The Battle of Glasgow was fought on October 15, 1864, in and near Glasgow, Missouri as part of Price's Missouri Expedition during the American Civil War. The battle resulted in the capture of needed weapons and improved Confederate morale, which had been dented after a defeat in the Battle of Pilot Knob.
In late 1864, the Confederate leadership in the Trans-Mississippi Theater planned a campaign into the state of Missouri, in the hope of drawing Union troops from more important theaters east of the Mississippi River. Major General Sterling Price commanded the expedition, and initially hoped to capture St. Louis. The early defeat at Pilot Knob led him to abandon this plan. After the strength of the Union garrison at Jefferson City convinced Price to cancel a planned attempt to capture the place, he led his army into the pro-Confederate region of Little Dixie, where recruiting efforts were successful. Many of these new recruits were unarmed.
Learning of a Union weapons cache at Glasgow, Price sent Brigadier General John B. Clark Jr. with two brigades on a side raid to capture it. The Union garrison of Glasgow was commanded by Colonel Chester Harding Jr., and was mostly composed of militia and men of the 43rd Missouri Infantry Regiment. At 05:00 on October 15, Confederate artillery opened fire on the Union position. After the Union commander rejected a surrender offer from Clark, the main attack began at about 08:00; it occurred late due to delays in reaching Glasgow. Harding's men were driven back into the town and burned 50,000 rations to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands. They surrendered at 13:30. Clark's men paroled the Union soldiers, captured 1,000 uniform overcoats and 1,200 weapons, and burned a steamboat. The Confederate column rejoined Price's main army the next day. On October 23, the Confederates were decisively defeated at the Battle of Westport. Price's men retreated, but were harried for much of the way by Union pursuit. The retreat eventually reached Texas.
Context
At the start of the American Civil War in 1861, the state of Missouri was a slave state, but did not secede. The state was politically divided: Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson and the Missouri State Guard supported secession and the Confederate States of America, while Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon and the Union Army supported the United States and opposed secession. Under Major General Sterling Price, the Missouri State Guard had some early success with battlefield victories at Wilson's Creek and Lexington, but by the end of the year, were restricted to the southwestern portion of the state. Meanwhile, Jackson and a portion of the state legislature voted to secede and join the Confederate States of America, but another element of the legislature voted to reject secession, essentially giving the state two governments. In March 1862, a Confederate defeat at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas gave the Union control of Missouri, and Confederate activity in the state was largely restricted to guerrilla warfare and raids throughout 1862 and 1863.
By September 1864, the Confederates had been defeated in the Atlanta campaign. This, and other events in the eastern United States, gave Abraham Lincoln, who supported continuing the war, an edge in the 1864 United States presidential election over George B. McClellan, who favored ending the war. Many Confederates thought that a McClellan electoral victory would lead to a peace that included Confederate independence. At this point, the Confederacy had very little chance of winning the war. As events east of the Mississippi River turned against the Confederates, General Edmund Kirby Smith, Confederate commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, was ordered to transfer the infantry under his command to the fighting further east, but this was not possible due to the Union Navy's control of the Mississippi River.
Despite having limited resources for an offensive, Smith decided that an attack designed to divert Union troops from the principal theaters of combat would have an equivalent effect to the proposed transfer of troops. Price and the Confederate Governor of Missouri, Thomas Caute Reynolds, suggested an invasion of Missouri; Smith approved the plan and appointed Price to command the offensive. Price expected that the offensive would achieve several objectives: create a popular uprising against Union control of Missouri; divert Union troops away from the principal theaters of combat; and aid McClellan's chance of defeating Lincoln in the election. On September 19, Price's column, named the Army of Missouri, entered the state.
Prelude
Price's force entered Missouri from the south with about 13,000 cavalrymen, beginning Price's Missouri Expedition. Several thousand of these men were poorly armed, and all 14 of the army's cannons were small, limiting their range and effectiveness. Opposing Price was Major General William S. Rosecrans, who commanded the Union Department of Missouri with fewer than 10,000 men on hand, many of whom were militiamen without experience in major battles. In late September, the Confederates encountered a small Union force holding Fort Davidson near the town of Pilot Knob. Confederate attacks against the post on September 27 failed, but the Union garrison abandoned the fort that night. Price suffered hundreds of casualties in the battle. Parts of the Confederate army advanced as far as Franklin, but then turned westwards to Jefferson City via Union and Washington.
