The story of a border city during the Civil War

by Galusha Anderson

In St. Louis we were as yet safe. But we breakfasted and supped on horrors. Our hearts bled for our suffering brethren in the State. We did what we could to help them; but we were able to effect very little. The persistent rumors that a large army of invaders would soon sweep into our State from the South made us apprehensive that there might at no distant day be fighting at our own gates.

At last these rumors of invasion were followed by the ingress of a veteran rebel force under the command of General Price. They came up from Arkansas. On the 24th of September, General Shelby, one of Price’s division commanders, with five thousand men and several pieces of artillery, was reported as just south of Pilot Knob, about eighty-five miles from St. Louis. It was the vanguard of an army of at least fifteen thousand men.

Excitement ran high among us. We had no force at all adequate to our protection. As we have already seen, most of the soldiers in and around St. Louis had been sent to the front. Of this state of things, the rebel general had undoubtedly been informed. He expected to capture our city, and, comparatively defenceless as we were, we thought that his expectation would probably be realized; at all events, we could not see why it should not be. Still we all deeply felt that we must do our utmost to save that for which we had so successfully contended for more than three years.

Days before, when rumors of this invasion filled the air, and evidences multiplied that rumor would soon be transmuted into reality, at the earnest solicitation of our general, the military authorities at Washington had halted at Cairo, General A. J. Smith, with about four thousand five hundred infantry, when on his way to join General Sherman, and ordered him to turn back and assist Rosecrans in defending Missouri against the hostile forces of Price. To our great relief he came up to St. Louis, knowing full well that our city was the coveted prize and the objective point of the invading army. He wisely determined to stand, with his brave soldiers, between our comparatively defenceless city and the invaders when they should appear on our soil.

But he was not our only defence. When the invading rebels were reported as being in the southern part of the State all the Home Guards of St. Louis were called out. Their whole strength was from four to five thousand men, none of whom had ever been under fire. Under the best officers that could be secured they were daily drilled. Moreover, some one hundred days’ volunteers, then in Illinois, who had more than served out their time, with great alacrity and generosity came to our support, but refused under the circumstances to go beyond the city. They were willing to fight there on the defensive, but were unwilling to join in an offensive campaign, which might require long and perhaps forced marches. We could not blame them, and were glad that they stood ready with us to defend our city if it should be attacked.

Now, with such force as was at hand the defensive campaign began. General Ewing was sent with about fifteen hundred men, half of whom were raw recruits, to Pilot Knob. He was ordered to hold that position until he found out as nearly as possible the number of the invading army. He was an able, gallant soldier, and we knew that he would do his utmost to carry out the command of his chief.

At the same time, General Smith marched with his division of infantry in the direction of Pilot Knob. His movement was noted by Price, who, wishing to prevent him from uniting his force with that of General Ewing, sent General Shelby to oppose him and if possible check his advance. General Smith, having discovered that the enemy was moving west and north, was ordered to keep between the rebel force and St. Louis; so he retired behind the Meramec, a little river a few miles south of our city.

In the meantime, full of anxiety, we at St. Louis waited for tidings from General Ewing. Hours seemed to be days, and days weeks. At last the thrilling news came. Ewing, after using part of his troops to guard a portion of the Iron Mountain Railroad, with a thousand men took his stand at Fort Davidson, a small field work in a valley surrounded by hills. It commanded the opening between the mountains through which Price had determined to pass. Throughout the whole of September 27th, he was terrifically assaulted by the invaders. While half of his thousand troops were undisciplined volunteers, he pluckily held his ground, repulsing the attacking army and killing and wounding fifteen hundred of them; while his own loss in killed, wounded and missing was only two hundred and fifty. A part of this number in the desperate fighting of the day had been taken prisoners and soon after were paroled. The general had triumphantly accomplished his object. He had developed the fact that the whole of Price’s army was in the State, and for a whole day he had confronted and fought all of it except Shelby’s division.

The enemy, towards evening, had gained the slopes of the adjacent mountains and were planting batteries there which would command the fort that Ewing had so tenaciously and gallantly held. Fully eight thousand five hundred men with ten pieces of artillery were prepared to attack him in the morning. His position was no longer tenable. He therefore spiked his big guns, blew up his magazine, destroyed as far as he was able the supplies that he could not carry away, and with his field battery and what remained of his command retreated under the cover of darkness toward the Meramec valley. When his absence was discovered, the enemy pursued and greatly harassed him and his small intrepid army. The only wonder is that his whole command was not captured or destroyed; but he got upon a ridge of land between two creeks, and so was able, as he marched rapidly on, to repulse again and again the pursuing forces. He reached at last Harrison Station, a little more than a day’s march from our city. Here he hastily occupied and extended some earthworks that had been thrown up by a regiment of militia, and with his raw troops, now become a Spartan band, withstood the assaulting army for thirty-six hours, when he was re-enforced by a detachment of cavalry. The enemy now withdrew. Ewing and his brave men escaped to Rolla.

We were soon in possession of all the facts. A great burden was lifted from our hearts. The well-earned fame of Ewing and his dauntless little army floated on the lips of the multitude. But why Price did not take St. Louis was to us all an inscrutable mystery. He could have done so. He came for that very purpose, and yet passed by us to the west and north. He was a cautious general; as we have before observed, he never wished to attack unless he felt quite sure of victory. And like most overcautious commanders, he overestimated the strength of his enemy. We know now, what we did not then, that he sent a spy to our city, one in whose judgment he placed the utmost confidence, who reported to him that we had for our defence two soldiers to his one. How that spy could have been so deceived is still an unsolved riddle. Price had almost two soldiers to our one. His soldiers were veterans; ours to a great extent were raw and undisciplined. With a little resolute, hard fighting he could have seized the prize which he and his troops so intensely coveted. But the God of nations and battles, who holds in his hand the hearts of kings and generals, had graciously decreed otherwise.