Another Invasion of Missouri and its Results

THE Confederates were emboldened by the failure of the Red River expedition and the expulsion of Steele from the region below the Arkansas River; and raiding bands awed the Unionists into silence and inactivity. This state of things gave Price an opportunity early in the autumn to invade Missouri again, this time chiefly with a political object in view. Secret societies, in sympathy with the Knights of the Golden Circle, had been formed in Missouri and neighboring Southern States, whose object was to give aid to the Confederate cause and assist in the election of General McClellan (who had been nominated by the Democratic party) to the office of President of the United States. Price had been promised twenty thousand recruits, if he should enter Missouri with a respectable military force. He and General Shelby went over the Missouri border late in September (1864), with twenty thousand followers, and pushed on to Pilot Knob, half-way to St. Louis. But the promised recruits did not appear. The vigilant Rosecrans, in command of the Department of the Missouri, had discovered the plans of the disloyalists, and by some arrests had So frightened them that they prudently remained in concealment. Price was sorely disappointed; and he soon perceived that a web of great peril was gathering around him. At Pilot Knob, General Ewing, with a brigade of National troops, struck him an astounding blow. Soon afterward, these, with other troops under Generals A. J. Smith and Mower, sent Price flying westward toward Kansas, closely pursued. The exciting chase was enlivened by severe skirmishes; and late in November, Price was a fugitive in western Arkansas, with a broken and dispirited army. This was the last invasion of Missouri.

When Longstreet retired from Knoxville, he lingered awhile between there and the Virginia border; but he finally went to the aid of Lee's menaced army. Morgan, the guerrilla chief, remained in East Tennessee until the close of the following May (1864), when he went over the mountains and raided through the richest portions of Kentucky. General Burbridge went after him, and soon drove him and his shattered columns back into East Tennessee. He was surprised at Greenville, where he was shot dead in a vineyard while attempting to escape. Soon afterward the region between Knoxville and the Virginia line became the theatre of some stirring minor events while General Breckenridge was in command of the Confederates there.

Let us now resume the consideration of the military movements against Richmond and Atlanta.

The campaign of the Army of the Potomac under General Meade, against the Army of Northern Virginia led by General Lee, in the spring of 1864, was preceded by some movements for the capture of Richmond and the liberation of Union soldiers confined in Libby Prison, and on Belle Isle in the James River at that city. Treachery defeated the purpose for which, in February, General B. F. Butler, in command of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, sent fifteen hundred troops, foot and horse, under General Wistar, against Richmond. General Kilpatrick, with five thousand of his cavalry, came from the Army of the Potomac to co-operate with him. They swept within the outer lines of the defences of Richmond, on the first of March; and Colonel Dahlgren, son of the admiral of that name, with another portion of that cavalry, was repulsed the next day, and was killed. A few days later, General Custer, with his horsemen, threatened Lee's communications in the direction of the Shenandoah Valley. The movements of Wistar were made fruitless, owing to a deserter, who gave the Confederates warning of it, and they were prepared to meet it.

The grand movement of the Army of the Potomac began in May. When it crossed the Rapid Anne and tried to go swiftly by Lee's flank under cover of the dense woods of the Wilderness, and plant itself between the Confederate army and Richmond, the vigilant Lee discovered the movement and boldly attacked the Nationals. The two armies numbered, in the aggregate, about two hundred thousand men; and that mighty host fought desperately for almost two days (May 5th and 6th) on one of the most remarkable battle-fields ever known. The ground was covered with a thick growth of pines, cedars, and shrub-oaks, with tangled underbrush and vines, wherein regular military movements were impossible. Cavalry could not contend; and no single vision could discern a thousand men at one time. In that mysterious land the brave General Wadsworth of the Genesee Valley was killed, and the slaughter of troops was fearful. Both armies were badly shattered; and there was no victory for either. The Confederates withdrew to their intrenchments; and the Nationals, led by General Warren, hastened to the open country near Spottsylvania Court-House.

Lieutenant-General Grant was the guiding-spirit in the National army. He was determined to flank Lee; but when his troops emerged from the Wilderness, he found the Confederates in heavy force and rapidly gathering athwart his path. Arrangements were immediately made for another battle, during which the gallant General Sedgwick, leader of the Sixth corps, was killed by a Confederate sharp-shooter. Both armies were cautious in their movements; and finally, on the morning of the 10th (May, 1864), when all was in readiness, a furious conflict began and raged all day with dreadful losses on each side. On the following morning, General Grant sent to the President the famous despatch, in which he said: "I propose to fight it out on this line, if it takes all summer."