Sterling Price (September 20, 1809 – September 29, 1867) was an American politician and military officer who was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, fighting in both the Western and Trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War. He rose to prominence during the Mexican–American War and served as the 11th governor of Missouri from 1853 to 1857. He is remembered today for his service in Arkansas (1862–1865) and for his defeat at the Battle of Westport on October 23, 1864.
Early life and entrance into politics Virginia Sterling Price was born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, near Farmville, to a family of planters of Welsh origin. His parents, Pugh and Elizabeth Price, owned 12 slaves and have been described as "moderately wealthy". Sources disagree as to Sterling's date of birth. The historian Albert E. Castel states that Price was born on September 11, 1809, a date with which the State Historical Society of Missouri agrees. The historian Ezra J. Warner provides the date of birth as September 20, 1809.
Price's father and older brother fought in the War of 1812. Sterling attended a now-unknown grammar school and worked on his father's tobacco plantation before entering Hampden–Sydney College in the fall of 1826. Price did not return for the 1827–28 session for unknown reasons (Price's biographer Robert E. Shalhope speculates that poor examination grades or financial problems could have been the cause), and instead went to study law in Cumberland County, Virginia, under the jurist Creed Taylor.
Records do not indicate that Taylor's law school was in operation for the 1828–29 term, and Price became an assistant to a court clerk in Prince Edward County in 1828. According to Shalhope, Price did not receive "more than a minimal legal education". Shalhope attributes the political climate of Prince Edward County at that time to lasting political beliefs of Price, including support for slavery, a dislike of debt, and tendency to oppose change; the region politically supported John Randolph of Roanoke. The decade of the 1820s saw economic troubles in Virginia, with a mid-1810s surge in tobacco prices being followed by a collapse in prices which ruined many merchants and shippers. Poor economic conditions persisted through the 1820s, and Pugh Price decided to move his family to the state of Missouri, where tobacco production competed with Virginia's tobacco and slavery was legal. The Price family reached Missouri in either 1830 or 1831 and temporarily settled near Fayette.
Missouri The stay in Fayette was designed solely to give Pugh time to select good tobacco-farming ground, and the family moved to the Keytesville vicinity in Chariton County in the summer of 1831. The area was part of a region known as the Boonslick, which contained a number of other former Virginia planters. On May 14, 1833, Price married Martha Head, the daughter of a local judge; the couple would have five sons, one daughter, and several children who did not survive childhood. Having entered into a business partnership with one Walter Chiles, Price worked as a merchant, served in the local militia, and began to purchase land both at a nearby river landing and on the prairie in the area.
Price was selected as the area's representative to a Democratic state convention in January 1835, which presented potentially significant political opportunities. The convention was strongly Jacksonian, and nominated Martin Van Buren for the Democratic presidential nominee, Thomas Hart Benton for vice presidential nominee, and a slate of state-level candidates. And then, later that same year, Pugh deeded Sterling most of the land of the Price family farm, making him one of the largest landowners in Chariton County. Price was appointed postmaster for Keytesville in April, and began campaigning for election to the Missouri General Assembly in August. Price was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives, and was placed on two committees. After the session began on November 21, 1836, Price put forth a resolution calling for action on a bill to charter a state bank in Missouri. While a state bank was against Jacksonian principles, a bill chartering a state bank with limits on its powers was passed in January 1837, having been supported by Price and the other politicians from the Boonslick area. Also passed was a bill criminalizing actions that encouraged a slave rebellion. Price, who viewed slavery as a necessary component of Southern aristocracy, viewed this positively and also added an amendment requiring governmental compensation for slaves executed by the state to another bill.
The session adjourned on February 6, and Price returned home.
Missouri Mormon War
In 1836, the state of Missouri had established Caldwell County specifically for settlement by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). As additional Mormons settled in the area, they began to expand from Caldwell County. Tensions rose over time, and a riot occurred in Gallatin on August 6, 1838, when Mormons attempted to vote outside of Caldwell County. After the riot, Mormon leaders Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon led 150 armed citizens, including a number of Danites, to the Mormon settlement of Adam-ondi-Ahman in Daviess County. Two days later, part of the group visited a local judge, asking him to sign a statement disavowing support for any anti-Mormon violence and containing a promise to uphold the law. The judge considered the statement a violation of his judicial oath not to favor special interest groups, and refused to sign, later traveling with a few others to Richmond, where he issued a complaint against the Mormons for starting frontier war. Arrest warrants were issued for three key Mormon leaders, but they refused to enter custody.
