Editing Pacific, Missouri (section)

=== The Battle of Pacific (1864) ===
On October 1, 1864, as a part of former Missouri governor and Maj. Gen. [[Sterling Price]]'s unsuccessful [[Price's Missouri Expedition|Missouri Expedition]], a brigade of the Arkansas Cavalry of the [[Confederate States Army]] under the command of Gen. William Cabell was sent to Pacific from near [[Saint Clair, Missouri|Saint Clair]]. The brigade entered Pacific at sunrise and burned major city structures, including the rail depot and a number of bridges.

Union authorities in nearby [[St. Louis|Saint Louis]] quickly dispatched three divisions of the 16th Army Corps originally destined for Gen. [[William Tecumseh Sherman]] in Atlanta to Pacific to deal with Cabell's troops, who had, by most accounts, set up four pieces of artillery around the town.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2010|title=The Battle of Pacific: Missouri's Civil War|url=http://www.mocivilwar.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/36x24TheBattleOfPacific-36913.pdf|website=Missouri Civil War Heritage Foundation}}</ref> The troops from St. Louis encountered Confederate troops just east of Pacific, near what is now [[Allenton, Missouri|Allenton]], who shelled the train and the troops. The two brigades engaged in battle for a few hours, and when additional Union supports from Saint Louis arrived, Cabell's troops were forced out of the city to nearby [[Union, Missouri]].

Given Pacific's proximity to the St. Louis County line, the city was seen as the last defense against an attempted Confederate invasion of Saint Louis. The casualties numbered about a dozen on each side, but Cabell's troops had done the bulk of their plundering earlier in the day.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Swain|first=Craig|date=2014-10-02|title=The "high water mark" of his campaign: Price approaches St. Louis|url=https://markerhunter.wordpress.com/2014/10/02/price-approaches-st-louis/|access-date=2020-06-04|website=To the Sound of the Guns|language=en}}</ref>