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New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR

A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF ST. LOUIS IN 1860.
[Frontispiece

THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR

BY

GALUSHA ANDERSON, S. T. D., LL. D.

PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

RESIDENT OF ST. LOUIS FROM 1858 TO 1866

With Twelve Portraits and Views

“On the perilous edge of battle.”—John Milton.

Boston

Little, Brown, and Company

1908

Copyright, 1908,

By Galusha Anderson.

All rights reserved

Published September, 1908

COLONIAL PRESS

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.

Boston, U. S. A.

To all those, living or dead, who by wisdom, tact and

self-sacrifice helped to keep Missouri in the

Union, this book is affectionately

dedicated

AN EXPLANATION

I have been frequently urged by men in different parts of the country to write out, and give to the public, the story of St. Louis during the Civil War. Having had of late my time largely at my own disposal, I determined to yield to these earnest solicitations. But I have found the task somewhat more difficult than I anticipated. While all that I saw in St. Louis, and all in which I participated, came back to my mind with remarkable freshness and vividness, I have been compelled, because of the lapse of time since the war, to verify my recollections by wide reading and painstaking research. I have tried to weigh impartially what has been said both by those who were for, and those who were against, the Union.

Upon some points pertaining to military operations in St. Louis and Missouri, I have found considerable conflicting testimony. In such cases I have either given authorities on both sides, or, having sifted the evidence pro and con, have presented what seemed to me to be, at least approximately, the historical facts. And while in some instances I may have come short of absolute accuracy, in all my statements I have earnestly endeavored to present the exact truth.

But I have treated of the movements of troops and the acts of the general government only in so far as they immediately affected the life and experiences of those within our city. My sole object in all that I have written has been to portray as clearly and vividly as I could what transpired among us from 1860 to 1865; to note some events that preceded the war and were the harbingers of it; to reveal the currents of thought and feeling in St. Louis during the whole fratricidal struggle, and especially to point out what was peculiar to us as a community made up of the loyal and disloyal.

To my own mind it is clear that our great Civil War can never be fully understood without a knowledge of the unique experiences of a border city, and especially of St. Louis, for the possession of which both parties to our great national conflict so earnestly contended. During the long and bloody battle for the Union, my home was there, and this book is simply “an unvarnished tale” of what I saw and of work in which I shared. As a testimony I trust that it may be of some worth.

And since I intended it to be only a simple testimony, it has not been written to make out a case. I have tried to divest myself of the spirit of a partisan, and to present in an unbiased manner what I personally observed. I have endeavored to write, as the martyred President did, “with malice toward none, with charity for all.”

Galusha Anderson.

Newton Centre, Mass.

April, 1908.

For the originals of several of the illustrations in this volume the author is indebted to Miss Mary Louise Dalton, the late Librarian of the Missouri Historical Society, whose many kindnesses will always be held in grateful remembrance.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER I
ST. LOUIS

I need not say that St. Louis is built on the western bank of the Mississippi River about twenty miles below the mouth of the Missouri, since everybody knows that. But the present generation thinks of the city only as it is to-day, with its more than half a million of inhabitants, extensive parks, palatial residences, well-constructed churches, imposing business blocks, great railroad bridges spanning the river, unrivalled central depot and attractive trolley cars. But all this has flowed from its wonderful development since the close of the Civil War. We write of it as it was immediately before, and during, that mighty conflict.

In 1860 it had only one hundred and fifty-one thousand seven hundred and eighty inhabitants, about one thousand five hundred of whom were slaves. A large number of enterprising young men had flocked to the city from every part of the United States, so that the white males of the city exceeded the white females by more than ten thousand. Among the whites there were many thousands of intelligent, manly, thrifty Germans, a fact which needs to be borne in mind, if we would fully understand and duly appreciate the part which the city acted in the earlier stages of the Civil War.

Most of the city stood then, as now, on bluffs or extended terraces that rise gradually one above the other. Its situation is both healthful and beautiful. But before the war its area was comparatively small. It extended along the river only six and a half miles and between three and four back from it. It contained only fifteen and a half square miles. The ground now occupied by the finest residences was then rough, open fields, lying beyond its western limits. The city was built of brick. The business blocks, warehouses, hotels, residences, schoolhouses, and churches were all of the same material. Most of the sidewalks were also made of red brick. Whichever way you looked your eyes rested on red brick, and wherever you walked you trod on red brick. I remember but one business block that had a stone front, and that was marble. The enterprising citizen who built it made quite a fortune out of it. Its very novelty made it attractive, and its rooms were readily rented to professional men. The city is still largely built of brick. The clay from which the brick is made is found in large quantities near the city, and its inhabitants naturally and wisely use this excellent building material that lies close at hand.

Most of the dwelling-houses were built out to the street, so that, with rare exceptions, there were no front yards. On warm summer evenings the families living in any given block sat on the front stone steps of their houses, that they might be refreshed by the cooler air of the evening. But most of the streets were macadamized with limestone, and in summer absorbed during the day so much heat, as they lay under the burning rays of the sun, that they continued to radiate it long after the sun went down. At such times a perch on the front stone steps afforded so little relief from the heat-laden atmosphere that the half-baked sufferers longed for the arctic regions. A distinguished man from the East, on a hot night in September, waking up at two o’clock in the morning from a troubled sleep, declared that he found himself, on account of the stifling heat, swelling up like a mouse in an exhausted receiver. But such days were exceptional and not peculiar to St. Louis.

The larger part of the fuel then consumed in the city was soft coal. We bought it not by the ton, but by the bushel. In those days there were no smoke-consumers. Vast volumes of smoke poured forth from the black throats of great chimneys in manufacturing establishments, while the chimneys of every dwelling-house, and the smoke-stack of every steamer on the river, added their contribution to render the atmosphere dusky. In still days of the autumn or winter the smoke hung like a pall over the city.

But in spite of a few such drawbacks it was even then a very pleasant city. There were few who were very poor. None were permitted to go unclothed and unfed. Most of the people were thrifty; many of them were rapidly accumulating wealth. The markets of the city were well supplied with all the varied products of the fields and the forests. The homes of the people were comfortable, many of them attractive. Their tables were loaded with abundant and wholesome food. The churches were numerous and well attended. The public schools were of a high order. Private schools and colleges had been founded, and were already doing good work.

The inhabitants of the city were a conglomerate; but just on that account were broad and catholic in their thinking. Coming from every section of the Republic, by attrition their provincialisms and prejudices were worn away till they came to take comprehensive and just views of the great questions that were at that time agitating the nation. Men from the South and North had learned each other’s excellences, and with mutual respect and high esteem stood shoulder to shoulder in business, civic duty and charitable and religious service. I have never met anywhere men of broader gauge.

Among them were those distinguished as lawyers, statesmen, and preachers. To name some to the neglect of others would seem to be invidious. But among the lawyers, Samuel Glover and James O. Broadhead; among the preachers, Henry A. Nelson, Truman M. Post, Wm. G. Eliot and Father Smarius; among the statesmen, Frank P. Blair and Edward Bates, the latter afterwards Attorney-general in President Lincoln’s Cabinet, are names which readily occur to those of that generation who still live.

When, in the autumn of 1858, I made St. Louis my adopted home, the name of Thomas H. Benton was on all lips. He had died in April of that year. The people of the city were justly very proud of him. He had represented Missouri for thirty years in the Senate of the United States, and was unquestionably the most distinguished man of the State and of the Northwest. A funeral procession fully five miles in length had followed his body to its burial-place in Belle Fontaine Cemetery. But this great man, like many others who have been pre-eminent, had marked peculiarities. In the Senate he was called “The Magisterial.” In consonance with that descriptive phrase, when he addressed crowds at political meetings in St. Louis, he never said, “Fellow-citizens,” but always simply, “Citizens.” And the contents of his speeches from the stump were often quite as magisterial.

Mr. Benton, while United States Senator, at times took an active part in the election of congressmen from St. Louis. It was customary then for those opposed to each other to speak in turn to the people from the same platform. On one occasion Mr. Crum was the name of the candidate who, with Mr. Benton, was addressing the voters of the city. Near the close of one of Mr. Benton’s speeches, he said, “Citizens, is my opponent a loaf, or even a crust? No,” then suiting the action to the word, he apparently picked up and held a very small particle between his thumb and finger, while he added in a tone of great contempt,—“No, citizens, he is nothing but a tiny Crum.”

During another canvass, he was stoutly opposing Mr. Bogie, who was a candidate for Congress. Late one evening when about to close his speech in reply to him, he said, “Citizens, you have been told that my opponent’s name is Bogie. Citizens, it is a mistake; his name is Bogus. But, citizens, notwithstanding that, like Cato of Rome, I would now send my servants (slaves) to light him home, were it not that to-morrow you would be asking, ‘Mr. Benton, what sort of company do your servants keep?’”

In 1856, his son-in-law, John C. Fremont, was offered the Republican nomination for the Presidency, and asked him if he thought it was best for him to accept it? Benton, believing the Republican party to be sectional, was bitterly opposed to it; so he said to Fremont, “If you accept the nomination, I’ll drop you like a hot potato, sir! like a hot potato, sir!”

These incidents, standing alone, would misrepresent Mr. Benton; but they throw a side-light on his character and help us better to understand the most eminent citizen of St. Louis, a statesman of large mold and of a well-merited national reputation.

The early history of St. Louis is so full of interest that we cannot refrain from briefly noting a few items that belong to it. Its beginning carries us back to 1764. It was then a mere trading-post of a company of merchants, whose leader was Pierre Ligueste Laclede. The post consisted of one house and four stores. It was named St. Louis in honor of the patron saint of Louis XV of France. Though not possessing the dignity of an incorporated town, the following year it became the capital of Upper Louisiana. Through the wise foresight of Jefferson, despite his party principles, the vast and vaguely defined territory of Louisiana was purchased from France at a time when Napoleon sorely needed money. In transferring this immense region there were two formal ceremonies, one at New Orleans, Dec. 20th, 1803; the other at St. Louis, on March 10th, 1804. On the latter day Major Stoddard, who was the agent of the French Government to receive Upper Louisiana from Spain, for France, was also the accredited agent of our government to take over the same territory for the United States. That one man should represent both nations in affairs of such tremendous importance was, to say the least, unique.[^[1]] This ceremony of transfer took place at the northeast corner of First, or Main, and Walnut Streets. The event should be commemorated by some suitable tablet or monument erected on the spot of transfer. We trust that the Missouri Historical Society will have the honor of doing this work so consonant with its aims and character.

The town of St. Louis was laid out between the river and the first range of bluffs on the west, and a series of circular towers was erected around it for defence. The houses were mainly built of rough stone and whitewashed, and each house had a separate lot for fruit and flowers. These houses were without cellars. The first house provided with such a convenience was built by Laclede on what is now called Main Street, between Market and Walnut. Indian women and children helped dig it, carrying out the dirt on their heads, in wooden platters and baskets. In this house civil government was inaugurated in 1765 by Captain Louis Saint Ange, Acting French Governor of Upper Louisiana; in it, also, the Marquis de Lafayette was entertained in 1825.

The streets of the old town were all quite narrow; it was thought that such streets could be more easily defended. And there they are, cramped and narrow to this day. But in time the land above and west of the village was laid out in town lots, and the chief promoters of this enterprise, Judge Lucas and Colonel Chouteau, built their dwelling-houses far back from the river and the old town, the former at the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets, the latter at the corner of Sixth and Olive Streets. In 1809, the year in which St. Louis was incorporated as a town, Fort Belle Fontaine became the headquarters of the Department of Upper Louisiana. It was several miles north of the village, on a high bluff, overlooking the Mississippi. The land for this fort was secured by treaty from the Sac and Fox Indians. On it was a great spring of pure water capable of supplying a thousand men; hence the name of the fort, Belle Fontaine.

St. Louis was early called the Gateway of the West. In 1817 the first steamboat tied up to her levee.[^[2]] This was the beginning of an imperial trade. Streams of commerce now began to flow into her markets from the great continental rivers, from the upper Mississippi, the Illinois, the Missouri, the Ohio, the lower Mississippi with its far-reaching affluents; and, through the Gulf of Mexico, even from the cities of the Atlantic seaboard. For many years her chief trade had been in the pelts and furs of wild animals; but now this lucrative traffic was greatly augmented. For forty years the annual value of it alone was between two and three hundred thousand dollars, while commerce in all agricultural products and in manufactured goods was constantly swelling in volume. Still it is worthy of note that deerskins were an article of barter, and furs were currency in St. Louis, from the days of Laclede until Missouri became a State in 1821; and a year later, even before St. Louis had five thousand inhabitants, it was chartered as a city.

When under Spanish control, it was strictly Roman Catholic. In 1862 I met at a wedding in St. Louis a lady almost a hundred years old. She was still in excellent health. Her intellect was clear and vigorous. As she took my arm to go to the wedding supper, she archly remarked, “Your wife will not be jealous when she learns how old I am.” Yet, when we were seated at the table, after some moments of absolute silence on her part, into which I did not venture to intrude, she said, “I do believe that God has forgotten me.” I looked at her with mingled astonishment and curiosity and said, “Why so?” She replied, “All the friends of my early life are gone and I am left alone.” She now became reminiscent and added, “I lived here when St. Louis belonged to Spain. And just as for many years no free negro has been permitted to enter this city without a pass, so for years, in my early life, no Protestant could enter it without a written permit from the Spanish authorities.”

