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177 Epilogue Shaping the Memory of a Civil War Campaign People who saw the ubiquitous Indian mounds as proof of native brutality and their own civilization responded accordingly to the Confederate invasion. As Sterling Price’s army rampaged across the state, rumors terrified whites that savage Indians had returned to exact their terrible revenge. Perhaps because Stand Watie’s Cherokee raid near the Kansas line took place the same day that Price’s men entered Missouri, some accounts regularly described the latter as including Watie and Indian-agent-turned-Confederate-general Douglas Cooper . Moreover, the “first explicit statement . . . of the organization of Price’s Army” in the press mentioned “several regiments of half-breeds and Indians.” Later descriptions placed some five thousand Indians following in the wake of Price’s army doing the real work of destruction and murder.1 Clearly, the civilizers of the state were predisposed to attribute the atrocities to the spirits of their fears rather than to their once and future governors. After passing Jefferson City as well as St. Louis, Confederate concerns would center on avoiding their pursuers, real and imagined. Participants in what had become “Price’s raid” would take what they needed immediately and keep moving . This, in turn, changed the requirements of commanders on both sides to present their superiors and the general public a campaign that would not reflect poorly on their legitimacy, credibility, or memory. The original purpose of the campaign had been to influence the November elections, which it did, though not in the way intended. The presence of an active secessionist army in Missouri and the mobilizations to meet it virtually assured an electoral vindication of the Unionists at the polls. From Reoccupation to Raid Confederate leaders probably never realized—or wanted to realize—just how close they could have taken their army to its original strategic goals. 178 Epilogue General William L. Cabell pulled back from Pacific with the arrival of the Federal brigade of General Edward H. Wolfe. This tactical withdrawal masked the actual balance of power within twenty or twenty-five miles of the town. That is, the rest of his Arkansas division and most of the two Missouri divisions were that at Richwoods, Union, or closer. In contrast, only about a thousand enrolled militia scattered between Kirkwood and various outposts along the Meramec backed Wolfe. How a Confederate push might have gotten would have depended on how quickly General William S. Rosecrans and Federal general Andrew J. Smith could have brought up reinforcements and neither had done very well managing the kind of troop movement with what they had. It is probably obligatory to address the suggestions of Major John N. Edwards and others that Price’s army could have reshaped the outcome of the war had it taken St. Louis. These assume that, once taken, the city would switch its allegiance and cooperatively occupy itself for the Confederacy. This would permit Price’s army to use the yet available fleet of steamboats—if not walking on water—to cross the Mississippi and go into a rampage across the presumed howling wilderness that was the Midwest. Assuming such a series of miracles had landed the Army of Missouri in Illinois, the Federal authorities there had military installations, fresh recruits, demobilized veterans, and intact railroads to make short work of Price’s force before it got very far. In reality, of course, residents of St. Louis themselves would have responded in the face of Price’s advance from Pacific. The secessionists had not been strong enough to hold the city three years before and many of the most ardent of them had long since left. Contrary to the wishful thinking of Confederate commanders, Missourians’ disgust with life under Federal military occupation did not translate into a revival of secessionism. If severely pressed, even Rosecrans would likely turn to the Radicals for help in more completely mobilizing the EMM. Had he not, the appearance of the Confederates on the outskirts of St. Louis would have enervated and mobilized the city’s Unionists anyway. Those men of military age capable and willing to bear arms in selfdefense would have certainly been poorly organized and ill prepared, but their sheer numbers would have created a serious obstacle to Price’s subjugation of the city. Such a response grew from the beliefs and activities of Missouri Confederates themselves. Faith that real Missourians supported secession—and that residents of the state who did not had no business in there—provided...

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