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The Last Hurrah: Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864
In the late summer of 1864, Confederate General Sterling Price led a last ditch attempt to liberate Missouri from Union occupation and brutal guerrilla warfare. Price’s invading army was like few others seen during the Civil War. It was an army of cavalry that lacked men, horses, weapons, and discipline. Its success depended entirely upon a native uprising of pro-Confederate Missourians. When that uprising never occurred, Price’s rag-tag army marched through the state seeking revenge, supplies and conscripts. It was a march that took too long and ultimately allowed Union forces to converge on Price and badly defeat him in a series of battles that ran from Kansas City to the Arkansas border. Three months and 1,400 miles after it had started, the longest sustained cavalry operation of the war had ended in disaster. The Last Hurrah is the story of Price’s invasion from its politically charged planning to its starving retreat. The Last Hurrah is also the story of what happened after the shooting stopped. Even as hundreds of Missourians followed Price out of the state and tried desperately to join his army, elements of the Union army visited retribution upon Confederate sympathizers while still others showed little regard for the lives of the prisoners they had captured. Many more would have to suffer and die long after Sterling Price had fled Missouri.
468 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 7, 2024
The October 1864 Battle of Westport during Confederate Gen. Sterling Price’s Missouri Raid is considered a major, decisive Civil War battle that capped a lengthy campaign. But in the grand scheme of things, it was a mere sideshow in a far-off corner of the Western Theater that had little impact on the wider war. So this book aims to rescue it from relative obscurity by telling the story of the campaign in full.
And tell it in full it does, though I found it somewhat lacking in context and analysis that could have helped a reader unfamiliar with the story better appreciate it and learn more than just what happened, when and where.
Sinisi doesn’t waste any time in diving right in - it almost felt at first like I was reading a volume two, or had somehow missed a preface. He assumes a great deal of background knowledge, referencing earlier battles in the region like Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge with no explanation, and offering little context about the current state of the war or of Missouri’s place in it.
There’s a lot that could have been said about Missouri’s status throughout the war as a hotly contested border state, that Confederates had long sought to “liberate.” Instead, we jump right to Price, the latest - and last - to do so, his effort representing one of “the unrealistic last-ditch efforts of the Confederacy to survive in late 1864,” Sinisi writes.
By that time, the war’s center of gravity had shifted east, to Georgia and Virginia. Missouri, comparatively, was a lightly-defended backwater, to which Union Gen. William Rosecrans had been exiled after losing badly at Chickamauga. Not even their own superiors gave much thought to the two generals. “Much as Sterling Price had been left to his own devices in the conquest of Missouri,” Sinisi observes, “so, too, would William Rosecrans be left on his own in its defense.”
After these brief scene-setting observations, the book settles into a detailed chronicle of events, following Price as he marches to and through Missouri, attempting to recruit men and gather supplies and ordnance along the way, while fighting off Union troops in dozens of engagements, all while indifferent leaders in the Union high command “had concluded that Rosecrans should have already caught and disposed of Price” long before he did.
The whole endeavor comes across as rather harebrained. And with the level of detail in which every movement and every engagement is described, I’m unsure if anyone not already interested in this would be engrossed in the narrative.
The climactic Battle of Westport, which sent Price fleeing the state for good, flies by in a sea of smaller battles described in the book. Sinisi himself even downplays this key battle somewhat, citing his own research that indicates casualty figures were much lower than others have reported.
The book goes on to chronicle Price’s long retreat out of Missouri, even more battles that he fought along the way, and the ultimate dissolution in defeat of Price’s army. The final chapter details the post-battle finger-pointing, and sums up Price’s postwar life in a paragraph (he dies in the middle of said paragraph, with no details about how or when).
Analysis of the whole campaign is essentially contained within a single paragraph concluding the book, in which the escapade is summed up as a “desperate attempt to liberate a state that ultimately did not want to be liberated.”
This may be the definitive book on Price’s Missouri Raid, for those who might be looking for a definitive book on the subject. For those not already familiar with it, though, they may ultimately feel like they’ve learned too much - and still come away not knowing enough.
And tell it in full it does, though I found it somewhat lacking in context and analysis that could have helped a reader unfamiliar with the story better appreciate it and learn more than just what happened, when and where.
Sinisi doesn’t waste any time in diving right in - it almost felt at first like I was reading a volume two, or had somehow missed a preface. He assumes a great deal of background knowledge, referencing earlier battles in the region like Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge with no explanation, and offering little context about the current state of the war or of Missouri’s place in it.
There’s a lot that could have been said about Missouri’s status throughout the war as a hotly contested border state, that Confederates had long sought to “liberate.” Instead, we jump right to Price, the latest - and last - to do so, his effort representing one of “the unrealistic last-ditch efforts of the Confederacy to survive in late 1864,” Sinisi writes.