But, while under the rule of the United States all religious intolerance disappeared, African slavery flourished, established and protected by law. And although in 1860 St. Louis had but few slaves, nevertheless pro-slavery sentiment largely prevailed. Those who cherished it were often intense and bitter, and at that time socially controlled the entire city. But on the other hand the leading business men of the city were quietly, conservatively, yet positively, opposed to slavery. Many of them had come from New England and the Middle States and believed slavery to be a great moral wrong; but those from the North and South alike saw that slavery was a drag upon the commercial interests of the city and all were hoping that in some way the incubus might be lifted off from it. For St. Louis, the commercial capital of Missouri, already had many great merchants and enterprising manufacturers, who were not only throwing out their lines of trade into every part of the State, but also into all the surrounding States and territories. It was linked by the Mississippi and Missouri, fed by numerous and important affluents, with a vast territory which was probably the richest on the earth’s surface. And very much of its trade was with southern cities. In 1860, more than four thousand steamers, with a capacity of one million one hundred and twenty thousand and thirty-nine tons, loaded and unloaded at its wharves. To obstruct the Father of Waters at the mouth of the Ohio, or to divide it by secession, was a matter of life and death to all the business interests of St. Louis. And no one without this conception clearly in mind can adequately understand what took place there in those days of awful storm and stress between 1860 and 1865.

CHAPTER II
FOREBODINGS OF CONFLICT

For many years the subject of slavery, in its varied aspects, had been constantly and hotly discussed in all political and religious journals, on the stump, in the pulpit, and in the Congress of the United States. The higher law doctrine, propounded by William H. Seward, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854, the Kansas war, Lincoln’s celebrated debate with Douglas, and his pregnant declaration in 1858, that the nation could not continue to exist half slave and half free, that “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” had greatly agitated the whole nation. In the hearts of pro-slavery men, vengeful fire was smouldering; it needed only an added breath to make it shoot up into a devouring flame. The apprehensiveness and extreme sensitiveness of pro-slavery Missouri manifested itself in the winter of 1859–60, through its legislature. That body of lawmakers passed a bill by an overwhelming majority, expelling from the State all free negroes. There were more than a thousand of that class in St. Louis, and a large majority of these were females, doing domestic service in the best families of the city. The excitement caused by this short-sighted action of the legislature was intense. The bill enacted was a declaration in the form of law, that the presence of free negroes was a menace to slavery. Many men in St. Louis were asking with flushed faces, “What shall be done to meet this emergency, to avert this calamity?”

I met on the street one of the coolest men that it has been my lot to know during a long life, and even he, whose spirit never seemed to be ruffled by any exasperating event, was hot with indignation. With great vehemence he denounced the barbarous legislation, and said that something must be done to thwart its purpose. But on inquiry I found that he was unable to suggest any line of action by which this vicious legislation could be neutralized.

Now let us note in contrast another man. There was a negro pastor in the city by the name of Richard Anderson. When a boy he was a slave, and had been brought from Virginia to Missouri. When he was twelve years old his master, Mr. Bates, had given him his freedom. He now began to do odd jobs about the city. He became a newspaper carrier, and thus aided in distributing among its subscribers The Missouri Republican. While doing his work he learned to read; the newspaper that he carried from door to door was his spelling-book and school reader. With his ability to read came broader intelligence. He industriously thumbed and mastered good books. The Bible was constantly read by him. He became a Christian. He was called to be a preacher and pastor. He was a large man of commanding presence, a descendant of an African chief. He was very black. While his nose was somewhat flattened, it was straight and sharply cut; his thick lips were firmly set. His eyes were large and lustrous, his forehead was high and broad. He preached well. His manner was quiet, suggesting reserved power; his thought was orderly and clear. He had great power over an audience. If his black hearers became noisy with their shouting of “amen” and “hallelujah,” by a gentle wave of the hand he reduced them to silence. He was a born leader, but he led by the inherent force of his character. One of his deacons said, “He led us all by a spider’s web.” He was universally respected, and was welcome to all houses where the members of his church were employed. He never betrayed any confidence reposed in him. Like his Master “he went about doing good.” Nothing diverted him from his purpose. Nothing seemed to disturb his equanimity. While he sometimes burned with indignation, he never lost control of himself. He was a man of rare balance of mind.

He presided over a church of a thousand members. Fully half of them were free. The bill for the expulsion of free negroes from the State fell with greater severity upon him than upon any other man in St. Louis. I met him expecting that he would be greatly agitated and cast down; but was surprised to find him absolutely unruffled. I ventured to ask him if he had heard of the recent legislation pertaining to free negroes. He quietly replied that he had, and then added with emphasis, “That bill will never become a law.” With mingled curiosity and surprise I asked, “How do you know that?” Lifting his hand and pointing upward toward heaven, and turning his eyes thitherward he replied, “I know because I have asked up there.” Calm and assured as he was, I feared that he was the victim of a fatal illusion from which he might be soon rudely awakened. But nothing that I said in opposition to his conclusion moved him in the slightest degree from his conviction.

Time soon showed that this black man with his great, calm soul, and unswerving faith was right. Hon. R. M. Stewart was then governor of the state. He was a staunch Bourbon Democrat. He believed slavery to be right. He drank whiskey freely and said: “Cotton is not king, but corn and corn-whiskey are king.” He knew that. He spoke from abundant and sad experience.

But he had been brought up in eastern New York. The doctrine that all men, irrespective of color, have an inalienable right to liberty had been breathed in with the air of his native hills, and had become part and parcel of his life-blood. As he looked at that infamous bill, passed almost unanimously, the teaching received in boyhood asserted itself. It was stronger than his pro-slavery Bourbonism, stronger than party ties; his soul was in revolt against this shameless iniquity. If, however, he should veto the bill, these legislators would quickly pass it over his head. So he took the only course by which it could be effectually defeated. The legislature was about to adjourn. It was his constitutional privilege to retain the bill instead of returning it with his signature or his veto. If he did not return it within twenty days, it failed to become a law. He pocketed it, and the free negroes were left in peace. And who can say that the praying, believing, black pastor did not know?

But although this execrable legislation failed, it left its indelible mark on the public mind. Men were made by it sensitive and suspicious. They doubted, as never before, the possibility of maintaining a government which extended its ægis over forces so utterly antagonistic as freedom and slavery. In this portentous state of the public mind the presidential campaign of 1860 began. Throughout the Union the political conflict was fierce, but in Missouri, and in its great commercial city, St. Louis, it was unusually hot and acrimonious. African slavery was the distracting problem. None attempted to disguise it. Men on every hand spoke plainly and boldly. Most of the people of the slave states, and the citizens of Missouri among the rest, believed with all their hearts that if the Republican party should be successful at the polls, henceforth slavery would probably be excluded from the territories, and, at no distant day, would become extinct even in the states. They seemed to see on the wall the handwriting that foretold its doom. Their more fiery orators declared that if slavery were hemmed into the states, “like a scorpion girt by fire, it would sting itself to death.” This was a most unfortunate simile with which to characterize an institution that they stoutly contended was not only beneficent, but also divine.

They regarded the Republican candidate for the Presidency as the embodiment of all their apprehended woes, and so they poured out upon him without stint their bitterest execrations. In this they were encouraged by the outrageous cartoons of Harper’s Weekly. In one of its issues he was depicted in ludicrous, not to say horrible, uncouthness of figure, as drunk in a bar-room. The moral turpitude of such a representation was simply unspeakable when we remember that Mr. Lincoln in his boyhood promised his mother that he would never drink intoxicating liquor and had sacredly kept his word. In another issue of the Weekly he was portrayed as frightened by ghosts, his shocky hair standing on end. So, sustained by a widely read Northern journal in their grotesque and monstrous representations of Mr. Lincoln, many of them, not all, emptied upon him a flood of billingsgate. Some in common conversation, others in their political harangues on the stump, called him an idiot, a buffoon, a baboon, the Illinois ape, a gorilla.

But in St. Louis there were from fifty to sixty thousand Germans, and they were almost solidly Republican. During this vituperative presidential canvass they invited Carl Schurz to address them and their fellow-citizens, on the burning question of the hour. He was not as widely known then as he afterwards became; still he had already acquired considerable reputation as a political speaker. Moreover, he came to us from a free state, and a host of men in the city were anxious to hear what this German from Wisconsin had to say to them concerning our great national problem. In the evening of the first of August, 1860, he appeared in Verandah Hall. Fully three thousand enthusiastic souls were there to greet him and hear him. He spoke, as was his custom, from manuscript. His subject was, “The Doom of Slavery.” With rare lucidity and forcefulness he justly stated the position of slavery and showed that, from its very nature, it could not permit men on its own soil freely to discuss it; nor could it safely permit the slaves to be educated except for servants, lest thereby there might be engendered within them aspirations for freedom incompatible with involuntary servitude; nor could slavery favor the development of domestic industries, since that would build up the free states more rapidly than their own, and so disturb the political equilibrium of the Republic; and for the same reason slavery could not consent to be kept out of the territories of the Northwest.

In contrast with this, he stated with equal clearness and cogency the position of free labor. It requires the highest advantages, educational and industrial, for all; instead of class privileges it demands privileges that are universal. He showed the utter incompatibility of slavery and free labor.

With unusual incisiveness he now analyzed the platforms of the parties that were then appealing to the people for their suffrages, pouring out his racy satire especially on squatter sovereignty or non-intervention, of which Senator Douglas of Illinois was the champion.

In the latter part of his masterful speech, by the clearest and most trenchant argument, he revealed the egregious folly of attempting to dissolve the Union, and then powerfully appealed to the reason and good sense of the slaveholders, some of whom sat before him, and urged them to abandon their position.

Two short paragraphs will reveal in some measure the spirit with which the orator spoke. He said: “I hear the silly objection that your sense of honor forbids you to desert your cause. Sense of honor! Imagine a future generation standing around the tombstone of the bravest of you, and reading the inscription, ‘Here lies a gallant man, who fought and died for the cause—of human slavery.’ What will the verdict be? His very progeny will disown him, and exclaim, ‘He must have been either a knave or a fool.’ There is not one of you who, if he could rise from the dead a century hence, would not gladly exchange his epitaph for that of the meanest of those who were hung at Charlestown.”

“I turn to you, Republicans of Missouri. Your countrymen owe you a debt of admiration and gratitude to which my poor voice can give but a feeble expression. You have undertaken the noble task of showing the people of the North that the slaveholding States themselves contain the elements of regeneration, and of demonstrating to the South how that regeneration can be effected. You have inspired the wavering masses with confidence in the practicability of our ideas. To the North you have given encouragement; to the South you have set an example. Let me entreat you not to underrate your noble vocation. Struggle on, brave men! The anxious wishes of millions are hovering around you. Struggle on until the banner of emancipation is planted upon the Capitol of your State, and one of the proudest chapters of our history will read: Missouri led the van, and the nation followed.” (Immense and long continued cheering.)

It was a great speech, profoundly philosophical, keen in analysis, virile in argument, brilliant in style, and absolutely and refreshingly fearless. It strengthened feeble knees, stiffened gelatinous backbones, and gave courage to the faint-hearted. Again and again the great throng that listened broke out into rapturous applause. Thinking men were profoundly stirred. The free-soilers who for many months had been battling against fearful odds for the freedom of all, from that hour walked with firmer tread. One could feel in it all the first breath of the coming battle between freedom and slavery.

At last the canvass was over; November came; the ballots were cast and counted, and, in spite of all the abuse heaped upon him, Mr. Lincoln was triumphantly elected. In the slave State of Missouri, he received more than seventeen thousand votes, almost wholly in St. Louis, Gasconade and Cole counties.[^[3]] To me it has always been a genuine joy that it fell to my lot to cast one of those ballots. They were ballots of freedom and progress.

After the election, all those in St. Louis, who had hoped against hope that the Republican party might be defeated, seemed to settle down into sullen, silent, blank despair. Under the circumstances no one cared to talk openly. Those whose hearts were full of joy over the outcome of the battle of ballots gave little or no public expression of their gladness, lest they might unduly vex their disappointed and downhearted neighbors; while most of the latter rigidly refrained from openly proclaiming their bitter chagrin over their defeat, lest they might augment the elation of the victors. Moreover, most of those in St. Louis, irrespective of their party affiliations, felt the supreme importance of keeping the peace of the city unbroken. A large minority, however, were too proud to give expression to their despair, but thought in silence, and, as subsequent events proved, much of their thinking was desperate. From one cause or another all, so far as public utterance was concerned, held their peace, but it was that ominous stillness that precedes the bursting of the storm.

But underneath this surface-calm there were clandestine, but energetic, movements that portended armed conflict. There were two formidable political clubs in the city. The one was the Wide-Awakes. This was Republican in politics. It was made up of the most progressive young men of St. Louis. Many of them had just come into the Republican ranks; their political faith was new; they had the zeal and enthusiasm of recent converts. They were also stimulated by the fact that they were called upon to maintain their political doctrine in the face of the stoutest opposition. With their torchlights they had just been marching and hurrahing for Lincoln. They had cheered the vigorous speeches of their brilliant orators. Their candidate, though defeated in their city and State, had been triumphantly elected to the Presidency. Such a body of men, flushed with victory, was a political force which every thoughtful man saw must be reckoned with.

