|
The Battle of Fort Davidson, also known as the Battle of Pilot Knob, was the opening engagement of Price's Missouri Raid during the American Civil War. This engagement occurred on September 27, 1864, just outside of Pilot Knob in Iron County, Missouri. Although outnumbered by more than ten-to-one, the Union defenders managed to repulse repeated Confederate assaults on their works, and were able to slip away during the night by exploiting a gap in the Southern siege lines. The attacking Rebels took possession of the fort the next day, but Price's profligate expenditure of men and ammunition ended his goal of seizing St. Louis for the Confederacy. ==Prelude== In April 1864, the Confederacy found itself in an increasingly desperate military situation. Unable to win any decisive victories or to obtain foreign recognition, its main strategy by this point was merely to hold on and hope that enormous Union casualties might result in a war-weary Northern public voting Abraham Lincoln out of office in November. The Democratic nominee, General George B. McClellan, had seen his party adopt a plank to make peace with the South if the party were successful—a plank McClellan was forced to repudiate after the Union met with military successes that summer. However, despite the many recent Union triumphs, just one significant military disaster in that shaky autumn of 1864 could still politically embarrass Lincoln and potentially doom his reelection. As the election approached, things began to look even bleaker for the South. General Ulysses S. Grant had pinned down Robert E. Lee in Virginia, while Gen. William Sherman was locked in combat with Gen. Joseph Johnston north of Atlanta. Gen. George Crook's army held the Shenandoah Valley. The only realm that seemed to offer possibilities for a Confederate army embarrassing the Union was in the West. Accordingly, Major General Sterling Price was chosen for this task. He raised a mixed force of 12,000 cavalry and mounted infantry plus fourteen cannon, which he named the Army of Missouri, and set out to "liberate" his home state. In September 1864, Price left Camden, Arkansas and marched north into Missouri. His initial objective was St. Louis, the state's largest city. Though Sherman had captured Atlanta, which provided a tremendous boost to Lincoln's reelection campaign, the seizure of St. Louis by Price–together with the huge quantities of arms in the St. Louis arsenal–could still prove catastrophic for the Republicans. As they moved north toward Ironton, near the terminus of the Iron Mountain Railroad from St. Louis, Price's army came upon Fort Davidson with a garrison of 1,500 men and seven guns, a tempting target. Price had a total of 12,000 mounted infantry under his command, 3,000 of whom were unarmed. Capturing the fort and its garrison would certainly prove beneficial to Southern morale. As Price prepared to seize the garrison, he received word that Federal troops were moving south to intercept him. Ordering detachments to destroy the railroad to the north at once, he slowly moved his three main brigades into the Arcadia valley, where he invested the fort with his three divisions on the evening of September 26. Union Brig. General Thomas Ewing, deputy commander of the District of St. Louis and a brother-in-law to William T. Sherman, had arrived at Fort Davidson with 200 Iowa infantry to augment the small Federal force already there. He was scouting the route Price might take towards St. Louis when he got word that the Ironton-St. Louis railroad behind him had been cut by Confederate cavalry. Despite being outnumbered ten-to-one, he decided to stand and fight. The fort occupied a strong defensive position, with hexagonal walls nine feet high and ten feet thick, surrounded by a dry moat nine feet deep. Two long rifle pits ran out from the walls, while a reinforced board fence topped the earthworks. Access could only be had through a drawbridge on the structure's southeastern corner. A cleared field of fire extended in every direction beyond the walls; any enemy approach would prove extremely hazardous. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Fort Davidson」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|