Battle of Westport

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Battle of Westport
Part of the Westport (present-day Kansas City), Missouri 39°01′48″N 94°35′40″W / 39.03000°N 94.59444°W / 39.03000; -94.59444
Result	Union victory

Belligerents  United States (Union)  Confederate StatesCommanders and leaders

Samuel R. Curtis

Maj. Gen. Sterling PriceUnits involved Army of the Border Army of MissouriStrength 22,000 8,500Casualties and losses about 1,500 about 1,500

Westport

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Location within Missouri

The Battle of Westport, sometimes referred to as the "Gettysburg of the West", was fought on October 23, 1864, in modern

Westport

During the Civil War, nearby Kansas City (known then as the Town of Kansas) served as headquarters for the Federal "District of the Border" and was garrisoned by a sizable contingent of Union troops. While its own municipal star was beginning to fade in favor of its northern neighbor, Westport was still of some importance in the region. As it turned out, however, the decision to fight here would be the result of a chain of events that had little to do with any strategic importance attached to the town itself.^[citation needed]

Price's Raid begins

In September 1864,

Anticipating Price's impending attack, Blunt had positioned his three available brigades along Brush Creek, while a fourth under Col. Charles Blair was en route from Kansas City. East of Wornall Lane (present-day Wornall Road) was the brigade of J. Hobart Ford. West of Wornall was the brigade of Charles "Doc" Jennison, with an artillery battery in support. Two regiments of cavalry filled the gap to the west between Jennison and the Kansas/Missouri state line. At a right angle to Jennison was the brigade of Thomas Moonlight, running parallel to the state line. Moonlight was positioned to either support Jennison or move against the Confederate flank.^{[citation needed]}

At daybreak on the 23rd, Blunt opened the battle by sending Jennison and Ford over an icy Brush Creek with their skirmishers. Advancing up a ridge, the Union forces engaged the Confederates in an open field to the south. The rebel divisions of Joseph O. Shelby and James Fagan had meanwhile received orders from Price to hold Curtis in front of Westport. Shelby counterattacked with his Iron Brigade under M. Jeff Thompson in the lead. This attack drove the outflanked Federals back across the creek. Moonlight's brigade was hit so hard that it was forced to fall back to the high ground on Brush Creek's west bluff, into what is now Westwood, Kansas, while Jennison's brigade retreated almost to the streets of Westport. It appeared at this point that the Confederates might carry the day.^{[citation needed]}

But this was not to be. Shelby's force was out of ammunition, and remained on the heights south of Brush Creek. Also at this crucial hour, Col. Blair's brigade arrived and Curtis heard Pleasonton's guns engaging the Confederates at nearby Byram's Ford. His spirits lifted, the Union commander rode to the front lines and personally directed Blair's troops into battle west of Jennison. The reinforced Federals charged across the creek once more, with Blair in the lead, but were again repulsed and retreated to the north bank.^{[citation needed]}

Needing another option besides frontal assaults, Curtis decided to search for a weak point elsewhere in the Rebel lines. His scouts found a local farmer named George Thoman, who was eager to help the Federals as the Confederates had absconded with his horse the previous night. Thoman showed Curtis a

As disaster was befalling Shelby and Fagan, a similar fate was happening to Price's rearguard, under Marmaduke, at Byram's Ford. A division of Price's army under General Shelby had forced a crossing at the ford on the 22nd (the day prior to the battle), forcing Federal defenders there to retire to Westport. Shelby's colleague General Marmaduke had subsequently established his own defensive line on the west bank of the river to hold off Pleasanton's cavalry, which was pressing them hard from the east. If Pleasanton could now force his way across the Blue River, he would be in position to threaten Price's army as well as his supplies.^{[citation needed]}

Marmaduke's division was attacked by three of Pleasonton's brigades starting at 8:00 on the morning of the 23rd; the Confederates initially managed to hold their own. One of the Union brigade commanders, Brig. Gen.