The other political club was the Minute Men. They were mostly young, but conservative, Democrats. They had supported Douglas for the Presidency. They too had had their torchlight processions. They had listened to impassioned harangues from the stump and loudly cheered them. Even their distinguished political leader came during the canvass and spoke to them with rare persuasiveness in defence of squatter sovereignty, and they were proud of “The Little Giant,” as Senator Douglas was popularly called. Then, in their city and State they had been victorious at the polls. While defeated in the nation at large, they felt strong, braced, as they believed themselves to be, by the old and oft-tested doctrines of Democracy. Here was another mighty political force. If armed conflict were to come, on which side would it array itself? While Mr. Douglas, their admired leader, was a staunch Union man, most of these Minute Men, who had so strenuously striven to elect him to the Presidency, after they learned the verdict at the polls, began to drift into the ranks of the secessionists. Nor did they disband; but they began to organize for hostilities. When this was observed, influential Republicans advised the Wide-Awakes not to break up their organizations, but to continue to meet statedly, just as they had during the presidential campaign, to procure arms so far as they were able, and to subject themselves to military drill. And during the winter of 1860–61 these antagonistic political organizations, the Minute Men and the Wide-Awakes, now to all intents and purposes transformed into military bodies, met regularly at their various rendezvous and went through the manual of arms. Late in the evening, I often passed a hall occupied by a company of Minute Men, or secessionists, where I heard them march, countermarch and ground arms. Things like this were unmistakable premonitions of bloody battle. Some of our immediate neighbors and friends evidently already contemplated appealing “from ballots to bullets,” and a shiver of apprehension ran down our spines.

But a serious problem now presented itself for solution. How could arms be obtained for the Wide-Awakes or Union men? In some mysterious way the Minute Men or secessionists had been at least partially armed. We could only guess what was the source of their supply. But where could the Wide-Awakes secure guns? There were arms in abundance at the Arsenal in the southern part of the city, but they belonged to the United States; and as there were as yet no open hostilities, private military organizations could not lawfully be furnished with them. Notwithstanding this, we did not propose, if the hour of need should strike, to be found napping. So after due deliberation it was announced that, in a certain hall, there would be an art exhibition, which would continue for three weeks or more. To the general public it seemed to be an unpropitious time for such a venture, but as it had no warlike look it aroused no suspicion, and was generously patronized by those of all shades of political opinion. The exhibition in its display of statuary and painting was not only creditable but attractive. It was also a financial success; but outside the few determined Union men who made up the inner circle, the secret reason of that burning zeal for cultivating the artistic tastes of the city was quite unknown. Considerable material for the exhibition was sent to us from the East; among other things was a plentiful supply of plaster casts from New York. These were packed in large boxes; but some patriots of Gotham, who sent them, knew our secret and our necessities, and also forwarded to us boxes of muskets labeled as plaster casts, with plain directions to handle the fragile contents with care. Those who arranged the material of the art exhibit, unable, on account of the rush of work, to unpack these boxes in the daytime, were compelled to leave them till midnight before they were cared for. Then, unopened, they were carted to the places where patriotic Wide-Awakes were gathered. Shining muskets never gave more joy than these imparted to the Union men of St. Louis. And during that anxious, dismal winter, they often met in their secret places, and while hoping that all threatened disaster might be averted, statedly went through the manual of arms. Hoping for the best, they determined to be ready for the worst.

So the city had a number of hostile camps, which had been so secretly formed and maintained that many did not even know of their existence. These hostile bodies had been armed; but no one yet knew where the Minute Men, or secessionists, obtained their arms; and the secessionists did not even know that the Wide-awakes, the Union men, were armed at all. Yet there these opposing bands of men were, cherishing diametrically opposite purposes. Some of them had determined if possible to disrupt the Republic; some of them had determined to do all in their power to prevent such a catastrophe. To make good their respective purposes, they were secretly drilling, while the whole city was full of apprehension, often greatly depressed in spirit and sometimes wrapped in gloom.

While these things were being done under cover, the people of the city carefully abstained from all outward manifestations of their patriotism. The fire burned in the bones of Union men, but for prudential reasons they did not permit it to flame forth. They determined if possible to avoid conflict and bloodshed within our gates. No preacher spoke for the Republic. No congregation sang, “My country, ’tis of thee.” No band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Outside of the Arsenal there was but one United States flag hung out in all the city, and that floated over the main entrance of a dry-goods store; partly, as we thought, from patriotic, and partly from mercenary, motives; but to all lovers of the Union, it was a cheering sight. And this flagless condition of the city continued till May of 1861, when gradually the houses, places of business, and in some instances even the churches of the loyal, began to blossom with national banners.

Events outside of the city greatly agitated us. In December of 1860, the Governor of Alabama sent commissioners to all the slaveholding States, inviting and urging them to secede from the Union. He wished these States to act as a unit, to go out of the Union together, in order that the resulting Confederacy might from the start be as formidable as possible. One of these commissioners, Mr. William Cooper, presented this appeal from Alabama to Governor Stewart at our State capital, who received him with frigid courtesy and listened unsympathetically to his message. He then called on the Governor-elect, Claiborn F. Jackson, who unhesitatingly expressed his sympathy with the proposed secession movement.[^[4]] This of course aroused our indignation, but it was what we should have expected of one who had been prominent among armed Missourians, that, at an earlier day, invaded Kansas, and by force deposited their votes in order to make it a slave State.

Then on the heel of this came the secession of South Carolina on the twentieth of December. To be sure, the excitement caused among us by these ominous political measures was shared by the whole nation. But as the situation of a border city was peculiar, the agitation that we felt was unique. Unionism and secessionism in our streets, homes, places of business, and social gatherings met face to face. An awful uncertainty pervaded all minds. Our political destiny trembled in the balance. Which way the scale would turn no one knew. Moreover, the same events awakened in the city opposite and antagonistic emotions. When one party was filled with apprehension and sadness, the other was filled with hope and joy. Which party was most numerous in those days that immediately preceded the war was a matter of uncertainty. Upon which side our neighbors, our partners in business, and often those of our own households would array themselves it was difficult to determine. Nor could we forget that the announcement of the secession of a State might lead to bloody conflict in our streets. Under such peculiar circumstances the proposed, or actual, secession of States stirred profoundly our whole city. The excitement was not noisy, it was too deep for that. Men met, and transacted business, without uttering a word concerning the country. Many of the most thoughtful seemed to hold their breath and listen to the beating of their hearts. Not because they were afraid, but because, standing in the presence of such portentous movements, they did not yet know what they ought to do.

Still, some relief came from engaging in the benevolent activities of the churches and in attending the usual concerts and lectures. Among the lecturers were two of special note. One was the Hon. Thomas Marshall of Kentucky. He was a brilliant man. He had won distinction at the bar, when his State was noted for able lawyers; the highest legal and political honors were within his grasp; but through drink he had sadly sacrificed them all. At times he rallied and seemed to have conquered his infirmity. During these sane and sober intervals, to turn an honest penny he sometimes lectured. Occasionally from the depths of his own sad experience, with rare eloquence, he advocated total abstinence. In the winter of 1860–61 he lectured in St. Louis. He was a tall man and well-proportioned. He came to the lecture platform dressed from top to toe in spotless white. He spoke without notes and with ease. His articulation was distinct. At times he was simply and naturally conversational; at times he became imaginative and impassioned; in his oratorical flights he profoundly impressed and swayed his audiences. He was a Union man, and among the subjects that he chose for discussion in our city were Henry Clay, and the war of the Revolution. He tried by his lectures to stir in the hearts of his hearers the purest and loftiest patriotism. All that was noblest and best in Mr. Clay as a man and as a statesman was justly and vividly set forth. In speaking on the Revolution he did all that he could to lead those who at times hung upon his lips with breathless interest to defend the government which had been wrought out at so great self-sacrifice. In this manner he rendered to our city and to his country an invaluable patriotic service, at a time when, and in a place where, it was most needed.

In his lectures on the Revolutionary War he was compelled to speak at considerable length on the priceless contributions made to that conflict for freedom by Massachusetts. But at that time Massachusetts was foolishly but intensely hated by many in St. Louis. Many men with Southern sentiments seemed to regard it as a duty and privilege to reproach her. There were before him not a few hearers of that sort. How could he surmount an obstacle so great? When he reached the passage in which he was to set forth what Massachusetts did during the period of the Revolution, he uttered the name, “Massachusetts,”—and then stopped speaking, and looked at his audience. Every eye was riveted on him. He walked slowly to the extreme left end of the platform. There he stood for a moment in silence, still surveying his audience. Then he said deliberately, “I suppose that it would be the popular thing in this place to damn Massachusetts; but whatever you may think of her now, in the Revolution she was some pumpkins.” The great audience broke out into a hearty and prolonged cheer. With marvellous tact and consummate art he had brushed the obstacle that confronted him from his path; broken down the wall that separated him from his hearers, and for the nonce they listened without prejudice as he glowingly set forth the great work which Massachusetts did in achieving our independence.

A few days afterwards I caught my last glimpse of this fascinating orator. A damp snow had fallen. It lay fully two inches deep, half-melted on the brick sidewalk. He came out of a house on Chestnut Street where he was being entertained by a friend. He was hatless and in his study-gown and slippers. He walked hurriedly on through the slush. His eye was wild. The demon that had robbed him of wealth, of a good name, of friends, of untold usefulness once more had him in his relentless clutch.

During the same winter the Hon. Joshua R. Giddings, a lawyer of high standing, came to lecture in our city. He was not a brilliant speaker like Mr. Marshall; but he had something to say which was of real value to his fellow-citizens. He had no flights of oratory, but he uttered sound sense and talked right on. He was a self-made man of massive character. For twenty-one years he had represented in the United States Congress the Connecticut Western Reserve in northeastern Ohio, and during all that long period of important public service had sturdily opposed slavery. He had been assaulted and mobbed in Washington for his opinions. But no vituperative opposition in debate, nor physical violence daunted him. Seeing his unflinching courage, many that did not endorse his political doctrines, nor approve of his course of action, admired him. He came to St. Louis with the garnered wisdom of years and with convictions as firm and immovable as a mountain of granite. Still, a large number did not gather to hear him. He was generally regarded as an abolitionist, and that, in the estimation of most men in St. Louis of all parties, was worthy of the deepest detestation. He spoke in Mercantile Library Hall. It was about two-thirds full. Many that came had no sympathy with the speaker’s views. They were attracted by curiosity; they wished to hear what this old anti-slavery war-horse would say in the great commercial city of a slave State. His lecture was a plain unvarnished statement of the rise and growth of slavery in the United States. When about half way through his address he made a declaration that aroused the antagonism of a part of his audience, which expressed itself in an emphatic and prolonged hiss. Those in sympathy with the doctrine of the speaker answered the hiss with a loud and hearty cheer. After the cheer there was a still more determined hiss, which was quickly followed by a still louder cheer. But at last when there came a lull in this sharply contested battle of hissing and cheering, the lecturer, who had stood without the slightest movement coolly surveying the tumultuous scene, said, in a strong, clear voice, “It makes no difference to me whether you hiss or cheer.” By that one declaration he seemed to capture his entire audience, and all broke out into enthusiastic applause. True men everywhere admire honesty and pluck. The coming to our city of one so prominent among anti-slavery men, who was permitted to make unhindered a judicial and luminous historical statement of the beginning and development of African slavery in our country, before a large audience of our fellow-citizens, marked for us the dawn of a new era. The old was passing, the new with its broader freedom was at hand.

But on New Year’s Day of 1861 we were startled by an event altogether unique. It filled many pro-slavery men with bitter resentment, but put new life and hope into anti-slavery men of all shades of opinion, and even some who were supposed to uphold slavery were amused and in their secret souls rejoiced over the strange happening. It came to pass in this wise. When estates in St. Louis and St. Louis County were in process of settlement, there were often slaves belonging to them that must be disposed of at their market value. But when there was no immediate demand for such property these poor creatures were put for safe keeping into the county jail, until they could be sold. Of course they were not regarded as criminals, but simply as valuable assets that, having brains, and wills, and consciences, might run away, to the financial detriment of voracious heirs. So, until the conditions were favorable for a sale, these self-willed chattels were securely lodged behind the stone walls and barred doors and windows of the malodorous jail.

