The Second Battle of Lexington was a minor battle fought during Price's Missouri Expedition as part of the American Civil War. Hoping to draw Union Army forces away from more important theaters of combat and potentially affect the outcome of the 1864 United States presidential election, Sterling Price, a major general in the Confederate States Army, led an offensive into the state of Missouri on September 19, 1864. After a botched attack at the Battle of Pilot Knob, the strength of the Union defenses at Jefferson City led Price to abandon the main goals of his campaign.
In response to the Confederate incursion, the Union Army of the Border under Major General Samuel R. Curtis was formed by withdrawing troops from duty guarding isolated settlements along the western frontier and calling up the Kansas militia. The call-up of the militia became a political issue in Kansas, which restricted Curtis's use of the militiamen. Price's army was moving west along the Missouri River, and was caught between Curtis's Army of the Border and Union Department of the Missouri cavalry pursuing from the east. Major General James G. Blunt took a portion of Curtis's army east to the town of Lexington, Missouri, on October 18. Blunt was hoping for reinforcement from Curtis, but this was not feasible due to most of the Kansas militia's refusal to move that far into Missouri.
On October 19, Price's army, led by Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby's command, attacked Blunt at Lexington. Initial contact was made at around 11:00 am, but it took several hours for the Confederates to develop their attack. Blunt's outnumbered command was gradually pushed back as Price deployed more of his army. Confederate rifled artillery played a major role in the outcome of the battle, outranging the Union mountain howitzers. The Confederates attempted to cut the Union path of retreat with a cavalry brigade, but this was unsuccessful. Protected by a rear guard, Blunt's troops fell back behind the Little Blue River. Blunt fought another delaying action at the Battle of Little Blue River on October 21, and after the Battle of Byram's Ford and the Second Battle of Independence on October 22, Price was defeated at the Battle of Westport. Several other battles followed during Price's withdrawal, including a defeat at the Battle of Mine Creek on October 25. The campaign wrecked Price's army as an effective fighting force and the Confederates did not make another offensive campaign in the Trans-Mississippi theater before the surrender of the department on June 2, 1865.
Background
At the start of the American Civil War in 1861, the state of Missouri was a slave state, but did not declare secession, as the state secession convention rejected it. Nonetheless, the state was politically divided: Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Missouri State Guard (MSG) supported secession and the Confederate States of America, while Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon and the Union Army opposed it. Under Major General Sterling Price, the MSG defeated Union armies at the battles of Wilson's Creek and Lexington in 1861, but by the end of the year, Price and the MSG had been restricted to the southwestern region of the state. Meanwhile, Jackson and a portion of the state legislature voted to secede and join the Confederate States of America, while another element of the legislature voted to reject secession, essentially giving the state two governments. In March 1862, a Confederate defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas gave the Union control of Missouri, and Confederate activity in the state was largely restricted to guerrilla warfare and raids throughout 1862 and 1863.
By the beginning of September 1864, events in the eastern United States, especially the Confederate defeat in the Atlanta campaign, gave Abraham Lincoln, who supported continuing the war, an edge in the 1864 United States presidential election over George B. McClellan, who favored ending the war. At this point, the Confederacy had very little chance of prevailing over Union military forces. Meanwhile, in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, the Confederates had defeated Union attackers during the Red River campaign in Louisiana, which took place from March through May. As events east of the Mississippi River turned against the Confederates, General Edmund Kirby Smith, Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, was ordered to transfer the infantry under his command to the fighting in the Eastern and Western Theaters. However, this proved to be impossible, as the Union Navy controlled the Mississippi River, preventing a large-scale crossing. Despite having limited resources for an offensive, Smith decided an attack designed to divert Union troops from the principal theaters of combat would have an equivalent effect to the proposed transfer of troops, through decreasing the Confederates' numerical disparity east of the Mississippi.
Price and the Confederate Governor of Missouri, Thomas Caute Reynolds, suggested an invasion of Missouri would be an effective offensive; Smith approved the plan and appointed Price to command the operation. Price expected the offensive would give rise to a popular uprising against Union control of Missouri, divert Union troops away from principal theaters of combat (many of the Union troops previously defending Missouri had been transferred out of the state, leaving the Missouri State Militia to be the state's primary defensive force), and aid McClellan's chance of defeating Lincoln in the election. On September 19, Price's column, named the Army of Missouri, entered the state.
Prelude
Price enters Missouri and Union response
When it entered the state, Price's force was composed of about 13,000 cavalrymen. However, several thousand of these soldiers were poorly armed, and all fourteen of the army's cannons were small-caliber, which limited their effectiveness against fortifications. This Confederate army was divided into three divisions, which were commanded by Major Generals James F. Fagan and John S. Marmaduke and Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby. Fagan's division was subdivided into four brigades, Marmaduke's two, and Shelby's three. Shelby and Marmaduke's divisions were mostly Missouri troops, while most of Fagan's soldiers were from Arkansas. Fagan's division had a battery and a section of artillery, Marmaduke's division had two batteries, and Shelby's division had a single battery. Price's best combat unit, Shelby's Iron Brigade, was part of its former commander's division. Most of Price's units were understrength, some of the soldiers were unarmed, and others in the cavalry lacked mounts. Countering Price was the Union Department of the Missouri, under the command of Major General William S. Rosecrans, who had fewer than 10,000 soldiers on hand, many of whom were militiamen. Rosecrans had been relegated to the department earlier after being defeated at the Battle of Chickamauga; many of the top Union military leaders had little confidence in him.
