the next two years, 1862 and 1863, Confederate presence there amounted to little beyond scattered raids and guerrilla fighting.

By early September 1864, developments elsewhere in the country, most notably the Confederate loss during the Atlanta campaign, had strengthened Abraham Lincoln's position in that year's presidential race against George McClellan, who wanted the war brought to a close while Lincoln wished to fight on. At this stage in the war, Confederate prospects for ultimate victory had grown slim. Still, west of the Mississippi, Confederate forces had managed to turn back Union troops during the Red River campaign in Louisiana between March and May. With the war going badly for the Confederacy on the eastern side of the Mississippi, General Kirby Smith, who commanded the Trans-Mississippi Department, received orders to send his infantry east to reinforce the fighting there. This could not be carried out, however, since Union naval power on the Mississippi blocked any major crossing. Lacking the resources for a full offensive, Smith concluded that a diversionary strike could achieve much the same result as sending troops east, by pulling Union forces away and easing the manpower gap the Confederacy faced on the other side of the river. Price, along with Confederate governor Thomas Reynolds, proposed that pushing into Missouri would serve this purpose well, and Smith agreed, putting Price in charge of the campaign. Price hoped the invasion would spark a popular revolt against Union authority in Missouri, draw Union soldiers away from the war's major fronts (since many troops once stationed in Missouri had already been sent elsewhere, leaving the Missouri State Militia as its main line of defense), and improve McClellan's odds against Lincoln at the ballot box. On September 19, Price crossed into Missouri at the head of a force known as the Army of Missouri.

Prelude

When Price crossed into Missouri he commanded roughly 13,000 troops, a good many of whom carried inferior weapons or none whatsoever. Fourteen cannons accompanied the Confederates, though their small bore reduced their usefulness against fortified positions. His army was organized into three divisions led by Major-General James Fagan along with brigadier-generals John Marmaduke and Joseph O. Shelby. On the Union side, approximately 10,000 soldiers were spread throughout Missouri, with roughly 3,000 stationed around St. Louis under Brigadier-General Thomas Ewing. Many of these men belonged either to the Missouri State Militia or the Enrolled Missouri Militia; the former group had some experience fighting guerrillas, while the latter was ill trained and poorly supplied.

While positioned at Fredericktown on September 24, Price discovered that Union forces held Pilot Knob along with a section of the St. Louis and Iron Mountain Railroad. Unwilling to allow an enemy force to remain active behind his lines, he opted for an aggressive strike against the Union position. On September 26 he dispatched Shelby's division north of Pilot Knob to tear up the rail line, while Fagan and Marmaduke moved straight at the Union troops. Ewing's command near Pilot Knob numbered 1,456 men in total, made up of 856 regular Union soldiers, 450 from the state militia, and 150 armed civilians pressed into service. Price had also learned on the 25th that Major-General Andrew Smith and 8,000 Union troops were stationed near St. Louis, a fact that made him question whether he could realistically capture the city.

Price's army left Fredericktown for the Arcadia Valley on September 26 with Fagan's division out front. Finding Shut-In Gap, the valley's entrance, undefended, Fagan pushed forward the brigade of Colonel William F. Slemons, temporarily commanded by Colonel John C. Wright. Wright's roughly 250 men caught a small Union outpost off guard, though the defenders managed to get word out to a detachment of the 47th Missouri Infantry at Ironton and to the Union garrison further north at Fort Davidson. In response, Ewing dispatched 80 troopers from the 3rd MSM Cavalry to check on the situation. Wright dispersed this militia detachment but was thrown back when he tried to push through Ironton against the 47th Missouri's men. Hearing gunfire echoing from the valley, Ewing sent Major James Wilson with several hundred horsemen toward the sound of fighting, then followed with troops from the 14th Iowa Infantry and a pair of guns from the 2nd Missouri Light Artillery. Around three in the afternoon, these forces linked up with the Union troops already at Ironton, and Wilson led an attack that pushed Wright back toward the gap. Believing he was

Battle

On the morning of September 27, Fagan's troops gained reinforcement when Marmaduke's soldiers joined him. Together the two Confederate commands pushed Wilson's men backward that morning and eventually seized the terrain lying between Shepherd Mountain and Pilot Knob. At 09:15, Union guns positioned in the fort scattered a body of Confederates advancing from Ironton. However, soldiers of the 14th Iowa Infantry stationed forward found themselves caught in crossfire, hit both by the fort's own guns and by Wilson's 3rd MSM Cavalry troopers stationed at Pilot Knob. This mistaken fire forced the Iowa men to pull back into Fort Davidson. Ewing received an offer to surrender but turned it down, in part out of fear that Price's soldiers would kill him in retaliation for General Order 11, which he had issued the year before and which had forced civilians from four Missouri counties from their homes. Confederate cannon fire then targeted Wilson's men at Pilot Knob, pushing them into the fort as well. Once Wilson retreated, Confederate artillery turned its attention to Fort Davidson itself, though the bombardment accomplished little. With Wilson no longer holding ground, Fagan shifted troops into the space between Pilot Knob and Rock Mountain, where his men began looting homes until Union cannon fire pushed them back across Pilot Knob.