In connection with this reprehensible procedure, a culpable custom had sprung up,—a custom exceedingly offensive to most of the inhabitants of St. Louis. It had become the duty of the sheriff, or his deputy, when the kind-hearted heirs gave the order, to sell at auction, on New Year’s Day, these imprisoned slaves from the granite steps of the Court-house. So, on the first of January, 1861, a slave auctioneer appeared with seven colored chattels of various hues, the thinking fag-ends of estates, just led out by him from the jail, where, some of them, for more than a year, without having been charged with any crime or misdemeanor, had been forced to be the companions of thieves, adulterers, and murderers. The auctioneer placed these cowering slaves on the pedestal of one of the massive pillars of the Court-house. Crowning the cupola of this building, dedicated to the righteous interpretation and execution of the law, was a statue of Justice, with eyes blindfolded, holding in her hand a pair of scales, the symbol of impartial equity. From the top of the great granite pillar, beside which these shrinking human chattels stood, waved for the hour a star-spangled banner, the symbol of freedom for all the oppressed. This auction of slaves had been extensively advertised, and about two thousand young men had secretly banded themselves together to stop the sale and, if possible, put an end to this annual disgrace. The auctioneer on his arrival at the Court-house found this crowd of freemen in a dense mass waiting for him. The sight of bondmen about to be offered for sale, and that too under the floating folds of their national flag, crimsoned their cheeks with shame and made their hearts hot within them. Yet they scarcely uttered a word as they stood watching the auctioneer and the timid, shrinking slaves at his side. At last he was ready and cried out, “What will you bid for this able-bodied boy?[^[5]] There’s not a blemish on him.” Then the indignant, determined crowd in response cried out, at the top of their lungs, “Three dollars, three dollars,” and without a break kept up the cry for twenty minutes or more. The auctioneer yelled to make himself heard above that deafening din of voices, but it was all in vain. At last, however, the cry of the crowd died away. Was it simply a good-natured joke only carried a little too far? The auctioneer seemed to be in doubt how to take that vociferating throng. “Now,” he said in a bantering tone, “gentlemen, don’t make fools of yourselves; how much will you bid for this boy?” Then, for many minutes, they shouted, “Four dollars, four dollars,” and the frantic cries of the auctioneer were swallowed up in that babel of yells; his efforts were as futile as if he had attempted to whistle a tornado into silence. To the joy of that crowd of young men the auctioneer was at last in a rage. It had dawned upon him that this was no joke; that the crowd before him were not shouting for fun on this annual holiday, but were in dead earnest. When their cries once more died away, he soundly berated them for their conduct. But they answered his scolding and storming with jeers and catcalls. At last he again asked, “How much will you bid for this first-class nigger?” This was answered by a simultaneous shout of “Five dollars, five dollars,” and the roar of voices did not stop for a quarter of an hour. And so the battle went on. The bid did not get above eight dollars, and at the end of two hours of exasperating and futile effort, the defeated auctioneer led his ebony charges back to the jail. Through the force of public opinion freedom had triumphed. No public auction of slaves was ever again attempted in St. Louis. But in the cries and counter cries of the auctioneer and that throng of freemen could be felt the pulsations of the coming conflict. We had before us in concrete form Lincoln’s doctrine, that the nation cannot exist half slave and half free.

CHAPTER III
RUMBLINGS OF THE CONFLICT

Far away to the south we now began to hear, like the low growling of distant thunder, a rumbling of the approaching conflict. Early in 1861, secession ordinances in quick succession were passed by the Gulf States. By February 1st all of them, following the lead of South Carolina, through the action of their respective State conventions, had severed their relations with the Union. They also forcibly seized United States forts, arsenals, arms, custom-houses, lighthouses and subtreasuries. In Texas the United States troops had been treacherously surrendered. The Federal government offered no resistance to those who thus trampled on its authority, inaugurated revolution, and resorted to acts of war.

These hostile movements, coming before the inauguration of the President-elect, made all classes in St. Louis anxiously thoughtful. To be sure a few extreme pro-slavery men, who were pronounced secessionists, heartily approved of what the Cotton States had done, and were secretly rejoicing over it. From prudential motives they refrained from open and noisy support of the acts of the seceding States; but most of our fellow-citizens, who had formerly lived in States further south, regarded these early acts of secession as at least ill-timed and precipitate, as born of thoughtless, groundless hatred and blind passion. They were not at all prepared to join this open and violent revolt against the Federal government, and to engage in the unlawful seizure of its property. And in this conservative, pro-slavery class lay the hope of the unconditional Union men of St. Louis and Missouri. If its undivided influence, through any motives, however diverse, could be directed firmly against the secession of our State, we might remain in the Union.

Very few in St. Louis had at all anticipated such early, radical, revolutionary action on the part of the Gulf States, and perhaps least of all was it foreseen by those who were unconditionally loyal. They had fondly hoped that threatened secession would expend itself simply in violent talk; that a second and sober thought would come to control the acts of the pro-slavery States; that the ill wind would blow over without doing any serious damage. They knew, to be sure, that a messenger from Alabama had, in December, visited our Governor and Governor-elect, urging them to join in a concerted secession movement of the slave States; that in that same month South Carolina had passed an ordinance of secession; but they could not believe that this madness would continue, that the slave States would generally be infected by it. To their minds abrupt and violent secession was so palpably foolish that it seemed to them impossible that it could be approved by any large number of men in the South. But when in January one State after another seceded, and these seceded States on the 4th of February assembled by their delegates at Montgomery, Alabama, formed a confederacy, adopted a provisional government, and elected a president and vice-president, they unmistakably heard in the distance the angry growl of the coming bloody conflict.[^[6]]

The loyal men of St. Louis turned their eyes to Washington, hoping that they might discern something there which would quiet their baleful apprehensions. But instead of sunshine and hope, they saw there the same black war-cloud. The representatives and senators of the seceding States were shamelessly plotting the overthrow of the very government in whose legislative councils they still continued to sit. In the Cabinet of the President were some who were aiding and abetting secession. The Secretary of War, John Buchanan Floyd of Virginia, had sent large detachments of the standing army to distant and not easily accessible parts of the country, and had removed large quantities of arms and ammunition from Northern to Southern arsenals, that, at the beginning of the conflict, which he evidently believed to be close at hand, the South might be better prepared for battle than the North. In the midst of all this treachery the chief executive sat nerveless. In his last annual message, he declared that the general government had no power to coerce a State. He said: “After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress, nor to any other department of the Federal government.” He again declared: “The power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution.” Moreover, he asserted: “Congress possesses many means of preserving it (the Union) by conciliation; but the sword was not placed in its hand to preserve it by force.” This message for a moment quite disheartened the loyal men of our city. The executive of a great nation, by his own public confession, stood powerless before those domestic foes that were tearing down the government bequeathed us by our fathers. In his message he assured them that with impunity they could complete their work of dismembering the Republic. So for a time the secessionists seemed to have the upper hand all around; at Montgomery they ruled over the seceded States; at Washington they subsidized to their own interests the Federal government; its President openly proclaiming that, do what they might, he had no constitutional power to lay upon them punitively even the weight of a finger.

We had no Andrew Jackson in the presidential chair. In 1832, when South Carolina arrayed herself against the general government and proceeded to nullify its legislative acts, he said with an emphasis which showed that he was conscious of having the whole constitutional power of the nation behind him to make his words effective, “The Union, it must, and shall be, preserved;” and nullification in weakness and shame hid itself. If we had had such a President in December, 1860, when South Carolina seceded, we might have been saved from the awful conflict that, unchecked in its beginning, daily gathered to itself power until it was almost beyond control.

Loyal men throughout the nation utterly repudiated the President’s interpretation of the Constitution. The unconditional Unionists of St Louis shared the thoughts that were pervading and agitating the minds of all true patriots. But they had anxieties which were peculiar to all, in the border slave States, who were uncompromisingly loyal to the Federal government. These States, largely on strictly economic grounds, hesitated to join in the secession movement; still a large majority of their inhabitants were in profound sympathy with the underlying cause of secession, the preservation and perpetuation of slavery. So the absorbing thought of the uncompromisingly loyal men of St. Louis was, whether, in the sweep of events, they would be drawn with their State, against their will, into the vortex of secession. What could they do to avert such a dire calamity? They still hoped, even when hope was seemingly baseless, that as muttering storms which blacken the horizon often pass on and away forever, so in some way, hidden from their view, this rising, growling storm of rebellion and revolution would be finally dissipated, leaving the southern sky once more clear and serene. Nevertheless, while they were thoughtful and anxious, they were undaunted. There never was a band of braver men. The precipitate acts of the Gulf States, the disintegration of the national Congress, the unrebuked intrigues in the Cabinet of the subservient President saddened, but did not terrify them. By these untoward and ominous events their courage was re-enforced, their vision cleared, their purpose made definite and robust. They resolved anew to resist with all their heart, and with all their mind, and with all their strength the secession of Missouri from the Union. Any that had been timid became suddenly courageous; any that had been weak became strong in spirit. These unconditional loyal men, surrounded by a morass of difficulties, beset on every side by insidious, plotting political foes, often utterly at a loss in whom to confide, with everything seemingly against them, at last, fully aroused and braced for the conflict, became the hope, and, as it proved, the political salvation of St. Louis and Missouri. They became the leaders who, by wise counsels and sane action, gathered around them the conservative pro-slavery men of the city and the commonwealth, and these two classes standing together saved the State from the disaster of secession.

The fourth of March drew near. Mr. Lincoln, in tender, pathetic speech, bade adieu to his neighbors at Springfield and hastened on to Washington. As he journeyed towards the national capital the loyal of St. Louis followed him with almost breathless interest. They pored over his short speeches to the crowds that gathered to greet him at railway stations. They were thrilled with his brave and patriotic utterances at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. In the malicious plot laid at Baltimore, they heard once more the rumbling of the approaching conflict; and when, in his great inaugural address, he said, “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one ‘to preserve, protect, and defend’ it;” we knew that, if neither the Federal government nor the secessionists yielded, the civil war of which the President spoke would inevitably burst upon us.

But the rumblings of the bloody conflict were not heard alone in the black war-clouds that hung threateningly over the Gulf States and the national capital, but at last directly over the streets along which we daily walked.

Succeeding the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln there was a period of silence more painful than actual battle. To us who were straining our eyes toward Washington, to see what the President, of whom we expected so much, was doing; who, intent, were listening that we might hear from his lips words of cheer and wisdom, he seemed to be paralyzed. We saw nothing. We heard nothing. Perhaps he was vainly hoping that those already in rebellion against the general government would yield to his eloquent appeal at the close of his famous inaugural. “I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” But he could not, by any appeal however reasonable and urgent, persuade men in the Cotton States. It was too late. He could not extinguish a conflagration by pouring oil upon it. Perhaps, however, he himself had no hope of peace, but was noiselessly preparing for the inevitable conflict. But whatever was the cause of these days of silence, they were days of sorest trial to the loyal of our city.

During all this time the secessionists were active; active everywhere south of Mason and Dixon’s line; active in St. Louis. For the sake of peace in our city, loyal men still withheld from the public gaze the Stars and Stripes, but just at this time, when the Unionists were greatly depressed, when the tension of mind and heart was so great that it seemed that the addition of another grain would be unendurable, a rebel flag, attached to a wire, was hung out over Sixth Street near one of the central avenues of the city. The war-cloud was now right over our heads. From its black belly a thunderbolt might fall at any moment. I saw the whole street under that defiant, revolutionary flag packed with angry men. They had flocked together without collusion, from a spontaneous and common impulse. They were a unit in their determination to tear down that symbol of revolt and destroy it. My whole soul was knit in sympathy with that pulsating, heaving, throbbing throng all aflame with patriotic passion. But there soon appeared, mounted on a barrel, at the side of the street, a citizen, southern-born, and highly respected by all. He spoke from a full heart earnest words to his friends and neighbors. The din of voices gradually died away. The speaker was master of the situation. He assured that excited, indignant multitude that he was in full tide of sympathy with them, that he too ardently longed to tear down that insulting banner, but in eloquent, impassioned words he entreated them to bear patiently the stinging indignity offered to a loyal city, and not needlessly to precipitate mortal combat between those who had been for years neighbors and friends. He assured them that the secession flag would soon be taken down by the authority and arm of the government, the star-spangled banner would be vindicated and would float in honor and triumph over our streets. The quieted but resentful crowd by degrees melted away and the stars and bars, oh, the shame of it! was left there for a few days to flutter undisturbed in the breeze. It however did a good work. Every loyal man that saw it, determined as never before to stand for, and, if need be, to fight for the integrity of the Union. So that over-hanging, growling, threatening cloud did not hurl its bloody bolt among us. We were, in spite of it, mercifully still at peace.

CHAPTER IV
THE BOOMERANG CONVENTION[^[7]]

Missouri could not escape the dreaded, impending conflict. She carried the elements of it within her own bosom. Union and disunion forces angrily faced each other throughout all her borders. They jostled each other in the streets, marts and society of St. Louis. But amid these strong cross-currents of opinion, she remained securely anchored to the Union. She was, to be sure, somewhat battered and broken, but was surprisingly kept from the disaster of disunionism, that overtook most of her sister slave States. It is my object in this chapter to show that this great State, probably contrary to the expectation of a majority of her inhabitants, was early in 1861, through the very machinery devised to take her out of the Union, kept from that destructive folly.

When a Southern State contemplated seceding from the Union, first of all, through an act of its legislature, it provided for the creation of a sovereign Convention. The delegates to this Convention were duly elected by the people. At the appointed time they assembled, organized for business, and took up the question of secession, which they had been chosen to examine and decide. If they passed an ordinance of secession, it was believed that by such action the relations of the State to the Union were utterly and irrevocably severed, unless the convention determined of its own motion, or was required by the legislative act that called it into being, to submit the ordinance to the people to be ratified or rejected by their suffrages. For example, in Texas and Virginia the secession ordinances were ratified by popular vote.

