University press gets grant to print updated Civil War history

The Missouri Humanities Council has awarded a $2,500 grant to Southeast Missouri State University Press to support the printing of "Thunder in Arcadia Valley: The Battle of Pilot Knob," available at the end of September.

The release coincides with the Sesquicentennial of the battle at Pilot Knob's Fort Davidson.

The first edition was written by Bryce Suderow, a historian, winner of the Douglas Southall Freeman Award and author of four books, as his Southeast master's degree in history thesis.

Originally called "Thunder in Arcadia Valley: Price's Defeat, September 27, 1864," the book was published in 1986 by Southeast's Center for Regional History, a university news release said.

Out of print for years, the book was dormant until Southeast's Provost Bill Eddleman introduced Dr. Susan Swartwout, publisher of the University Press, to Cape Girardeau resident Scott House, a Civil War interpreter, scholar, cartographer and re-enactor. House and Suderow proposed a co-authored new edition with revised and additional materials. This second edition has been expanded from the original 166 pages to more than 400 pages of text, new maps and photos.

The battle at Fort Davidson, Pilot Knob, Missouri, has been called "Missouri's Thermopylae."

In the fall of 1864, Confederate armies east of the Mississippi River had suffered a string of defeats. Confederate Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith decided to send a massive mounted raiding force far behind federal lines into Missouri. He appointed Major Gen. Sterling Price, Missouri's most famous Confederate, to lead the raid and to capture St. Louis or Jefferson City.

Price entered Missouri on Sept. 19, 1864, with an army of 12,000 men headed for St. Louis, but he decided to attack the weakly defended post of Fort Davidson at Pilot Knob.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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