At the same time, Confederate forces began forming up for a coordinated assault. Slemons and Colonel Thomas McCray positioned their brigades on Pilot Knob, while Brigadier-General William Cabell's brigade filled the gap separating Pilot Knob from Shepherd Mountain. Brigadier-General John Clark's brigade took up position on Shepherd Mountain itself, and Colonel Thomas Freeman's brigade, together with Slayback's battalion, held ground north of that mountain. Colonel Archibald Dobbins's brigade also took a position north of town, ready to cut off any Union retreat. Price envisioned simultaneous strikes across these positions. Historians differ on troop numbers: Albert Castel estimated roughly 8,700 Confederates in the combined divisions under Marmaduke and Fagan, whereas Kyle Sinisi calculated that only about 4,700 men remained available to storm the fort once a fifth of the force had been pulled aside to hold horses for the dismounted attackers. While Fagan and Marmaduke favored a straightforward frontal assault, confident the fort would fall rapidly, Price's chief engineer proposed instead hauling artillery atop Shepherd Mountain to pound Fort Davidson into surrender.

To carry out the attack, the Confederates tried hauling four cannons taken from Hynson's and Harris's batteries up onto Shepherd Mountain, though the difficult terrain allowed only two to reach position. Early that afternoon, Ewing dispatched a portion of the 14th Iowa Infantry to probe Confederate lines, but heavy fire forced them to retreat. Wilson, meanwhile, received separate orders to defend the town of Pilot Knob. The pair of cannons atop the mountain tried shelling the fort but achieved little. Around 14:00 the main Confederate assault commenced, though poor coordination among the attacking units allowed Union defenders to beat back each wave separately.

Clark's and Cabell's brigades opened the attack. The right side of Clark's brigade broke away from its left flank and fought alongside Cabell's men instead. After fording a creek bed, some Confederates pressed forward all the way to the fort's moat before opening fire, though sandbags absorbed most of the damage. Fort Davidson held more than double its intended garrison, a crowding that Ewing turned to advantage by having some soldiers reload muskets while others kept firing continuously. This sustained volume of fire pushed Cabell's and Clark's soldiers back toward the creek, with regiments such as the 4th and 8th Missouri Cavalry never advancing past that point.

Meanwhile Slemons and McCray struck the fort's defenders from Pilot Knob, capturing Wilson, who Confederate soldiers later put to death, and scattering the remainder

Aftermath

Fleeing toward Rolla by way of Leasburg, Ewing's remaining troops found themselves chased for a stretch by the horsemen of Shelby and Marmaduke, even as Price led Fagan's division northward, wrecking railroad depots along that route. Eventually the Confederate riders trailing Ewing abandoned the chase and returned to Price's main force on September 29. The following month, on October 1, Confederate soldiers seized the town of Pacific, a mere 40 miles (64 km) from St. Louis. Yet the costly assaults had drained Confederate spirits and exposed just how weak and inexperienced much of Price's army truly was. Faced with this, Price abandoned his plan to strike St. Louis and turned his force westward toward Jefferson City, the state's capital.

By October 7, Price's soldiers had climbed to elevated ground overlooking Jefferson City. Still haunted by the disastrous assaults on Fort Davidson, Price judged the city's defenders too formidable to challenge, choosing instead to press onward to the west. Union forces were gathering near the Kansas-Missouri border, with still more closing in from behind, so Price pushed his army toward Kansas City, clashing in a handful of minor skirmishes along the journey. On October 23, near Kansas City, a substantial Union force crushed Price at the Battle of Westport. What remained of the Confederate army fell back into Kansas, absorbing one setback after another, culminating in a catastrophic collapse at Mine Creek on October 25, where Marmaduke and hundreds of his men fell into Union hands. Federal forces chased the shattered Confederates all the way to the Arkansas, and Price's men did not stop retreating until they reached Texas. By the campaign's end, more than two-thirds of Price's original force had been lost.