In Missouri the secession Governor, re-enforced by a secession legislature, early in 1861, began to devise measures to take the State out of the Union. He followed in the wake of the Cotton States. The legislature, in full sympathy with him, passed an act which provided for the calling of a State Convention. In a “Whereas,” which precedes the sections of this act, it announced in fair words its “opinion,” that “The condition of public affairs demands that a Convention of the people be called to take such action as the interest and welfare of the State may require.” Then the act specifies the time and the conditions of the election of the members of the contemplated Convention, and specifically designates the subject that the Convention was expected to consider, viz.: “The then existing relations between the government of the United States, the people and governments of the different States, and the government and people of the State of Missouri, and to adopt such measures for vindicating the sovereignty of the State, and the protection of its institutions as shall appear to them to be demanded.” But this act contained one section of vital importance. It provided that any act of the Convention, changing or dissolving the political relations of Missouri “to the government of the United States,” should not be deemed valid until ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the State. However, when this act became a law, neither the Governor nor the legislature seemed to have the slightest doubt that the people of the State would ratify by a decided majority an ordinance of secession; happily, no occasion ever arose for testing that question.

Nor was the confidence entertained by the Governor and the legislature unfounded. They had every reason to believe that the same voters who had elected them, when appealed to, would elect a Convention that would favor their project of secession, and that an ordinance of secession submitted to them would be triumphantly ratified. But

“The best laid schemes o’ mice and men

Gang aft agley.”

Still, to the secessionists at that time all things betokened certain success. Their skies looked bright. If there were a threatening cloud as big as a man’s hand they did not see it.

But too great confidence often leads men to overlook weaknesses in their most hopeful projects. Those who devised the legislative act providing for a convention, neglected to put into it any provision for limiting its continuance or life. It was made a sovereign body, and also the sole judge as to the time when it should adjourn sine die. So, as we shall see, the Governor and the legislature “builded better than they knew.” To them the Convention proved to be a boomerang, but to the State a priceless blessing.

This act was approved by the Governor on the 21st of January. The election of the members of the Convention took place on the 18th of February, and the Convention met, according to the provision of the act by which it was created, at Jefferson City, the capital of the State, on February 28th, 1861.

But if this Convention was to keep the State from secession as some began to hope it might, it was unmistakably clear that it should not continue its deliberations at the capital of the State. Jefferson City was then a small, and to sojourners in it, a somewhat desolate place. Since the legislature was in session the Convention could not meet in its halls, which, for such a body, were the only suitable places of meeting in the city. Instead of that, the delegates were compelled to occupy for their deliberations a small, repulsive court-house. No desks were there provided for them. Moreover, the hotel accommodations were meagre and unattractive, and, most of all, the libraries and reading-rooms of the capital were about equivalent to nothing. The tallow candles and oil lamps which at night gave just enough light in the houses and on the muddy streets to make darkness visible, were far more luminous than the intellectual lights of that then cheerless place; and the light of the legislature then in session was darkness. There was at that time hardly any considerable town in Missouri more intellectually stagnant than its capital. Should the Convention carry on its deliberations there, its members would have few if any facilities for the investigation of vastly important questions that were certain to arise, while all the currents of influence that would flow in upon them, would urge them on to declare for secession. To all this the Union men of St. Louis, together with a few scattered here and there throughout the State, were keenly alive. Dr. Linton, a distinguished physician of our city, and a member of the Convention, said, “When I got to Jefferson City and heard nothing but the ‘Marseillaise’ and ‘Dixie’ in place of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ I felt uneasy enough, and when I heard Governor Jackson speak I felt badly.... I recollect, with my colleague, Mr. Broadhead, hearing ‘Dixie’ played on the streets, and that we stepped up to the leader of the band and asked him to play ‘The Star-Spangled Banner;’ he said, being a foreigner, ‘Me ’fraid to play that.’ We assured him that there was no danger, and he played one stanza of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ but immediately went off into ‘Dixie,’ and of course we went off in disgust.”

The Union men of St. Louis not only saw the danger arising from the continuance of the Convention in Jefferson City, but they determined if possible to avert it. Having in secret seriously considered the whole matter, they cautiously and wisely laid their plan to bring the Convention to their own city. Since many men in the State were deeply prejudiced against St. Louis, regarding it as the stronghold of Free-soilism, it was necessary carefully to conceal the movement that was being made. If any delegate from St. Louis had openly moved that the Convention should adjourn to our city, the motion would undoubtedly have been promptly and decisively voted down. But the delegates from St. Louis, instead of making an open move, quietly and unobserved found some delegates from the country to whom they deemed it safe to make their suggestions, and without any knowledge of it on the part of the Convention these men were won to their ideas. When, therefore, the Convention, on the second day of its session, was perfecting its organization, Mr. Hall of Randolph County,—a strong pro-slavery district near the centre of the State,—moved that when the Convention adjourned, it should adjourn to meet “in the Mercantile Library Hall of St. Louis, on Monday morning next, at 10 o’clock.” The motion met with strong opposition, but after some discussion it became evident that there was probably a majority in its favor. Still, the Convention, wishing to act prudently in a matter of such vital importance, inquired if it were certainly known that they could occupy the hall mentioned in the motion of the gentleman from Randolph County? This brought to his feet Judge Samuel M. Breckinridge, a delegate from St. Louis, who said that at the request of some members from the country, he had already telegraphed to St. Louis, and had received an answer that the Convention could occupy without expense either of the two halls belonging to the Mercantile Library Association. The undivulged fact was that the Union men of St. Louis, days before, had arranged to offer to the Convention, without cost, either of these halls, if by any means that body could be induced to occupy it. At last, to remove any objection that might arise from pecuniary considerations, the citizens of our city telegraphed that the railroad fare of all the members of the Convention had also been provided for; so, at the close of the second day’s session at Jefferson City, on March 1st, the Convention, by a decided majority, adjourned to meet on the following Monday, March 4th, at 10 A. M. in the Mercantile Library Hall of St. Louis; and by that move the doubt that Missouri would secede from the Union was greatly strengthened.

On Monday morning, when the Convention met for the first time in its new quarters, its members found themselves in a beautiful hall, such as some of them had never before seen. Each member was provided with a desk, and pages were at hand to do his bidding, all at the expense of the loyal men of the city. The free use of the Mercantile Library and Reading Room, with its papers and periodicals from every part of the Union, and also of the Law Library of the city, was also tendered them. Then, by a secret prearrangement, in companies of from six to twelve, the members of the Convention were daily invited by Union men to dine with them; and, so long as the Convention continued its sessions, in the most conservative and kindly way, at the tables and in the parlors of the best and most intelligent men and women of the city, the whole question of secession in all its phases was thoroughly discussed. By such a procedure, without arousing antagonism, deep-rooted prejudice began gradually to give way, and new light, unobserved, penetrated the minds of the members of this sovereign Convention, and, as one by one the days passed, the hope of the disloyal that Missouri would secede was constantly on the wane.

Let us now notice the composition of this sovereign body, in whose hands was providentially placed the political destiny, not only of Missouri, but perchance also of the entire Republic. It had ninety-nine members. Of these, fifty-two were lawyers, seven of whom were judges. These men by their training were capable of clearly and firmly grasping the fundamental principles of law and government. Happily more than half of the Convention was of this class. Twenty-six were farmers, who from habit of thought were decidedly conservative. Eleven were merchants, who intuitively discerned the conditions that must be maintained in order to secure and promote the commercial prosperity of their State. Three were physicians, one of whom, Dr. Linton, was an exceptionally clear-headed and brilliant man. There were also one lumber dealer, one bank commissioner, one civil engineer, one blacksmith, one tanner, one leather dealer and one circuit clerk. Each of these, by his pursuit, was fitted to appreciate what was necessary to secure the highest material interests of the State. The Convention as a whole was in ability quite above the average, and unmistakably superior both in intellectual and moral force to the legislature which had called it into being.

Considering the vastly important question which the Convention was called upon to decide, it is also a matter of great interest to note the ages of its members. One man, like an elderly maiden, was coy, and refused to give his age; of the remaining ninety-eight, six were between twenty-four and thirty; twenty-one were between thirty and forty; forty-one were between forty and fifty; twenty-four were between fifty and sixty; and six were between sixty and seventy. Most of these men, then, were in the maturity and vigor of manhood. Two-thirds of the Convention, lacking one, were between forty and sixty, old enough to have gotten rid of crudities of thinking, and the impulsiveness and rashness of young blood, and yet young enough to be free from the enfeebling touch of age.

And since they were to deal with the question of secession, the underlying cause of which was slavery, we should not fail to consider their nativity, and the influences that surrounded them in early life, when the deepest and most lasting impressions are made upon men. Thirty of the ninety-nine delegates to this Convention were born in Kentucky; twenty-three in Virginia; thirteen in Missouri; nine in Tennessee; three in North Carolina; three in New York; three in New Hampshire; two in Maryland; two in Pennsylvania; two in Illinois; one in Alabama; one in the District of Columbia; one in Ohio; one in New Jersey; one in Maine; one in Prussia; one in Bremen; one in Austria; and one in Ireland. Eighty-two were born in the South, including the one from the District of Columbia, while there were only thirteen born in the North and four in Europe. When we observe that more than four-fifths of the Convention had been born and brought up in slave States, we might rationally conclude from this surface view that Missouri would soon follow her seven erring sisters, like them secede from the Union, and link her destiny to the Southern Confederacy.

Beyond question the Convention was almost unanimously pro-slavery. Some of those born and educated in the North had become sweeping and positive in their advocacy of slavery. There were none in the Convention who did not denounce the Abolitionists, and very many of its members condemned with equal severity the Republican party. All of them, with possibly a very few exceptions, desired to protect and preserve the system of human bondage that had unhappily fastened itself upon the nation. But right here where there was so high a degree of unanimity, strange to say, the Convention divided. The vexed question with them was, “What will preserve slavery?” Some of them were in favor of going out of the Union to preserve it; others with at least equal emphasis and force urged that in order to preserve it Missouri must remain in the Union. These delegates pointed to the geographical position of their State; on three sides of her were free States. If she should secede, she would be confronted on the east, north and west by a foreign nation and by hostile territory, which would be an asylum for fugitive slaves. One speaker declared: “It will make a Canada of every Northern State, and the North will be a borne from which no slave traveller will return.” Such men vehemently urged that secession would be the inevitable destruction of slavery in Missouri. If the State should secede, it would not be long before she would present to the world the anomaly of a slave State without a slave. To be sure, the Cotton States withdrew from the Union in order to preserve slavery; but even if the citizens of Missouri believed that they had the constitutional right to secede, they could not follow the example of the Gulf States, for if they did, they would blot out forever the very institution that they were so earnestly striving to save. So many in Missouri, and not a few in this Convention, reasoned.

While, however, the Convention was divided on the question of the secession of the State, and, during its earlier sessions, how evenly divided none could tell, nearly all, if not all, of its members were professed Unionists. The people had elected them as Unionists. It was loudly proclaimed that Unionism had triumphed at the polls by from forty to sixty thousand majority. Nearly every man that spoke during the deliberations of the Convention with great vigor asserted that he was in favor of maintaining the Union. The Hon. Hamilton R. Gamble, chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations, in explaining to the Convention the report of that committee, said: “As far as my acquaintance with the gentlemen of this Convention extends, I know of no gentlemen who avow, or insinuate, or in any manner admit, that they entertain any unfriendly feeling to the Union. You may speak to any member of the Convention you please in reference to his position about the Union, and he will proclaim that he is in favor of the Union. How, then, in the introduction of this question before this body, shall I undertake to speak in favor of the Union, when there is a unanimity, an entire unanimity, among all the members upon the very view which I would endeavor to take and enforce?”

Any one unacquainted with the hair-splitting political doctrines of that day might have been deceived by this emphatic and universal profession of Unionism by the members of this sovereign Convention. Calhoun also frequently made the strongest declarations of his warm attachment to the Union. But neither he nor they had in mind the actual government formed by the people of the States under the Constitution, in contradistinction to the confederation that preceded it, but simply a compact of sovereign States, which having been voluntarily entered into could by any State be lawfully terminated at will. Many in this Convention were conscious or unconscious disciples of Calhoun, and in their speeches advocated his political heresies. Their effusive professions of devotion to the Union deceived no one who was at all conversant with our political history. The Hon. Mr. Gamble, whose words I have quoted in reference to their “entire unanimity” for the Union, understood them perfectly, and he expatiated on their professions of devotion to the Union in order to induce them, if possible, to act in accordance with them, and to vote to keep Missouri in that Union for which they expressed such fervent love. On the surface there was unity; beneath the surface, contrariety. Some of the Convention meant by the Union a centralized, sovereign government under the Constitution, while others meant a loose compact of sovereign States.

And if both parties when they spoke of the Union had meant the same thing, which manifestly they did not, the phrase, “Union man,” would still have been ambiguous. In the debates of the delegates it came out clearly that there were two kinds of Union men in the Convention, conditional and unconditional. Mr. Sheeley of Independence said: “I admire this Union, and while perhaps I will stick in it as long as any man in the Convention, who is not an unconditional Union man,” thus openly announcing himself a conditional Union man. Mr. Vanbuskirk of Holt County, in an able speech, declared that on the part of some of the Convention, “the whole matter is brought to this point, that it is Union upon condition; that is, Union with the ‘buts’ and ‘ifs,’ or ‘under existing circumstances.’” Of course that kind of Unionism was a mockery. Only about six months before, the rabid secessionist, Yancey of Alabama, had proclaimed himself to be a pre-eminent Union man, but declared that if Abraham Lincoln should be elected to the Presidency, he would favor immediate secession. That was being a Calhoun Unionist, a Unionist according to a construction of the Constitution that was utterly at variance with John Marshall’s interpretation of it. In 1861, in Missouri, whenever a man said, “I am a Union man in the Constitution,” we knew for a certainty that his Unionism was conditional, and that he should probably be classed with the secessionists.

