Price's Lost Campaign: The 1864 Invasion of Missouri facts for kids
Front cover
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| Author | Mark A. Lause |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Price's Raid |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | University of Missouri Press |
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Publication date
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2011 |
| Pages | 280 |
| ISBN | 978-0-8262-1949-7 |
Price's Lost Campaign: The 1864 Invasion of Missouri is a 2011 book written by Mark A. Lause and published by the University of Missouri Press. The book discusses the early stage of Price's Raid, especially how what was originally designed as a full-fledged invasion became known to posterity as a less-important raid. Other themes include the failings of Confederate leader Sterling Price and Union leader William S. Rosecrans and a debunking of Lost Cause myths suggesting that the Confederate soldiers refrained from total war and behaved with chivalry during the campaign. The book's coverage cuts off midway through the campaign, when Price decided not to attempt to capture Jefferson City, Missouri, which Lause views as when the campaign shifted from an invasion to a raid. Several reviewers have criticized the decision to break off coverage at that point. Other points of concern mentioned by reviewers include the lack of a bibliography, insufficient quantity and quality of maps, and copy editing errors. The book was praised for its objective treatment of the campaign and the quality of Lause's research. A sequel, The Collapse of Price's Raid, was published in 2016.
Content
Price's Lost Campaign was written by Mark A. Lause and published in 2011 by the University of Missouri Press. Lause is a history professor with the University of Cincinnati who has published multiple books on nineteenth-century history, focusing on the American Civil War and on working-class history in the United States. He graduated with a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1985. His book details the early stages of Price's Raid, a late 1864 campaign during the American Civil War. Within the scope of the book are the actions that occurred from the onset of the campaign to when Sterling Price, the expedition's commander, decided to abandon an attempt to capture Jefferson City, Missouri. While the later actions of the campaign, including the important battles of Westport and Mine Creek are not significantly discussed in the book, the decision to cut off the coverage at that point was justified by Lause as being where the campaign ceased to be an invasion proper and became a raid.
Lause argues that Price's Raid was initially designed as a Confederate attempt to free Missouri from Union control and that it only later devolved into a raid. Other themes of the book include challenging the myth that the Confederates refused to engage in total war as well as examining Union Major General William S. Rosecrans' motivations behind his response to the raid. The book mentions some of the looting that occurred during the campaign, as well as the murders of civilians, including some Confederate sympathizers. Lause suggests that Rosecrans was more concerned with protecting the Missouri economy than civilians. Price is also criticized for being more concerned about his reputation than the outcome of the campaign. Ethan S. Rafuse, reviewing for Civil War Book Review stated that Price's Lost Campaign was one of the first major works written about Price's Raid since a 1964 work of limited scope titled Action Before Westport, 1864, although Patrick E. McLear, in a review for Civil War History mentioned that at least five books had been written on the subject since 1959. A timeline and order of battle are presented at the end of the book as appendixes. Lause posits that while the campaign began as an invasion, both sides recast the event as a less important raid for self-serving reasons. In 2016, Lause published The Collapse of Price's Raid, also through the University of Missouri Press, completing the story of the campaign.
