User:Hog Farm/sandbox 2

In the 1864 United States presidential election, incumbent president Abraham Lincoln supported continuing the war, while former Union general George B. McClellan promoted ending it. By the beginning of September 1864, military events in the eastern United States, especially the Confederate defeat in the Atlanta campaign, gave Lincoln an advantage in the election over McClellan. At this point, the Confederacy had very little chance of victory. As events east of the Mississippi River turned against the Confederacy, General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department, was ordered to transfer the infantry under his command to the fighting in the Eastern and Western Theaters. This proved to be impossible, as the Union Navy controlled the Mississippi River, preventing a large-scale crossing. Despite having limited resources for an offensive, Smith decided that an attack designed to divert Union troops from the principal theaters of combat would have the same effect as the proposed transfer of troops. Price and the new Confederate Governor of Missouri, Thomas Caute Reynolds, suggested that an invasion of Missouri would be an effective operation; Smith approved the plan and appointed Price to command it. Price expected that the offensive would create a popular uprising against Union control of Missouri, divert Union troops away from the principal theaters of combat (many of the Union troops defending Missouri had been transferred out of the state, leaving the Missouri State Militia as the state's primary defensive force), and aid McClellan's chance of defeating Lincoln. On September 19, Price's column entered the state.