Let us notice the conditions on which the loyalty of these “but” and “if” Unionists was based. First, they felt themselves to be under no obligation to sustain the Union unless the Federal government should guarantee to them their rights. They meant by this, their rights in slave property. The people of the Northern States must not obstruct by legislation, or in any other way, the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law; in fact must aid the Southern slaveholder in recapturing his fleeing property.

In the second place, they demanded a compromise by which slavery south of 36° 30′ should be protected in the territories. In demanding no more than this, many of them thought that they were making very generous concessions to the North, since they believed that, under the Constitution, the Southern slaveholder had the undoubted right to go into any territory of the United States with his human chattels, and there be protected in both person and slave property.

In the third place, they announced that they would not sustain the Union, if the general government should attempt to coerce the seceded States. They declared that they would neither aid their seven erring sisters in making an attack on the Federal government, nor the Federal government in coercing the States that had left the Union. This view was urged by Mr. Howell on the floor of the Convention in a resolution, a part of which was, “We earnestly remonstrate and protest against any and all coercive measures, or attempts at coercion of said States into submission to the general government, whether clothed with the name or pretext of executing the laws of the Union, or otherwise. And we declare that in such contingency Missouri will not view the same with indifference.” This resolution intimated, and it came out clearly in the ensuing debate, that if the United States should attempt to compel by force the collection of the national customs in the South, such an act on the part of the general government would be regarded as coercion. This is sufficient to reveal the true character of the conditional Unionists. They affirmed emphatically, “we are in favor of keeping Missouri in the Union, if the Northern States will guarantee the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, protect slavery in the territories south of 36° 30′, and the general government will not even in the execution of the Federal laws south of Mason and Dixon’s line use any force whatever; but if these conditions are not fulfilled, we are in favor of going out of the Union, and uniting our fortunes with the Southern Confederacy;” and when the Convention adjourned to St. Louis, the Unionism of a decided majority of its members was unquestionably of that conditional type.

Since we have so fully set forth the composition and views of the Convention, it will be unnecessary to reproduce in detail its organization and proceedings. The Hon. Sterling Price, afterwards a Confederate general, was chosen president, and presided over the deliberations of the Convention with ability and impartiality. The delegates to the Convention took an oath to sustain the Constitution of the United States and that of the State of Missouri. A strong Committee on Federal Relations was appointed, of which Hon. Hamilton R. Gamble, an unconditional Union man of whom we have already spoken, was chairman. During the first sittings of the Convention, numerous resolutions in reference to the attitude that Missouri ought to maintain toward the Union were introduced and referred to the Committee on Federal Relations; and while that committee was deliberating, the members of the Convention occupied the time in making speeches on the general subject of secession. As each one seemed anxious to declare himself, there was much speaking. Both extreme and conservative views were freely aired, and each day evidently added new strength to the position that it would be unwise for Missouri to sever her relations with the Union.

There was one unique incident that profoundly stirred the whole Convention. The Convention of the State of Georgia, that passed an ordinance of secession, sent the Hon. Luther J. Glenn as a commissioner to present it to the Convention of Missouri and to urge its delegates to enact a similar ordinance and to join the Southern Confederacy. He appeared at Jefferson City, during the proceedings of the second day of the Convention, and his communication from Georgia to the Convention was read by the Chair.[^[8]] This communication was promptly laid on the table, but the incident greatly disturbed all genuine Union men, especially since the commissioner with his secession message had been received with open arms by the Governor, and in the evening both houses of the disloyal legislature in joint session had listened to an address from him with the most manifest marks of sympathy.[^[9]]

At the first day’s session in St. Louis this communication of the Georgia commissioner was called up, and a motion was made that he be invited to address the Convention. Thereupon there was hot debate. Hon. Sample Orr, referring to Mr. Glenn, said: “He is here to-day and called an ambassador by some, by others a commissioner. If he is an ambassador, he has missed the right city. He should have gone to Washington. If he is here as a commissioner from a sister State, then the oath we have taken forbids that we should have an alliance with any other State in the Confederacy.” He meant by Confederacy, the United States. Mr. Smith, a delegate from St. Louis, said: “We did not come here to receive ambassadors from foreign States.” But finally the Convention deemed it best on the whole to listen to the gentleman from Georgia, who then proceeded to tell the very old story of the atrocious conduct of the Northern abolitionists, and of the equally reprehensible acts of the Chicago Convention, that nominated Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency; of the deplorable condition of his State, on account of the protective tariff, that built up the North and pulled down the South, and that, on account of these things, which a long-suffering people could no longer endure, his State had peaceably seceded, and he was commissioned by Georgia to urge Missouri to follow her example.[^[10]]

Georgia’s Ordinance of Secession and the address of her commissioner were referred to a special committee, of which the Hon. John B. Henderson, the author of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution of the United States,[^[11]] was chairman. On the eighteenth day of the sittings of the Convention, Mr. Henderson, slaveholder though he was, presented a comprehensive report recommending the rejection of the prayer from Georgia to secede, presented by Mr. Glenn, and urging the weightiest and most conclusive reasons against the disruption of the Union. This report was stronger meat than the Convention was then able to digest, so after a short, sharp debate it was laid on the table[^[12]] and was never afterwards taken up. It did not need to be. It had done its work. The author of it had seized his opportunity to deal a staggering blow against the secession of Missouri, and the effect of it could not be neutralized. So what at first was a menace was transmuted into a blessing.

The Georgia commissioner made a vow that he would never buy a new hat until Missouri seceded from the Union. In 1900 he was still living. The silk hat that covered his obfuscated brain when he represented seceded Georgia before the Convention in St. Louis had been fixed over three times. He was still proud of it and of the cause that he represented in 1861. Whether he now lives, we do not know. He has died, or will die, in the faith. He was made of stern stuff. If he has, or when he shall have, departed to the land where silk hats are not needed, and from which no one ever secedes, every one who admires pure grit will heartily breathe the prayer, Requiescat in pace.

We return now from this peculiar and important transaction, unexpectedly thrust upon the attention of the Convention from without, to notice that, by the time it had fairly begun its work in St. Louis, the secession legislature which had created it, repented of what it had unwittingly wisely done, and began to agitate the question whether it had the power to repeal the ordinance that called the Convention into being, and thus permanently dissolve it. They saw of course that the Convention was not of their way of thinking. They refused to vote the necessary means for the publication of its proceedings. Mr. Foster of the Convention said in debate, “Although the legislature of Missouri called this body into existence, yet, sir, its complexion so very materially differs from the complexion of the legislative body, that, if they had the power, in my judgment, they would crush us out of existence to-day.” To the Union men of St. Louis and the State this growing antagonism of the two law-making bodies was a cheering symptom. The legislature, however, soon learned from its legal advisers that it could not efface the wisdom into which it had blindly blundered; that the chicken which it had so fondly hatched and fostered into maturity could not be put back into the shell again; that, in short, there was no political power in Missouri superior to the sovereign Convention which it had evoked into being, and which was now calmly and wisely deliberating in the great commercial city of the State.

All parties were finally convinced that though the legislature had created the Convention, it could not destroy it. So the work of this sovereign body moved on undisturbed. On the eighth day of its sittings the Committee on Federal Relations reported through its chairman. In their report the Committee, with but partial success, detailed the political events which led to the secession of the Cotton States, and had raised the question of secession in the remaining slave States. But they presented with cumulative force many cogent reasons why Missouri should not follow her erring sisters in seceding from the Union, and finally crystallized their recommendations on the whole subject of secession in seven resolutions, the first and chief of which was, “That at present there is no adequate cause to impel Missouri to dissolve her connection with the Federal Union.” This resolution seems to us now tame and timid. But a more sweeping and positive resolution could not have been carried through the Convention. Its very weakness was its strength. Its apparent obeisance to the doctrine of secession made it acceptable to many conditional Union men. When the loyal men of St. Louis heard it, they were lifted up with hope.

However the Committee was not unanimous. On the next day some conditional Union men on the Committee presented a minority report. Then numerous amendments were offered, and for eight days longer the debate went on, more earnest and vigorous than ever, but each day it was evident that the more positive secession sentiment was slowly vanishing, so that when on the sixteenth day of the Convention, the vote was taken on the resolution quoted above, while nine members of the Convention were absent, all present but one voted for it. George Y. Bast, a farmer from Rhineland, Montgomery County, has the unenviable distinction of being the minority of one that voted for the secession of Missouri. The other resolutions of the Committee, with varying majorities, were also adopted.

On the 22d of March the Convention adjourned to meet on the third Monday in December following; but it also appointed a committee of seven, one from each congressional district, to whom the power was delegated to call the Convention together before the third Monday in December, if, in their judgment, the public exigencies demanded it.

The reasons urged by the Convention against the secession of Missouri as we gather them from its reported proceedings, briefly stated, were these:

First: the geographical position of Missouri. She was so far north that her climate was better adapted to the white man than to the black. Moreover, she was shut in on three sides by free States, into which, if she seceded from the Union, her slaves would flee and from which they could not be brought back.

Second: she had other, and far greater interests than her slaves. They numbered only one hundred and twelve thousand, while she had within her borders more than one million, one hundred thousand white men. During the then preceding decade her slaves had increased twenty-five per cent; while her white population had increased one hundred per cent. The taxable value of her slaves was only forty-five million dollars, while that of her other property was three hundred and fifteen million dollars. Most of her slaves were engaged in raising tobacco and hemp, while her white population, which, through immigration, was rapidly increasing, was developing her mining, manufacturing, and commercial interests. The members of her sovereign Convention, from whose brains the cobwebs had at last been swept, and whose vision had become clear, saw that the immigration of free white men to Missouri would nearly, if not wholly, cease, if the State by secession should be placed under the political domination of the Confederacy, whose corner-stone had been declared by its brilliant Vice-President to be African slavery.

Third: timid men were everywhere crying out for compromise. And most of the members of the Convention still hugged the delusion that the political antagonisms, which were then shaking the nation to its foundations, and had already severed seven States from the Union, might be overcome by compromise. To inaugurate measures by which such compromise might be effected some advocated a convention of the border slave States; others of the border slave and border free States; and still others of all the States, and, so long as they cherished hope of such a peaceful adjustment of difficulties, they thought it inexpedient for Missouri to secede.

Fourth: most of the Convention believed that the seven States which had already seceded had been carried out of the Union by ambitious politicians; that the people had not been permitted fairly and fully to discuss the question of secession, and freely to cast their ballots for or against it. During the deliberations of the Convention extreme Southern politicians, like Yancey of Alabama, were roundly and bitterly denounced. Moreover, the State pride of the Missourians had been deeply stung by the seceded States. Those States, they affirmed, had rudely snapped the tie which bound them to the Union, without any consultation with the border slave States, and then after they were out of the Union and had gone so far as to set up a Southern Confederacy, they complacently turned around and invited the States whose counsels they had ignored to join them. Missouri felt that she should have been consulted before secession was enacted, and some strong pro-slavery members of the Convention declared in unmistakable terms that they were utterly opposed to following the cotton lords of the South Atlantic and Gulf States. Thus the precipitancy of the hot-headed Southern politicians became no inconsiderable element of the force which kept Missouri in the Union.

But there is reason for grave doubt if even all these considerations combined would have led to this result, if the Convention had continued its deliberations at Jefferson City. It was well known that the object of the Governor and the legislature in creating the Convention was to secure the secession of the State. Had it continued its sittings at the State capital, the influences by which it would have been surrounded would probably have incited its members to enact an ordinance of secession. But the adjournment to St. Louis at once awakened a reasonable hope of a better outcome. The delegates were now surrounded by an entirely different atmosphere. They met in that city the highest intelligence and the staunchest loyalty in the State. They were mightily impressed with the fact that scores of men there who had formerly been slaveholders in the South were unflinchingly loyal to the old flag. Gradually they came to see that secession antagonized all the commercial, educational, and moral interests of the State; that it was, in short, a suicidal policy. As they deliberated day by day, even those who had been the warmest advocates of such a policy began to waver. Every day their vision grew clearer and truer. Even the president of the Convention, who so soon afterwards became a commander of Confederate troops, for the nonce, seemed to be a genuine Union man, and when the vote was taken on the question of secession, as we have already noted, only one man could be found in the entire Convention, who had the hardihood to vote against the resolution, that it was not just then expedient for Missouri to secede from the Union.

