Second Battle of Independence

Map of Price's Raid, which took place in 1864. The red lines denote Confederate movements, the black circles are cities, and the yellow stars mark the sites of major battles.

Price's force, named the Army of Missouri, contained about 12,000 or 13,000 cavalrymen and 14 cannons.[15][16] Several thousand of these men were either not armed or poorly armed, and all of Price's cannons were of light caliber. The Army of Missouri was organized into three divisions, commanded by Brigadier Generals Joseph O. Shelby and John S. Marmaduke and Major General James F. Fagan.[15][16] Marmaduke's division contained two brigades, commanded by Brigadier General John B. Clark Jr. and Colonel Thomas R. Freeman; Shelby's division had three brigades under Colonels David Shanks (replaced by Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson after Shanks was killed in action), Sidney D. Jackman, and Charles H. Tyler; and Fagan's division contained four brigades commanded by Brigadier General William L. Cabell and Colonels William F. Slemons, Archibald S. Dobbins, and Thomas H. McCray.[17]

Countering Price was the Department of Missouri, which was commanded by Major General William S. Rosecrans. Many of the department's 10,000 men were militia, who were scattered throughout the state in a variety of local districts and subdistricts.[18] In September, Rosecrans was reinforced at St. Louis by part of the XVI Corps, under the command of Smith.[9] A Union cavalry division was formed on October 6, in Jefferson City under the command of Major General Alfred Pleasonton. Pleasonton's command consisted of four brigades, although one of them (part of Smith's corps) was not in the area at the time.[19] The four brigades were composed of a mixture of Union Army troops and Missouri militia and were supported by 12 cannons; they were commanded by Brigadier Generals Egbert Brown, McNeil, and Sanborn and Colonel Edward F. Winslow.[20]

Sanborn temporarily commanded the formation until Pleasonton took full command on October 20.[21] On the other side of the state, the Union Army of the Border was formed under the command of Major General Samuel R. Curtis, the commander of the Department of Kansas; it consisted of a combination of Union Army soldiers and men from the Kansas State Militia. The Army of the Border was divided into two wings: one commanded by Major General George W. Dietzler and the other by Major General James G. Blunt. While Blunt's non-militia soldiers moved east towards Price, political forces in Kansas prevented the militiamen from traveling further into Missouri than the Big Blue River. Many of the militia officers were politicians allied to competing factions in the 1864 Kansas gubernatorial election, and allegations that the militia mobilization was intended to affect the election were common.[22][23]

On October 18, Blunt occupied the town of Lexington, Missouri, hoping to act in conjunction with Sanborn, but Sanborn was too far away, and Price's army was only 20 miles (32 km) to the east.[24][25] Blunt decided to hold the town and resist Price,[26] who attacked with Shelby's division on October 19, resulting in the Second Battle of Lexington. Shelby's men were not able to dislodge the Union defenders, but the Confederates captured the town after Marmaduke's and Fagan's divisions were committed to the fray.[24] The morning after the battle, Blunt halted his retreat at the Little Blue River. He advocated for a stand at the river, but he could not be reinforced at that position because of the restrictions on the movement of the Kansas State Militia. Curtis ordered Blunt to fall back to the main Union position at Independence, Missouri; only a single regiment and four cannons were left at the Little Blue as a rear guard.[27] This force totaled about 400[28] or 600 men.[29]

On the morning of October 21, Clark's Confederate brigade attacked the Union rear guard and forced its way across the river, opening the Battle of Little Blue River. Seesaw fighting followed while Blunt received permission to return his troops to the Little Blue River line and Price brought up Shelby's division.[30] The two sides formed strengthened lines, and Shelby continued the attack. Confederate threats to the Union left flank forced troops to be drawn from the center to support the threatened parts of the line. This weakening of the center of the line exposed it to Confederate attack. A little after 14:00, the Union troops began retreating from the field, falling back to Independence.[31] Late that evening, Blunt ordered Independence abandoned and withdrew his men to the Big Blue, 6 miles (9.7 km) to the west. By nightfall, Curtis's and Blunt's men were on the west side of the Big Blue, and Price had occupied Independence.[32]

Map showing the relative locations of Independence, the Big Blue River, and the Missouri/Kansas state line

On October 22, Price made a feinting attack against the north part of the Big Blue River line, while Shelby's division attacked in force further south, bringing on the Battle of Byram's Ford. The attack forced the Union line back towards the town of Westport, and Price moved much of his army across the Big Blue.[33] Fagan's division with 4,500 men was left at Independence as a rear guard, and Marmaduke's division with 2,500 men was between Fagan and Shelby.[34] Before Pleasonton took over command from Sanborn on October 20, his cavalrymen had made little progress.[21] Rosecrans and Smith had been following the cavalry with infantry, but with Pleasonton in charge, the cavalry moved much quicker and reached Lexington a day ahead of the infantry. Knowing that Price would eventually have to turn south to return to Confederate territory, Rosecrans wanted Smith and Pleasonton to move south and cut off the path the Confederates would have to take in a retreat. Instead, Pleasonton had gotten far enough ahead of Rosecrans that his 7,000 cavalrymen were already almost to the Confederate line. On the morning of October 22, Rosecrans changed his plans to allow Pleasonton to pursue Price directly. Smith's infantry had already begun the turn south, and had to countermarch north.[35][36]

