Civil War Battlefield Conservation in Missouri

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Pilot Knob

Missouri’s vital role in the Civil War peaked in the late summer of 1864. Each side needed decisive victories before the United States presidential election in November. General Sterling Price led 12,000 Confederates into Missouri, where in late September 1864 he attacked Fort Davidson, just west of Pilot Knob Mountain. He lost 1,000 men in 20 minutes and permitted Brigadier General Thomas Ewing, Jr.’s force, with their horses and wagons, to slip out of the fort and escape. By early November Price’s Missouri Campaign had ended, a strategic failure, and he retreated across Indian Territory and into Texas.

A partnership with the Committee to Preserve and Protect Pilot Knob Battlefield, Arcadia Chamber of Commerce, St. Louis Civil War Round Table, The Civil War Preservation Trust, and the state of Missouri made possible the purchase of 40 acres on the site of General Sterling Price's 1864 attack and the donation of the hallowed ground to the Fort Davidson State Historic Site.