lawyer military politician statesman
He was born on September 20, 1809 in Prince Edward County, Virginia, United States, the son of Pugh Williamson and Elizabeth (Williamson) Price and the descendant of John Price who emigrated from Wales to Henrico County, Virginia, about 1620.
He attended Hampden-Sydney College in 1826-27. He then studied law under Creed Taylor of Virginia.
About 1831 with his parents he removed to Fayette, Missouri, and later he purchased a farm near Keytesville in Chariton County, which was his home for practically the rest of his life. From 1836 to 1838 and from 1840 to 1844 he was Chariton County's representative in the state legislature, and he was speaker of the House during the last four years of this period. In 1844 he was elected to Congress, but, largely because he was disinclined to play the game of politics, he failed to receive the nomination for reelection. He resigned on August 12, 1846.
He entered the Mexican War as colonel of the 2nd Missouri Infantry. He was made military governor of Chihuahua and also promoted to the rank of brigadier-general.
He was nominated as an anti-Benton Democrat and was easily elected governor of Missouri in 1852. Because of his general popularity and because he was a conditional Union man he was chosen president of the state convention of 1860. He thought that this convention was wise in voting down all proposals looking toward secession, but, when the convention adjourned, the pro-Southern governor, Claiborne Fox Jackson, placed him in command of the state troops. It was the subsequent irritatingly aggressive policies and activities of such Unionists as Frank P. Blair and Nathaniel Lyon that drove him into the arms of the Southerners.
After the famous Planters' Hotel conference in June 1861 with Blair and Lyon, he hastened to Jefferson City and soon retreated with a small force to the southwestern corner of the state. He collected and trained some 5, 000 troops, moved them eastward, and early in August temporarily united his forces with the smaller Confederate army of Gen. Ben McCulloch twelve miles south of Springfield. There at the battle of Wilson's Creek the combined armies, nominally under the command of McCulloch but principally led by Price, defeated the Union army and killed the commander, Nathaniel Lyon.
He marched northward and besieged and captured 3, 000 Federal troops at Lexington, September 17-20, 1861. However, the forces of John C. Fremont were hot on his trail, and he retreated into Arkansas, where he and his troops officially joined the Confederate army in April 1862. That summer he was defeated in the campaign around Iuka and Corinth. In the early part of 1864 he again suffered reverses at Helena, but was in turn able to inflict a severe defeat on General Steele, when the latter attempted to gain the Red River.
The raid through Missouri, his last important military effort, was a failure. Finally retreating to the plains of Texas, 1864-65, he decided to take up his abode in Mexico. Following the collapse of Maximilian's empire he returned in 1866 to Missouri a broken man.
Impoverished and in poor health, Price died of cholera in St. Louis, Missouri.
Sterling Price is best known for his victories in New Mexico and Chihuahua during the Mexican conflict, and for his losses at the Battles of Pea Ridge and Westport during the Civil War – the latter being the culmination of his ill-fated Missouri Campaign of 1864. As a governor of Missouri, he reorganized the public school system of the state, opened much new land to settlement, grew apace railroad construction. A statue of Price stands in Price Park, Keytesville, Missouri, which is also the location of the Sterling Price Museum in his honor.
He had great military abilities.
Quotes from others about the person
Jefferson Davis, after a conference and no doubt a quarrel with Price, pronounced him the "vainest man he ever met", but those who knew him best placed no such estimate on his character.
On May 14, 1833, he was married to Martha Head in Randolph County. They had seven children, five surviving to adulthood - Edwin Williamson, Herber, Celsus, Martha Sterling, and Quintus.