The victory was won. It was a momentous victory. Who won it? A little band of intrepid Union men, men of whom, with perhaps two exceptions, the nation at large knew little or nothing. They had come together in St. Louis from every part of the Republic and from foreign countries. That city was their adopted home. They had largely laid aside the prejudices that they brought with them from their former places of abode. Their contact with each other had made them larger, grander men. Upon them unexpectedly a day of darkness had fallen. Dangers thickened around them, but the very perils which beset them united their hearts in unswerving, burning loyalty to the Union. At last the only hope of keeping their State in the Union was the sovereign Convention called into being for the very purpose of taking it out of the Union. So, before God, they firmly resolved to use as well as they could the unpropitious instrument made ready to their hand. They could not directly control the deliberations and votes of the Convention. Forbidding as the prospect seemed to be, there was hope, however, if this sovereign body could be induced to carry on its deliberations in their adopted city. They must invite the Convention to do this. Not openly; such publicity would utterly defeat their purpose. They must work in secret. Fortunately some of their own number were members of the Convention. They were good men and wise and true. They did their delicate work with skill. The Convention, apparently self-moved, came to St. Louis. It deliberated there. Missouri stayed in the Union.

What was the significance of this outcome to the nation at large? It had a mighty influence in keeping Kentucky, West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland in the Union. It cheered and strengthened our wise, conservative, patriotic President, whose manifold perplexities and vast responsibilities pressed upon him like the superincumbent weight of a mountain. It put into the Union army more than one hundred and nine thousand men, of whom more than eight thousand were colored,[^[13]] besides the Home Guards in every considerable town of the State. It is probable, however, that part of this number, even if the State had seceded, would have found its place in the Union ranks; but the doctrine of State rights was so dominant that probably at least seventy-five thousand of that number would have followed the State and helped fight the battles of the Southern Confederacy. It is quite possible that this great military force added to the Federal army really decided the conflict in favor of the Union; and that when some future historian impartially surveys the whole field, he may be constrained to affirm that a band of patriotic men, most of them unknown to fame, in a border city, on the western bank of the Mississippi River, confronted with apparently insurmountable obstacles, by prudent, decisive action, not only saved their State from the madness of secession, but the whole Union from irretrievable disruption.

THE ARSENAL, ST. LOUIS, IN 1866.
[Page [63]

CHAPTER V
THE FIGHT FOR THE ARSENAL

The United States Arsenal was situated in the southern part of the city by the river. It contained nearly thirty thousand percussion-cap muskets, about one thousand rifles, some cannon unfit for use, a few hundred flint-lock muskets, and a large quantity of ammunition.[^[14]] It was the settled policy of the seceding States to seize the United States arsenals and arms within their boundaries. So those, who were now trying to force Missouri out of the Union, were intent on following the pernicious example of the seceded States. Moreover, our secession Governor was about to call out the militia of the State and put it under military drill; the militia would need arms and ammunition; both were in the Arsenal; why should not these citizen soldiers have them? Why should the sovereignty of the United States override the sovereignty of Missouri? So secessionists reasoned.

And the fight for the Arsenal began early. Each party saw clearly that those who held it would hold the city, and those who held the city would hold the State. So all eyes were riveted on the coveted prize. Isaac H. Sturgeon, a Kentuckian by birth, was Assistant United States Treasurer at St. Louis. He belonged to the southern right wing of the Missouri Democracy. He consorted with secessionists. He heard their plans for seizing the Arsenal, and as the Subtreasury vaults contained four hundred thousand dollars in gold, he began to fear that they might also seize that. He therefore wrote a cautious letter to President Buchanan, setting forth the facts of the case, and suggesting that it might be wise to send a company of soldiers to guard the money belonging to the United States. The President turned this letter over to General Scott, who forthwith sent Lieutenant Robinson to St. Louis with a detachment of forty men and ordered that they be placed at the disposal of the Assistant Treasurer. They arrived on the 11th of January, and were quartered in the Government Building. Here, in addition to the Subtreasury, were the Post-office, the Custom-house and the Federal Courts. The report that Federal soldiers, under the control of the Assistant Treasurer, were on guard over the Subtreasury, flew like wild-fire over the entire city. To put it mildly, the excitement was intense. The papers sent out extras, that were carried by running, yelling boys to almost every house. A great angry, vociferating crowd packed the narrow streets on which the Government Building stood. They hurled dire threats of vengeance against the United States, the President, the general of the army and Mr. Sturgeon, that recreant States-rights democrat. Some of the crowd were red, some pale, with anger; they were hot for a fight. But nobody was in any special danger; their rage would unquestionably soon have spent itself in angry yells and in the shaking of empty fists; but in order to calm the secession mind, General Harney, the department commander, ordered Robinson and his detachment of soldiers to the Arsenal. As they went thither the tempest subsided, and no bones were broken.

But brief as the excitement was, it invaded the capital of the State, and agitated the lawmakers there. A grave and reverend State Senator forthwith offered some resolutions, in which he characterized “this act of the administration” at Washington “as insulting to the dignity and patriotism of this State,” and asked the Governor “to inquire of the President what has induced him to place the property of the United States within this State in charge of an armed Federal force?”

Since, however, the excitement was over in St. Louis, these resolutions were never passed; and it is now difficult for us to believe that a sane legislator should ever have felt it incumbent upon him to protest against the guarding of United States property by an armed Federal force. But so good men thought and felt then.

The incident at the Government Building, which aroused such passion both in our city and throughout the State, was a side-light which revealed the settled determination of the secessionists to get control of all United States property on the sacred soil of Missouri. Perhaps the fears of Mr. Sturgeon for the safety of the Subtreasury—fears that had been awakened by the declarations of the secessionists with whom he consorted—may have been groundless, but there was no mistake in reference to the determination of the disloyal to get into their possession, at the earliest possible moment, the Arsenal and all that it contained.

To understand the fight for the Arsenal, it will be necessary for us to get before our minds as clearly as possible some of the principal characters that directed and controlled it. The first to claim our attention, though at the beginning of the contest subordinate in military rank is Captain, afterwards Brigadier-General, Nathaniel Lyon. He was a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of West Point. He had served with distinction in Florida, and in the Mexican War, brilliantly as an Indian fighter in northern California, and with moderation and wisdom in Kansas, when that territory was harassed by the lawless incursions of border ruffians. He was forty-two years old, just in his prime. He was only five feet seven inches in height. He was thin and angular, rough and rugged in appearance. He had deep-set, clear blue eyes, sandy hair and reddish-brown stubby beard. What he was in mind and heart, unfolding events soon clearly revealed. He reported for duty at the Arsenal about February 2d. He at once made himself familiar with its history. He learned that Major William H. Bell, by birth a North Carolinian, a graduate of West Point in 1820, had been its commander for several years; that the major, aside from his duties as an officer of the United States army, had amassed quite a fortune in our city in town lots and suburban property, and had come to regard St. Louis as his home; that his sympathies had been with the extreme pro-slavery men of Missouri; that in January he had pledged himself to General Frost that while he would defend the Arsenal against all mobs, he would not defend it against State troops; that as late as Jan. 24th, Frost had written this to Governor Jackson, at the same time claiming that Bell was in accord with them; that on the same day, to the honor of the military service of the United States, Bell had been removed from his command and ordered to report at New York; that he had refused to obey this order, and, instead, had had the good sense to resign his commission and retire to his farm in St. Charles County, Missouri.

So at the start, the real situation of affairs in our city was opened up to Captain Lyon.

He was now associated in military duty with Brigadier-General William Selby Harney and Major Peter V. Hagner. The former was the commander of the Department of the West. He was more than sixty years old, having been born in 1798. He was a Southerner; Louisiana was his native State. He had had large experience as a soldier in the Mexican War, and as an Indian fighter both in Florida and on the plains. He had acquitted himself with distinction as the commander of the military Department of the Pacific Coast. For several years he had lived in Missouri. And now in this time of stress no one could successfully question his patriotism, and unswerving loyalty to the Union; but he was so interlinked with Southern families, both by blood and friendships of long standing, that he was unfitted to command where grave and delicate questions, involving old neighbors and intimate friends, were constantly arising. So at last, without any stain on his honor, he was called by his government to serve in another field.

The latter, Major Hagner, was the successor of Major Bell in the command of the Arsenal. Washington, the national capital, was his birthplace. He too was a graduate of West Point and was older than Lyon. He was five years Lyon’s senior in service. But as to whether Hagner really outranked Lyon there was room for difference of opinion. Hagner had served in the ordnance department of the army, where promotions were slower than in the infantry, to which Lyon belonged. Lyon’s commission as captain in the regular army was twenty days earlier than Hagner’s; but Hagner, having received in 1847 the brevet rank of major, claimed to outrank him. Under this Lyon was restive. He saw at a glance what must be done if Missouri was to be kept in the Union. He was persuaded that Hagner was unequal to the demand made upon him by the exigencies of the hour. So, on the ground of the priority of his commission as captain, he claimed the right to supreme command. When his claim was denied, first, by Gen. Harney, and then by President Buchanan and Gen. Scott, he chafed under the decision of his superiors. He did not, however, sulk in his tent; he was too patriotic for that; yet, in his correspondence, he vigorously and somewhat ungraciously criticized those who differed from him.

While his superiors in command at St. Louis were both men of undoubted loyalty to their government, they did not have the same point of view that he had. He was originally a Connecticut democrat. In 1852 he had enthusiastically advocated the election of Franklin Pierce to the Presidency. But he was sent to do military duty in Kansas, while the people there were struggling in opposition to pro-slavery men from Missouri to make Kansas a free State. There his political views were almost completely changed. The full tide of his sympathy flowed out to the Free-State men and to the negro. He then and there became convinced that two civilizations so diametrically opposed to each other could not continue to exist peacefully under the same flag. He saw the coming of the inevitable conflict, and he was ready, not to say eager, for it.

While Harney was not in sympathy with Lyon’s political views, he nevertheless showed that he admired him both as an officer and as a man; but between Lyon and Hagner there was but little if any real fellowship. Lyon therefore formed his friendly associations in the city, outside the Arsenal. His political views led him into the company of such men as Frank P. Blair, our brilliant congressman and aggressive free-soil leader; Oliver D. Filley, our popular mayor, a New Englander by birth and education; John How, a Pennsylvanian, a member of the Union Safety Committee; and others of the same ilk, whose trumpets never gave an uncertain sound in reference to the maintenance of the Union. These uncompromising loyalists at once saw in Lyon the man for the hour and the place, and he saw in them men who would do all in their power to help him realize his aims. He frequently visited the rendezvous of the Wide-Awakes, now, under the lead of Blair, transformed into Home Guards. He encouraged them in their work, suggested plans for their more perfect organization, and often personally drilled them in the manual of arms. They needed muskets. Blair thought that they should be armed from the Arsenal; and while this was contrary to the letter of the law, Lyon was in full accord with Blair.

In view of threatened attacks on the Arsenal, Lyon urged Hagner to fortify it. He refused. He then urged him to arm the Home Guards; this he regarded as illegal, and from his point of view justly decided against it. Not that Lyon was lawless, but his reasoning was, a law that was made to preserve the Republic must not be obeyed when such obedience would destroy the Republic. In such a case obedience to the letter of the law would be disobedience to its spirit. He held that the commandant at the Arsenal was bound to defend it at all hazards, and by all means within his reach, since on the holding of it depended the political destiny of Missouri. Nothing must stand in the way of securing an end so transcendently important. Laws good and wholesome in the “weak piping time of peace,” for the highest public good may be held in abeyance in a time of revolt against constituted authority. But this captain, all aflame with patriotism, and so impatient of restraint, must still wait a little longer before unhindered he can do his appointed work.

The first of February, Blair went to Washington and in person urged President Buchanan to give Lyon the supreme command of the Arsenal; but neither he nor General Scott would consent to this, having full confidence in Harney and Hagner. But a serious disturbance around the headquarters of the Minute Men, or organized secessionists, which threatened the peace of the whole city, led Harney, on March 13th, to give the command of the troops at the Arsenal to Lyon, while Hagner was still permitted to retain his command over the ordnance stores. Nothing could have been more impractical and absurd. The Arsenal now had two heads; one over the troops, the other over the arms. If the two had been in perfect accord, the doubleheaded arrangement might have worked efficiently; but in all their thinking and methods they were at sword’s points with each other. But strange to say, out of this apparent deadlock of authority came deliverance.

This anomalous state of affairs, seemingly so favorable to the secessionists, together with a legislative act expressly in their interest, resulted in their discomfiture. In March, the secession lawmakers at Jefferson City, disappointed and incensed because the Convention at St. Louis had voted that, for the present, at least, it was inexpedient for the State to secede from the Union, determined if possible to neutralize, or to overturn, this reasonable and wise decision. They saw clearly that if in any way they could get control of St. Louis, they could through it, in spite of the Convention, control the State. They thought that if the police of the city could by some device be put under the jurisdiction of their secession Governor, there would be a rational and strong hope of uniting the destiny of St. Louis and Missouri with that of the Southern Confederacy. Swayed by this thought, and intensely anxious to realize it, they framed and passed an act, authorizing the Governor to appoint four commissioners, who, together with the mayor, should have absolute control of the police, of the local voluntary militia, of the sheriff, and of all other conservators of the peace. This act virtually threw the whole police force of the city into the hands of the Governor, and seemed also to put under his absolute control not only the ordinary local volunteer militia, but also the Minute Men, and Wide-Awakes or Home Guards of St. Louis. On the heel of this sweeping and radical legislation came the municipal election of April 1st, when Daniel G. Taylor, a plastic, conditional Union man, openly opposed to Lincoln’s administration and to the coercion of the South, was elected mayor by a majority of two thousand six hundred and fifty-eight over John How, a very popular, unconditional Union man. In the preceding February, when the city chose delegates to the Convention, the unconditional Union men had triumphed by a majority of full five thousand; but now we had elected a mayor who would play into the hands of our disloyal Governor. The cause of this backset it was difficult to discover; and the alarming thing about it all was that with a pliant mayor under the thumb of our foxy Governor we seemed to be in the tightening grip of the secessionists.

