Albert Magnus Price, a longtime supporter of Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield, passed away in September 2023 and left a legacy gift of nearly $100,000 to the foundation. Albert Price is the great-grand-nephew of Sterling Price, general and commander of the Missouri State Guard at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861. The donation will be used to build the foundation’s endowment and to support purchase of land and artifacts, operations, educational programs, and park events.
In addition to the legacy gift, Albert Price previously donated artifacts to the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Museum collection, including Sterling Price’s pocket watch, a memorial lithograph, and his revolver (on loan from the Price family). These items are currently on display in the visitor center.
“We are incredibly grateful to Albert Price for his forethought years ago when he named the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Foundation in his charitable trust,” says Melissa Adler, executive director. “Planned gifts like these are impactful because they’re typically larger than what most people can donate during their lifetime.”
Albert Price met his wife, Margaret Johanna Langrell in Columbia, Missouri, and raised three sons, Lang, Robbie, and Lake. They were married for 71 years. His career was marked by significant contributions to Boone County National Bank, where he started as a teller in 1951 and eventually became president and Chairman of the Board. Albert earned recognition for community service, including MU’s Distinguished Citizen Award. He and his family enjoyed the outdoors and traveling.
The Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield Foundation, founded in 1950, is one of the longest serving park partners of the National Park Service. Foundation leaders spearheaded efforts to make the initial land purchase of 37 acres, attain National Park status, build the visitor center, and provide funding for a 7,700 square-foot Civil War library and education center addition in 2020.
Gen. Sterling Price at the Second Major Battle of the Civil War
Library of Congress
To his men, he was “Pap” Price, an admired and respected battlefield commander. The former congressman, Mexican-American War general of volunteers and Missouri governor became a general and commander of the Missouri State Guard in May 1861. Price led the State Guard at Wilson’s Creek and Lexington, in what one of his officers called “a series of triumphs and successes.” He commanded a division of State Guardsmen and Missouri Confederates at Pea Ridge. Accepting a commission as a Confederate major general in 1862, Price fought on both sides of the Mississippi River, including the battles of Corinth and Iuka, Mississippi, and Helena, Arkansas. He led the longest cavalry raid of the Civil War through Missouri in the fall of 1864, meeting defeat at Westport and Mine Creek. Price moved to Mexico after the war but returned to St. Louis and died in 1867.
Richard H. Musser, one of Price’s officers, wrote after the war that the general “knew little of tactics and the details of military administration, but he applied to his offensive and defensive operations an exhaustless fund of practical common sense and his own sound judgement, in which he implicitly relied. Never was he known to hesitate at the most unforeseen difficulties, nor did his soldiers ever falter at any command. His forte was action, prompt, effective, and aggressive, and his proper sphere was the field. Being accompanied with brave and efficient officers, who executed all his commands in their details, he gave to his raw troops the steadiness of veterans … He was, perhaps, at the time, the only officer of either army who fully estimated the American citizen-soldier at his full worth.”
