The Big Blue Battlefield

Hat tip to Mike Koepke for bringing this to light…

In late October 1864, Sterling Price’s Missouri raid reached modern-day Kansas City. Price was repulsed at Westport and then along the banks of the Big Blue River. I spoke to the Kansas City Civil War Roundtable in March 2005 and had an opportunity to tour the battlefields with Kansas City lawyer Dan Smith. With my interest in Alf Pleasonton and in cavalry operations in general, this was a natural for me. However, the tour was just a week or so after I had arthoscopic surgery on my left shoulder, and I was still in a sling and not an especially happy camper, but I really enjoyed my tour.

Most of the Westport battlefield is preserved in a municipal park in a very nice residential area of Kansas City, although the entire battlefield is not in the park. You can definitely see the lay of the land and get a pretty good idea of how the terrain impacted the fighting. Westport was Samuel Curtis’ infantry against Price’s main body and Marmaduke’s cavalry.

The Big Blue fight was primarily a cavalry fight between Pleasonton’s cavalry and Shelby’s Confederate horsemen that lasted over parts of two full days. The Confederates won the first day’s fighting, and the Union the second, when Pleasonton, in what was probably his finest moment, drove the enemy horsemen off. There were about 3,000 casualties between the Big Blue and Westport fights, and Price was driven away, his raid a failure. Thus, the fights at Westport and the Big Blue are the critical events of Price’s Raid.

Unfortunately, very little of the Big Blue battlefield has been preserved; most of it is an industrial park, and a highway cuts through the middle of it. About all that’s really preserved is the actual river crossing site, which is completely pristine. There is very little interpretation there, other than a few strategically placed cannon and a couple of roadside historical markers. It is, consequently, very, very difficult to get a good understanding of the terrain and how the fighting played out.

Fortunately, Dan Smith is leading the charge to preserve and protect the Big Blue battlefield. Fortunately, about 240 acres has come into public ownership, and one of the buildings blocking the view to the river has been razed. They plan to raze at least one more building, and hopefuly two. The local preservation group has an admirable agenda: “The plan seeks to open and restore the vistas across the battlefield to conditions existing in 1864 to provide a sense and feeling to the visitor of the historic context of the site,” the group’s development plan says.

The group hopes to raise $300,000 in private donations, $300,000 to $500,000 in city capital-improvement dollars and $1 million to $1.5 million in federal money. They hope to have an interpretive center and to bring attention to an important battle.

I commend Dan Smith and his group, and wish them nothing but the best in their efforts. I hope that they succeed and preserve an important battlefield site that easily could have been destroyed forever. And for those who have an interest in the Trans-Mississippi, and in Price’s Raid in particular, a trip to Kansas City to visit these two battlefields is a must. They are well worth a visit.