The Confederates pulled back to their last line of defense, along the road south of Forest Hill (present day Gregory Blvd), with Colonel Jennison leading the pursuit. By now thirty Union guns had been brought to bear against the lone remaining Confederate cannon. One Federal battery had just unlimbered when Colonel James H. McGhee's Arkansas Cavalry charged down Wornall's Lane in an attempt to capture it. Captain Curtis Johnson of the 15th Kansas Cavalry saw the Confederate attack forming and immediately moved to intercept. Johnson and McGhee personally engaged each other with their revolvers; both commanders were badly wounded, but survived. The fight continued to rage until Union reinforcements secured the battery.^{[citation needed]}

Shelby sent a brigade under Colonel Sidney D. Jackman to secure his wagon trains, but these had already been removed by order of General Price. Jackman was instead intercepted by General Fagan, who alerted him to the massed Union cavalry (Pleasonton's) which had just crossed the Big Blue River to the east. Seeing Pleasanton's close proximity to the Confederate flank and rear, General Curtis had ordered a general advance of the entire Union line, with Blair's and Jennison's brigades leading the charge. Shelby, meanwhile, had only Thompson's Iron Brigade to hold off this massive assault. When one of Pleasonton's batteries arrived in support of Curtis's men, Thompson's Confederates finally broke and fled.^{[citation needed]}

Price's men set fire to prairie grass in the area to create a smoke screen to cover their withdrawal. Witnesses reported that the road was strewn with debris from the fleeing Rebel army.^{[citation needed]}

The following day, Blunt and Pleasonton took up their pursuit of Price's remaining forces. They would chase Price through Kansas and southern Missouri, engaging him at the Marais des Cygnes, Mine Creek, the Marmiton River, and finally at Newtonia, forcing Price to withdraw into Indian Territory, from which he eventually returned to Arkansas via Texas, and ultimately leaving the Confederate leader with less than 6,000 survivors from his initial force of 12,000 when his campaign officially ended on November 1, 1864.^{[citation needed]}

Aftermath

The Battle of Westport was one of the largest battles west of the Mississippi River, with over 30,000 troops involved. The Union victory put an end to Price's campaign for Missouri, and the battle has accordingly been referred to as "The Gettysburg of the West". Curtis wrote to Henry W. Halleck after the battle that "the victory at Westport was most decisive."^{[citation needed]} This greatly contested border state was now firmly under Union control, and would remain so until the end of the war.^[3]

Although never capturing Price or the tattered remnants of his army, Federal forces did manage to render the Army of Missouri incapable of any future significant operations. Indeed, Price's campaign would prove the last in the

According to a recent book on Price's campaign, Kyle S. Sinisi's The Last Hurrah: Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864, historians have long exaggerated the casualties inflicted in the fighting around Westport on October 21–23, 1864. Sinisi's new estimates are that the Union forces lost 361 and the Confederates 510 men, killed, wounded, or captured, on October 23.^[4] However, most sources give the total casualties as 3,000 men, about 1,500 Union and 1,500 Confederate.^[5][6] Another primary source gives an estimate of 400 casualties for the Union and 1,000 to 1,500 for the Confederacy.^[7]

Noteworthy participants

Several participants in the battle later went on to gain national fame in other ways, many of them in the

Although many signs and placards commemorating some aspect of the Battle of Westport are present throughout Kansas City today, the main battle monument is located in the

The Battle of Westport Museum and Visitor Center, located in Swope Park, depicts the experiences of the soldiers and civilians during the three days of the battle.^[9]

A Battle of Westport Driving Tour starts in

The Trailside Center museum in Kansas City has several exhibits and research material related to the battle.^[10]

Battlefield preservation

The first steps toward memorializing the Battle of Westport came early in the twentieth century. In 1906, local historian Paul Jenkins published his Battle of Westport, while the Byram's Ford engagement was reenacted in

On the eve of the Civil War centennial in 1958, the Civil War Round Table of Kansas City was formed with former President Harry S. Truman as a charter member. Dr. Howard N. Monnett, a member of this Round Table, researched, spoke and wrote extensively about what he termed the "action before Westport". His book of that title was published in 1964 for the battle's centennial. Dr. Monnett's enthusiasm led to the eventual creation of an automobile tour of the widely dispersed battle sites. By 1979, the founders of the Monnett Fund had successfully raised funds to erect permanent markers at 25 sites, and had created a self-guided automobile tour. These markers included a monument located at the meadow site, and several wayside markers on nearby Bloody Hill. The battlefield was entered on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989, after the Fund acquired 50 acres (200,000 m²) of the Westport battlefield, including the site of Byram's Ford itself. Title was transferred to the Kansas City Parks Department in April 1995, and archaeological surveys in 1996 revealed artifacts from the battle in and around the Byram's Ford area.^[12][13]

Notes