Contact between the two sides was made at 05:00 at the Little Blue. At the river crossing were Confederate pickets from Slemons's brigade. The detachment was under the command of Colonel John C. Wright.[37] The 13th Missouri Cavalry Regiment and 17th Illinois Cavalry Regiment of McNeil's brigade forced Wright's command back, but were delayed in crossing because of a burned bridge. An artillery battery was across the river by 10:00.[38][39] McNeil's brigade spent two hours pushing Slemons's brigade and Hughey's Arkansas Battery, which was armed with Parrott rifles, before them.[39][40] The Union cavalry had gone roughly 3 miles (4.8 km) of the roughly 7 miles (11 km) to Independence by 13:30.[38][41] Price and Fagan were informed of the action, and Cabell's brigade was sent to support Slemons's and Wright's rear guard action. Cabell's men moved to the front, and Slemons and Wright fell to the rear and out of the action.[42] Price's wagon train had not yet been able to fully cross the Big Blue, and Cabell had to hold out at Independence long enough to allow the train to cross, as Price was stuck between two Union forces.[38]

McNeil resumed the advance around 14:00, using a formation consisting of the 17th Illinois Cavalry and the 13th Missouri Cavalry as his main line and the 5th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment acting as skirmishers. Despite support from Hughey's battery which lasted until 15:00, Cabell's brigade was forced back to Independence itself,[43] where it was then joined by Clark's and Freeman's brigades.[38] Pleasonton committed Sanborn's brigade to the fighting, and an attack was made with the 2nd Arkansas Cavalry Regiment leading the way.[43] While coordination between McNeil and Sanborn was intended, the 2nd Arkansas Cavalry – on the right of Sanborn's brigade – had commenced their advance earlier than the rest of the attacking force, and were halfway to Independence when the rest began advancing towards the town.[44][45] After the 2nd Arkansas Cavalry entered the town, the men dismounted in preparation for hand-to-hand combat.[45] The attack drove the Confederates away to the west and southwest, but the Union forces did not pursue them due to fatigue. McNeil's men began their part of the advance once Sanborn stalled, initially heading west before turning south and then back to the west.[43] McNeil's attack was led by the 13th Missouri Cavalry, with the 17th Illinois Cavalry and the 7th Kansas Cavalry Regiment following. Confederates had attempted to block the path of this attack by stringing a chain across the road, but this obstacle was removed by a Unionist civilian.[46]

A 2010 view of the Temple Lot

The attack of the 13th Missouri Cavalry shattered Confederate resistance at the Temple Lot, a religious site related to the Latter Day Saint movement.[44] The Union troopers also charged Hughey's battery and its supporting Confederate detachment.[47] Union fire shot down all of the battery's horses, and routed the batterymen and the supporting detachment. The detachment's commander, Hughey's two cannons (which had been captured from Union forces at the Battle of Pleasant Hill),[48] and 300 Confederates were all captured.[36] Cabell was almost captured, and lost his sword during his escape.[48] The 13th Missouri Cavalry lost only 10 men during the charge.[47] The attack was successful but could not be followed up with the troops on hand, as both McNeil's and Sanborn's brigades had become disorganized through exhaustion and confusion.[47] Furthermore, Clark's men resisted at Independence until about 17:00, when they began falling back with the knowledge that Price's supply train was crossing the Big Blue.[48] Pleasonton responded by bringing up Brown's and Winslow's brigades.[49] Brown and Winslow were to move against the Confederates while McNeil's and Sanborn's brigades remained behind in Independence to manage post-battle cleanup tasks. A local bank and hotel were taken over by McNeil and Sanborn's men for use as hospitals, and 40 of Blunt's wounded men who had been abandoned at a field hospital during the Battle of Little Blue River and then captured by the Confederates were rescued.[50]

Pleasonton intended for Brown's brigade to attack with support from Winslow's men but the attack was slow to materialize, which allowed the Confederates to reform about 1 mile (1.6 km) to the southwest of Independence. Brown finally attacked about an hour before nightfall, but with less force than intended. The plan was to attack with a front composed of the 1st, the 4th, and the 7th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiments, but the latter two units were blocked when Battery L, 2nd Missouri Light Artillery Regiment halted in Independence. Furthermore, the commander of the 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry, Colonel James McFerran, remained in the rear and did not participate in the attack. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bazel Lazear, the 1st Missouri State Milita Cavalry skirmished with the Confederates until the defenders placed enough pressure on Lazear's line that he requested reinforcements. Brown finally grasped the situation on the field, located the 4th and 7th Missouri State Militia Cavalry, and sent the two regiments and the artillery unit that had blocked them to the front. The strengthened Union force then attacked with only 30 minutes remaining before sundown.[51]

The Union attack drove the Confederates back 2 miles (3.2 km), but ran low on ammunition.[48] The historian Kyle Sinisi estimated that the 1st Missouri State Militia Cavalry fired 11,700 rounds during its part of the fighting, based on the strength of the regiment and a report by McFerran stating how much ammunition the unit's soldiers were issued.[52] After running low on ammunition, Brown's men moved off of the road to Westport, and allowed Winslow's brigade to move to the front.[53] The 3rd and 4th Iowa Cavalry Regiments, and the 4th and 10th Missouri Cavalry Regiments of Winslow's brigade continued fighting as darkness fell.[48] Winslow's men attacked, and quickly drove back Cabell's and Freeman's brigades. Clark formed a rear guard with his brigade and Pratt's Texas Battery, which slowed the Union attack. Though night combat was rare during the American Civil War, the 3rd Iowa Cavalry continued the advance overnight, and pushed Clark's regiments back.[54] Around 22:00, the Confederate wagon train had completed the crossing of the Big Blue,[55] and soon after that time, all of Clark's units except for the 8th Missouri Cavalry Regiment had crossed the river as well.[56] By this point, Union troops were within a few miles of the Big Blue River. After coming under fire from the 8th Missouri Cavalry, Winslow halted his brigade's pursuit at around 22:30.[57]