Very nice summary and assessment, Terry.

Price and his entourage were Missouri patriots to the point of fanaticism. The liberation of Missouri was an obsession with them -- understandable and laudable -- but it fostered wishful thinking and an eagerness to grasp at straws. Price had been pestering everyone he could button-hole to authorize a campaign to liberate Missouri. He was received with tepid indulgence in Richmond, before reporting back to Kirby Smith, to whom he misrepresented Richmond's support for a campaign. With the Red River campaign successfully defeated, and Steele holed up at Little Rock licking his wounds, no major threats were perceived in Arkansas and no campaigns planned. In fact, Kirby Smith was drawing regiments out of Arkansas and sending them to Texas, where forage and rations were more plentiful.

So, Kirby Smith authorized the campaign, based on Price's enthusiastic premises -- Missouri was waiting for a liberator to whom they could rally, thousands of potential recruits were just dying to join the Confederate army, vast amounts of enemy supplies and equipment could be captured and used to re-equip the Trans-Mississippi Army, a significant number of Yankees could be tied down, and St. Louis could be captured, or at least neutralized.

Kirby Smith was less than sanguine about the affair. Most of his orders were predicated on success -- "WHEN you achieve this, then do that." His orders to Price were not as optimistic -- "IF you achieve this, then do that; if not, then do this."

Price's campaign was poorly thought out and executed. He was a great asset as a symbol -- his men worshipped him -- but a poor general. His campaign was a disastrous failure, but the actions of some of his troops were inspirational. The rear-guard actions fought along the Kansas-Missouri line provide some of the best examples of the courage and self-sacrifice of professional soldiers.