Sterling PRICE, Congress, MO (1809-1867)

PRICE, Sterling, a Representative from Missouri; was born near Farmville, Prince Edward County, Va., on September 20, 1809; completed preparatory studies and attended Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia; studied law; was admitted to the bar and practiced; moved to Fayette and later to Keytesville, Mo.; member of the State house of representatives 1840-1844 and served as speaker; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-ninth Congress and served from March 4, 1845, to August 12, 1846, when he resigned to participate in the Mexican War; appointed colonel of the Second Regiment, Missouri Infantry, August 12, 1846; promoted to brigadier general of Volunteers July 20, 1847, and was honorably discharged November 25, 1848; returned to Missouri and engaged in agricultural pursuits on the Bowling Green prairie; Governor of Missouri 1853-1857; State bank commissioner 1857-1861; elected presiding officer, Missouri State convention, February 28, 1861; during the Civil War served in the Confederate Army as a major general; after the war went to Mexico but later returned to Missouri; died in St. Louis, Mo., September 29, 1867; interment in Bellefontaine Cemetery.

Bibliography

Castel, Albert. General Sterling Price and the Civil War in the West. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968; Shalhope, Robert E. Sterling Price, Portrait of a Southerner. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971.

Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present