Price had abandoned intentions to attack St. Louis due to the defeat at Pilot Knob and was not making a serious attempt to capture the city in the advance to Franklin. St. Louis had also been reinforced by a Union infantry force led by Major General A. J. Smith. Price's army was accompanied by a sizable wagon train, which significantly slowed its movement. The train was used to carry the supplies and forage collected by the Confederates from the towns they went through. Union forces had time to reinforce Jefferson City, whose garrison was increased from 1,000 men to 7,000 between October 1 and 6. The reinforcements were a mixture of regular troops drawn from elsewhere in the state and militia, including some of the Enrolled Missouri Militia who were called up on short notice. Price determined that Jefferson City was too strong to attack, and continued moving westwards along the course of the Missouri River.
The vanguard of Price's army reached Boonville on October 9. Boonville was part of a pro-Confederate area known as Little Dixie, and many men, including Bloody Bill Anderson and his guerrillas, joined the Confederates. Price detached Anderson to operate north of the main body to harass the North Missouri Railroad and attempted to get William C. Quantrill's guerrillas to attack the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. Union troops followed Price westwards; one body was to the east of Boonville at Rocheport, and another, under Brigadier General John B. Sanborn, was to the south at California. On the 11th, Sanborn moved north and skirmished with the Confederates, who abandoned Boonville the next day and continued west in the direction of Marshall.
The Confederates's recruiting in Little Dixie was successful. Although the new recruits added to the numerical strength of Price's army, many of them were unarmed. Late on October 12, Price learned of rumors that a substantial store of weapons was held by the Union garrison of Glasgow, across the Missouri River and north of Boonville. On October 14, Price authorized two raids for the purpose of capturing supplies. One, under Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson, commander of Shelby's Iron Brigade, was sent south of Price's camp to Sedalia, which it captured on October 15. The second, led by Brigadier General John B. Clark Jr., was directed towards Glasgow.
Battle
Clark's 1,700 or 1,800-man column consisted of his own brigade (under the command of Colonel Colton Greene), 500 men from Colonel Sidney D. Jackman's brigade, and Harris's Missouri Battery. Clark and Jackman were selected for the operation because they were local residents. The column pushed north and then crossed the Missouri by ferry at Arrow Rock on the 14th. After hearing rumors that the garrison of Glasgow had a "tin-clad boat", Clark asked Price for more artillery. In reality, the Union vessel present, the steamer West Wind, was not tin-clad or even armed. Since the river at Glasgow was narrow enough for artillery to effectively fire across it, Price sent Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby with 125 cavalrymen and part of Collins's Missouri Battery to a point on the western bank of the Missouri opposite Glasgow. Shelby's force was joined by some of Anderson's guerrillas, but Anderson and his men did not participate in the fighting. The Union garrison was initially a small force under the command of Captain John E. Mayo, but it had been reinforced on October 13 by part of the 43rd Missouri Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel Chester Harding. The Missouri infantrymen had been temporarily stranded when the steamboats they were on ran aground. Once the ships were freed, they went downriver to Glasgow, where they unloaded the Missourians and supplies. One of the ships, Benton, returned to Jefferson City, while the other, West Wind, stayed at Glasgow, as its draft was expected to be too deep for the falling water levels on the river.
Harding, who was now in command of the garrison at Glasgow, had between 550 and 800 men available, including armed civilians. The Union force had no artillery available. Glasgow's location on a hilltop provided an advantage to the defenders. The interior Union line was anchored by two unfinished fortifications which held about 40 men each. The defenses between the fortifications were makeshift, although they had been extended to the east to a schoolhouse. Most of Harding's men were positioned outside the fortified line where the roads entered town. This interior line ran from near the river to the east edge of town, before curving to the north. Elements of the 43rd Missouri Infantry held east and west positions south of town on the external line, near where the roads crossed Greggs Creek. In between those two positions, a line of local militiamen was posted. The two road crossings were over apart. The line south of town ran roughly east to west. North of the town, a group of cavalry, largely members of the Missouri State Militia, held a position north of Bear Creek, crossed by a single road. A militia force was sent east to repair telegraphic connections with Jefferson City, but returned to Glasgow late on October 14 after running into a Confederate force. At around 05:00 on October 15, Collins's Battery opened fire, aiming primarily for West Wind, visible campfires, and exposed streets in the town. This fire was largely ineffective, as was fire from the cavalry accompanying the cannons, although a prominent pro-Confederate civilian, clergyman William Goff Caples, was killed by an artillery shot. Union sharpshooters drove some Confederates away from the riverbank.