In late September, the Confederates encountered a small Union force holding Fort Davidson near the town of Pilot Knob. Attacks against the post in the Battle of Pilot Knob on September 27 failed, but the Union garrison abandoned the fort that night. Price had suffered hundreds of casualties in the battle, and decided to divert the aim of his advance from St. Louis to Jefferson City. Price's army was accompanied by a sizable wagon train, which significantly slowed its movement. The delays caused by this slow progress enabled Union forces to reinforce Jefferson City, whose garrison was increased from 1,000 to 7,000 between October 1 and October 6. In turn, Price determined Jefferson City was too strong to attack, and began moving westward along the course of the Missouri River. The Confederates entered the Boonslick region, where Confederate sympathy was strongest in Missouri. Price's troops were welcomed by the population, but still engaged in some plundering. During the earlier parts of the campaign, most recruitment to Price's army had been through involuntary conscription, but in the Boonslick, voluntary recruiting was more successful. At least 2,500 volunteers joined Price's army in the region, although this was offset to some degree by veteran soldiers allowed to take furlough being unable to rejoin their units as the campaign situation changed. Historian Howard N. Monnett describes the recruits Price received at Boonville as "farm boys, unarmed and ill-prepared". During this time, a side raid against the town of Glasgow on October 15 was successful, as was another raid against Sedalia.
As Price's army moved west from Jefferson City, it was harassed by Union troops. On October 6, Major General Alfred Pleasonton arrived at St. Louis after Rosecrans recalled him from leave. Pleasonton reached Jefferson City two days later and then organized a cavalry division consisting of four brigades, which were commanded by Brigadier Generals Egbert B. Brown, John McNeil, John B. Sanborn, and Colonel Edward F. Winslow. Pleasonton sent Sanborn and his brigade after the Confederates with instructions to "harass and delay [Price] as much as possible until other troops could be brought forward". An infantry division commanded by Major General A. J. Smith was diverted to St. Louis; Rosecrans sent these 4,500 veteran infantry in pursuit of Price, but they never saw action during the campaign.
To the west, the Department of Kansas was commanded by Major General Samuel R. Curtis. Curtis had roughly 7,000 troops in his department, but they were spread over a wide area protecting isolated settlements on the western frontier from raids by Native American tribes. Major General James G. Blunt and some of the department's troops were withdrawn from their role in fights against the Cheyenne. Along with some troops already stationed along the Missouri-Kansas border, this amounted to about 4,000 troops. Curtis considered it necessary to call up the Kansas State Militia to provide more manpower and informed Governor of Kansas Thomas Carney on September 17 the situation might warrant the mobilization of the militia. The call-up was delayed by Kansas politics. Carney and his followers were opposed by United States Senator James H. Lane's faction of the Kansas Republican Party. Carney suspected the militia call-up was a ploy by Curtis to influence the outcome of the 1864 Kansas gubernatorial election by preventing voters who supported Carney's faction from being present at the polls on election day. Carney had resisted an October 5 call from Curtis to mobilize the militia, and did not order the mobilization until he telegraphed Rosecrans on October 9, who confirmed Price's force did indeed pose a threat to Kansas. The Kansas militiamen were placed under the command of Major General George Deitzler, who had previous combat experience at Wilson's Creek and in the Vicksburg campaign; these militiamen made up the bulk of Curtis's command.
To Lexington
On October 14, Curtis named his command the Army of the Border and organized it into two divisions: the First Division under Blunt and the Second Division under Deitzler. Blunt's division was a mixed force of militia and army soldiers, while Deitzler's force was composed entirely of militiamen. Of Curtis's roughly 16,000 to 18,000 troops, all but 4,000 were militia. Blunt had his troops at Hickman Mills, Missouri, that same day. He organized his division into three brigades there. Blunt's first brigade, under the command of Colonel Charles R. Jennison, was composed of the 15th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and part of the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry Regiment. The second brigade was commanded by Colonel Thomas Moonlight and consisted of the 11th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and parts of the 5th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and the 16th Kansas Cavalry Regiment. Moonlight was a political partisan for Lane, while Jennison was a former backer of Lane who had since switched to the Carney fold, while Blunt himself was a Lane supporter. The third brigade's commander, Colonel Charles W. Blair, was less politically involved than the other two, and his brigade contained part of the 14th Kansas Cavalry Regiment and three militia units (the 3rd, 6th, and 10th Kansas State Militia). Each brigade was assigned an artillery battery, Blair's brigade getting an extra artillery section; this amounted to four guns each for Jennison and Moonlight and eight for Blair, two of which were from a militia unit.
Having some of the militia under Blunt's command caused further political issues in the form of militia Brigadier General Charles W. Fishback, who resented being subordinate to a colonel. Fishback, under his own initiative, ordered one of the militia regiments assigned to Blair back to Kansas, an order which was countermanded by Blunt, who had Fishback arrested. Even after the militia had been called out, political issues between Carney and Blunt continued. Sanborn and Pleasonton had not kept in continuous contact with Price, and the telegraph link between Curtis and the Union troops on the other side of Price's force had been broken. Lacking good reports of Price's location, doubts grew in the mind of Carney and other influential Kansans that Price's force was actually a threat to Kansas. Fears remained that Curtis was interfering with the upcoming election or that northeastern Kansas had been left exposed to pro-Confederate Missouri guerrillas.