By that time, the war’s center of gravity had shifted east, to Georgia and Virginia. Missouri, comparatively, was a lightly-defended backwater, to which Union Gen. William Rosecrans had been exiled after losing badly at Chickamauga. Not even their own superiors gave much thought to the two generals. “Much as Sterling Price had been left to his own devices in the conquest of Missouri,” Sinisi observes, “so, too, would William Rosecrans be left on his own in its defense.”
After these brief scene-setting observations, the book settles into a detailed chronicle of events, following Price as he marches to and through Missouri, attempting to recruit men and gather supplies and ordnance along the way, while fighting off Union troops in dozens of engagements, all while indifferent leaders in the Union high command “had concluded that Rosecrans should have already caught and disposed of Price” long before he did.
The whole endeavor comes across as rather harebrained. And with the level of detail in which every movement and every engagement is described, I’m unsure if anyone not already interested in this would be engrossed in the narrative.
The climactic Battle of Westport, which sent Price fleeing the state for good, flies by in a sea of smaller battles described in the book. Sinisi himself even downplays this key battle somewhat, citing his own research that indicates casualty figures were much lower than others have reported.
The book goes on to chronicle Price’s long retreat out of Missouri, even more battles that he fought along the way, and the ultimate dissolution in defeat of Price’s army. The final chapter details the post-battle finger-pointing, and sums up Price’s postwar life in a paragraph (he dies in the middle of said paragraph, with no details about how or when).
Analysis of the whole campaign is essentially contained within a single paragraph concluding the book, in which the escapade is summed up as a “desperate attempt to liberate a state that ultimately did not want to be liberated.”
This may be the definitive book on Price’s Missouri Raid, for those who might be looking for a definitive book on the subject. For those not already familiar with it, though, they may ultimately feel like they’ve learned too much - and still come away not knowing enough.
September 30, 2024
Well-researched and a very modern history, but too many names and detail that hampered otherwise good writing.
August 12, 2019
While I'm more of a fiction fan, I read this book because of my personal connection with the author. Having said that, this book is exceptionally well-written and detailed. If you are a history fan or even an expert on the American Civil War, this is a must read.
August 13, 2015
_The Last Hurrah_ is a compelling account of the last major Confederate offensive in the Trans-Mississippi Department, Sterling Price's failed invasion of Missouri in 1864. The research appears exhaustive, the writing is at a very high level, and the analysis is logical and unsparing to both sides. The author's portrait of Sterling Price seems spot on. Price allowed romantic expectations of a rising by native-born Missourians to outweigh any rational analysis of potential costs of an invasion versus the potential gains. He compounded his flawed strategic analysis by an inability to grasp control of battle at various points in the campaign. He simply lacked the physical and intellectual vigor to effectively command. The author, Kyle S. Sinisi, teaches at the Citadel. He is particularly good at analyzing the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. He is also keenly aware of the impact of logistics on operations---which help explain many of the decisions made by commanders on both sides. He also quite effectively works the partisan war context in which the campaign was conducted into his narrative. He looks at old controversies with a fresh eye. He condemns, for example, Thomas Ewing's decision to make a stand at Pilot Knob when he was so grossly outnumbered. This is an outstanding book that deserves a wide readership.
June 7, 2026
This book is quite the endeavor … to cover this raid and all its associated battles, maneuvering, and personalities is just a massive undertaking. On the whole, I thought the author did a good job moving the narrative along and explaining everything without stretching the book out to an overwhelming length. I was hoping to get a good understanding about this unique campaign and the book definitely delivered.
The book jumps right in to the action, so it is important to have at least some knowledge of previous major events in Missouri (such as Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge) and understand why Sterling Price was such a popular figure. The author doesn’t spend any great detail explaining these things. Also, there are some parts that dive into the heated political situations in Missouri and Kansas which I found to be confusing and muddled. Finally the author relies on his own research to call into question previously established casualty figures, consistently pushing them much lower (and sometimes using the old “only a handful” crutch) which I found to be a bit tedious.
These are a few nitpicks though, and overall I enjoyed the book.
The book jumps right in to the action, so it is important to have at least some knowledge of previous major events in Missouri (such as Wilson’s Creek and Pea Ridge) and understand why Sterling Price was such a popular figure. The author doesn’t spend any great detail explaining these things. Also, there are some parts that dive into the heated political situations in Missouri and Kansas which I found to be confusing and muddled. Finally the author relies on his own research to call into question previously established casualty figures, consistently pushing them much lower (and sometimes using the old “only a handful” crutch) which I found to be a bit tedious.
These are a few nitpicks though, and overall I enjoyed the book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews