In October 1864, as Sterling Price's Confederate expedition moved west across Missouri after defeats at Pilot Knob on September 27 and Jefferson City on October 7, his forces entered Boonville on October 11 and briefly skirmished there as the Union home guard withdrew. Union cavalry pursuing Price included the Sixth Cavalry, Provisional Enrolled Missouri Militia, under Lieutenant Colonel John F. McMahan, which approached Boonville on the road from Pisgah and fought Confederates on the heavily wooded Vollrath Farm, driving in enemy pickets and engaging for two hours before falling back in good order with 2 enlisted men killed, 1 commissioned officer wounded, and 4 enlisted men wounded; Confederate losses were reported as 15 killed and 28 too severely wounded to be moved. Nightfall left exhausted men on both sides sleeping on their weapons, and Price moved west out of Boonville on October 12, his troops stealing horses and supplies as they left and the pursuing Union forces doing the same, leaving Cooper County especially stripped of horses. On October 12, a separate cavalry fight took place several miles south on the Old Tipton Road at the Petite Saline Creek bridge, where the 5th Missouri Militia Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Eppstein pressed Confederates led by Colonel Sidney Jackman for several hours before they held their ground. The Vollrath Farm belonged to George and Rosina Fuchs Vollrath, whose family reflected much of the German experience in Missouri: George, a porter, miller, and farmer, and his brother Nicholas bought the Boonville Pottery, which by 1850 employed 16 people, used 600 tons of clay and 1,400 cords of wood annually, and produced 200,000 gallons of stoneware valued at $12,500, with production doubled by 1860. George died in 1865, when about 70% of Missouri's utilitarian stoneware pottery was made by the Boonville pottery, and his estate was valued at $35,000; Rosina died in 1906. The family lived in town but held extensive property around Boonville, helped found the German Evangelical Church in 1853, operated a mill on Water Street, maintained a vineyard and wine cellar, owned slaves including a skilled potter, and were buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery in Boonville.