During the election campaign before the Gallatin riot, Price had heard from Josiah Morin, a judge and Missouri State Senate candidate who was on friendly terms with the Mormons, that Morin would likely be forced from his home if he lost his electoral campaign. Represented by Alexander Doniphan and David Rice Atchison, the Mormon leaders stood trial before judge Austin A. King on a farm near the Daviess County line on September 7. King determined that there was enough evidence to warrant a trial before a grand jury, and set the defendants under bail. Doniphan, Atchison, and the defendants returned to the Mormon settlement of Far West. The citizens of Chariton County sent a delegation led by Price to investigate the situation. Along with Edgar Flory, Price attended the trial and then met with Atchison and the Mormon leaders in Far West. Flory and Price wrote a letter back to Chariton County stating that they believed that the actions of the Mormons had not been as reported, and that the legal action had been started by the Daviess County citizens to stir up trouble.
Things appeared to be trending peaceably, but an incident in which Mormon militiamen in Daviess County captured three anti-Mormons and a cache of weapons resparked violence. A force of 400 militiamen under the command of Doniphan was mustered, and the three prisoners were taken back on September 12. Violence recurred in early October, and Doniphan and some militia from neighboring counties were called out again. Before Doniphan's men arrived, the Mormons abandoned the settlement of DeWitt, but then attacked and burned Gallatin and the community of Millport on October 18. Mormon forces and Missouri militia fought the Battle of Crooked Creek on October 25. Exaggerated reports reached Missouri political authorities, and two days later, Governor of Missouri Lilburn Boggs issued the Mormon Extermination Order, which included the statement that "The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state".
Boggs also ordered the state militia to deal with the situation; Price commanded the militia from Chariton County. In early November, militia forces took control of Far West, and under the command of John Bullock Clark, Mormons considered to be guilty were rounded up for trial. Price commanded a force that escorted captured Mormon leaders from Independence to Richmond. The men under Price's command treated their prisoners poorly during the movement; Price did not intervene. When the residents of Keytesville met in January 1839, Price was part of a four-person group that drafted a resolution describing their thoughts about the conflict. The resolution supported Boggs's actions and approved of the measures taken to respond to the violence.
Return to the legislature Due to his involvement in the conflict with the Mormons, Price did not serve a second term in the state legislature. The mercantile business with Chiles had struggled, so Price dissolved the entity, paid off his share of its debts, and formed a new enterprise with Lisbon Applegate. He was also appointed to a position with the Fayette branch of the recently approved state bank. By 1840, his farming endeavors had become prosperous, and Price had several dozen slaves. In August 1840, he was elected to another term in the Missouri House of Representatives. Despite his lack of experience in the legislature and young age, there was talk of making Price Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives, and after the legislature convened in November, he was elected unanimously to that position. The Boonslick faction was strong in Missouri politics at that time. In January 1841, Price was part of a Democratic Party majority that voted against a bill that would have allowed limited partnerships, despite Price having suffered in business ventures previously due to unlimited liability.
As Speaker, Price introduced a series of resolutions about slavery. Governor Thomas Reynolds had sent a letter to the House after receiving communication from the governor of Virginia asking for legal cooperation from the other states that allowed slavery after Governor of New York William H. Seward stated that he would not allow the return of escaped slaves to the south. The resolutions accused Seward of violating the Constitution of the United States, stated that Missourians would make "common cause with the said slaveholding States [sic]", and suggested a boycott of products from New York. While the proposed boycott was struck, the rest of the resolutions passed.
Price was reelected to the legislature in 1842, but the Democratic Party in Missouri was losing internal solidarity, with splits over hard money and soft money currency policies and a feeling in other parts of the state that central Missouri held too much power. A soft money advocate from St. Louis nominated Jesse B. Thompson to run against the hard-money Price in the speaker's election, but Price was elected 72–11. According to Shalhope, Price was "only an adequate parliamentarian and a poor orator", and Claiborne Fox Jackson served as floor leader. Price's role was more to convince legislators to tow the party line and create support for controversial bills. Shalhope writes that Price elicited an "almost blind loyalty among many Missourians"; Price was becoming charismatic in the legislature, although his opponents considered him to be vain.