The Governor, under the recent enactment of the legislature, now appointed the police commissioners. In doing this he carried into effect this new and pernicious statute both in its letter and spirit. He had probably originally suggested it. At all events it was evidently a legislative act after his own heart. Under it he named as commissioners three of the most outspoken, virulent secessionists in the city, and a man of Northern birth, who was strongly opposed to any attempt to coerce seceded States. At the head of this interesting quartette stood Basil Wilson Duke, the acknowledged leader of the Minute Men, the organized secessionists of St. Louis. This man inspired those who hung out a rebel flag over their rendezvous on Pine Street, and defied the Union men of the city. He was a man of ability and conviction. He fought for what he believed to be right. Like the Governor that appointed him, he regarded the coming of United States troops, even for the purpose of defending United States property, as an invasion of the State that should be met and repelled by force.

But out of apparent defeat came victory; out of the gloom light streamed. Lyon at the Arsenal was undaunted. While he chafed under his limitations, he used energetically all the power that he had. Rightly regarding the holding of the Arsenal as of paramount importance, he declared, perhaps unwisely, that if the secessionists attempted to seize it, he would issue arms to the Home Guards and other Union men, and if Hagner interfered he would “pitch him into the river.” Harney, at last convinced that right there in St. Louis war was imminent, enlarged the powers of Lyon so that for the time being he had supreme command over the arms at the Arsenal as well as over the soldiers.

Lyon now, as a precautionary measure, patrolled the streets beyond the Arsenal, and planted his artillery on the bluffs above it. Against this the police commissioners protested, but Lyon would not budge. So they appealed to Harney. For the sake of peace he ordered the patrols back into the limits of the Arsenal, and forbade Lyon to issue arms to any one without his consent. This reactionary and disheartening movement on the part of Harney soon made Lyon the master of the situation. Blair appealed for relief to the Secretary of War, who at once summoned Harney to Washington. In obeying this summons on the 23d of April, he temporarily retired from his command.

Lyon had now what he and Blair had so intensely desired, supreme command at the Arsenal. He at once re-enforced it. He fortified it. All approaches to it were vigilantly guarded. Lyon was now empowered by the Federal government to arm the Home Guards; to raise and arm additional regiments and muster them into the United States’ service. So the battle within the Arsenal for the Arsenal was at last won. But what of the battle for it without?

Taken as a whole, the city at this time was tossed and torn with doubt and fear. That there was a mighty struggle on the part of the disloyal, in some way to get possession of the Arsenal, we all knew. How many of them there were, and what were their resources, we could not with any certainty ascertain. Our imaginations were often active. When we retired at night we thought it at least possible that, by some strategic stroke, we might wake up in the morning and find our city turned over into the hands of the secessionists. The very indefiniteness of the force which threatened us made our situation peculiarly weird, and filled us at times with apprehension. This hostile force was as vague and indeterminate as the shadowy power that passed before Eliphaz, concerning which he said (Job 4: 12):

“Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a whisper thereof.

In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,

Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.

Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:

It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof.”

Not that we feared for our personal safety. But we were often anxious lest the city, by some secret move, should be swept into the maelstrom of secession. True men could not help being anxious. Ugly rumors filled the air. The Post-office, the Custom-house, the Subtreasury, the Arsenal were all about to be seized. At last, on April 12th, the whole nation, North and South, burst into flame. Beauregard was bombarding Fort Sumter. Hostilities had not been formally declared. Without any preannouncement, the dread conflagration of war began to sweep over the land. But after all, this was but fanning into fiercer flame the fire that was already burning. For several months the seceding States had been committing acts of war in seizing the property of the United States. From the strong desire of averting armed conflict, such acts had been overlooked by the Federal authorities. The nation had been hoping for a peaceful solution of its difficulties. But now the belching cannon at Charleston, the very nest of secession, had swept away the last hope of peace. Every ear in St. Louis was attent. The shameful end came all too soon. The Old Flag, around which clustered so many glories, was lowered before a disunion army. On the 14th of April those brave troops that had so gallantly defended the fort marched out with the honors of war. There was now no longer any hesitation at the White House. The President’s call for seventy-five thousand men to put down the rebellion rang out trumpet-tongued all over the Republic. The lines that had separated political parties faded away. Persons of all shades of political opinion rallied as one man to save the Union.

To depict the effect in St. Louis of the capture of Fort Sumter and the President’s call for volunteer troops would require an abler pen than mine. At first the Union men were silent, but their thoughts were hot within them. The fall of Sumter stirred them to indignation; the call of the President inflamed their patriotism and strengthened their hope. Most of their secession neighbors for a time were also silent. They too were agitated by conflicting emotions. While the lowering of the Old Flag at the behest of Beauregard’s thundering guns lighted up their faces with smiles, they hotly protested against Lincoln’s call for troops as an invasion of State rights. But these national events that had so suddenly come upon us, producing in the minds of our fellow-citizens such varied and antagonistic effects, greatly intensified the determination of both Unionists and secessionists. Each party now began to struggle as never before to gain its end. And the immediate purpose of the one was to seize, and of the other to hold, the Arsenal.

Men of the same race, the same nation, the same State, the same city, hot with passion, stood face to face. One party declared: “Come what may, we will take the Arsenal.” The other responded: “At all hazards we will defend and retain it.” But those who determined to get possession of it did not yet understand the ability and resourcefulness of the officer who at last had secured supreme command over it. He was cool and clear-headed. He saw intuitively the manifold dangers by which he and his command were beset. He penetrated the designs of our acute and wily Governor. He unearthed his correspondence with the Confederate authorities at Montgomery. He also discovered what was going on in the rebel rendezvous of the city. He unerringly detected and unravelled the plots of the disloyal. Just how he did these things, no one knew. But his apprehension of what his enemy was doing was but the means to the end. When he made a discovery he knew just what to do. And in executing his plans he was resolute and decisive. In him, purpose and deed were yoked together, thought was crowned with act. He was admired and trusted by the loyal, but distrusted, feared and hated by the disloyal.

Even while he was in subordinate command, as early as April 16th, with perhaps unjustifiable officiousness, he had written to Governor Yates of Illinois, that it might be well for him “to make requisition for a large supply of arms, and get them shipped from the Arsenal to Springfield.”[^[15]] Governor Yates, acting on his suggestion, made the requisition. But the execution of the enterprise was difficult and dangerous. Secession spies swarmed in the neighborhood of the Arsenal. Everything done there was promptly reported to the disloyal of the city in their various places of meeting. These segregated secessionists grew more and more determined, come what might, to make the coveted Arsenal their own. A rumor also got afloat that the Governor had ordered two thousand of his militia down from Jefferson City to assist the secessionists in seizing it, and that he had determined to plant cannon on the heights above it and bombard it. And even if the rumor were merely a creation of the imagination, it was none the less effective on that account. It now became doubly clear that if the munitions of war at the Arsenal were to be delivered from constant liability of seizure, no time should be lost in removing them to Springfield, Illinois. In this Captain Lyon and Governor Yates were agreed. To make sure the safe delivery of them at Springfield, Governor Yates summoned to his aid Captain James H. Stokes, late of the regular army. He chose the right man for this delicate and hazardous undertaking. Under the direction of the United States authorities, he commissioned him to remove ten thousand muskets from the Arsenal in St. Louis to the capital of Illinois. To accomplish this work Captain Stokes chartered the steamer “City of Alton.” She was, however, to remain at Alton until called for.

In the meantime, Stokes, in citizen’s dress, came quietly and unobserved to St. Louis. When he went to the Arsenal, he found it surrounded by a crowd of sullen, resolute secessionists. At first he was unable even to work his way through the compact throng; but by patience and good nature he finally elbowed his way to the coveted fortress and handed to Captain Lyon the requisition from Governor Yates. At first Lyon doubted if it were possible at that time to meet it, but promptly decided that, if it could be met at all, there must be no delay in action. Both Lyon and Stokes were resourceful. The latter sent a spy into the secession camp. He met him at a designated time and place, and through him learned every move that the secessionists proposed to make. On the 25th of April, a little more than twenty-four hours after his arrival, he telegraphed the “City of Alton” to drop down to the Arsenal landing about midnight. He then returned to the Arsenal and, with the help of the soldiers there, began moving the boxes of muskets from the upper to the lower floor. When this work had been done, he sent some boxes of old flint-lock muskets up the bank of the river, as if he intended to ship them by some steamboat lying at the levee; but it was merely a blind to divert attention from his real enterprise. The secessionists eagerly followed and seized these almost worthless guns; thinking that they had secured a rich prize, they made night hideous by their boisterous rejoicing. A few of them, however, still hung round the Arsenal. These Captain Lyon arrested and locked up.

Between eleven and twelve o’clock the “City of Alton” tied up at the landing. The seven hundred men in the Arsenal quickly put aboard of her the ten thousand muskets demanded. Captain Stokes then urgently asked permission to empty the Arsenal of all guns except those that were immediately needed to arm the volunteers that Lyon was gathering around him. He was told to go ahead. With marvellous celerity, he then put aboard the steamer ten thousand more muskets, five hundred new rifle carbines, five hundred revolvers, one hundred and ten thousand musket cartridges, and a considerable quantity of miscellaneous war material. Seven thousand muskets were left to arm the St. Louis volunteers.

When in hot haste the steamer had been loaded, the word was given to push off from the landing; but she could not be moved. The boxes of muskets had been piled up around the engine-room to guard it against any shot that might be sent from the battery planted by our plausible Governor for the defence of the State on the levee above, and their weight had pressed the prow of the steamer down into the clay of the river-bank, and she stuck fast. Such a moment would have paralyzed many men; but the undaunted Stokes was cool and equal to the occasion. He cried to his energetic helpers, “Move the boxes aft.” With right good will the order was obeyed. Two hundred boxes of muskets were quickly carried astern, when the steamer’s prow was lifted free from the clay and she floated out upon deep water. “Which way?” said the captain of the “City of Alton.” Stokes replied, “Out to the channel of the river, then north to Alton.” “But,” said Captain Mitchell of the steamer, “what if the battery on the levee fires upon us?” “We will defend ourselves,” said Stokes. “What if they beat us?” asked Mitchell. “Push her to the middle of the river and sink her,” replied Stokes. “I’ll do it,” said Mitchell. On he steamed. He came abreast the battery; he passed it. Cannoneers and cannon seemed to be asleep. There was no sound from human or brazen throat. Plash, plash went the steamer’s wheels; on, on she ploughed through the murky waters, and at five in the morning reached her destination.

As soon as she touched the landing at Alton, Captain Stokes ran to the market-house and rang the fire-bell. The inhabitants roused from their morning slumbers, came pouring out of their houses, some of them half-dressed, to fight fire as soon as they found it. The Captain told them, “There is no fire; but at the landing is that steamer which you all know; it is now loaded with arms and ammunition from the Arsenal at St. Louis; to get them we outwitted and of course disappointed the secessionists; they may pursue us; so we wish as speedily as possible to get these guns to the capital of your State. Will you help us carry them from the ‘City of Alton’ to these empty freight-cars?” With a shout that rolled across the Father of Waters to the opposite shore, men, women, and children laid hold of this hard task. They tugged at the heavy boxes of muskets, carrying, dragging, wheeling them. Their enthusiasm rose every moment to a higher pitch; and just as the clock struck seven the work was done. The cargo of the steamer was on the cars. The doors were shut and padlocked. The locomotive whistled, the bell rang, the steam puffed, the wheels moved, on went the ponderous train with its coveted load amid the shouts and huzzas of the patriotic Altonians.[^[16]] Nor did they forget that morning their own martyred Lovejoy, who, fighting against slavery and for the freedom of the press, poured out his blood on the same spot where they then stood; and that his blood so ruthlessly spilled foretokened the awful conflict into which the whole nation was then rapidly drifting.

When the morning of April 26th dawned, to say that the secessionists of St. Louis were unhappy would be an inadequate expression of their mental state. They then discovered that they had immoderately exulted over a few worthless, flint-lock muskets; and that while they had shouted, most of the arms for which they had been scheming, had, in the darkness, slipped forever beyond their reach. When they fully apprehended that they had been artfully outwitted, their mortification was unbounded. Covered with shame, they crept into their holes. That night’s work by Lyon and Stokes was decisive and pivotal. On it the political destiny of St. Louis seemed to turn. Every day thereafter both the Arsenal and city grew more and more secure, and volunteers to defend the city gathered in ever increasing numbers.

The foundation for this volunteer movement had been laid weeks before. In February, or early in March, many of our most influential loyal citizens petitioned the Minute Men or secessionists to lay down their arms, to quit their rendezvous, and to dissolve all their military organizations, promising if they would do this, that the Wide-Awakes or Union men would do the same. This very earnest petition was for the purpose of maintaining peace within the city; but the secessionists rejected it with scorn. So some days later a regiment of Wide-Awakes appeared on the streets, bearing on their shoulders bright, burnished muskets. These were the guns of which we have before spoken, that were sent as plaster casts to our Art Exhibition. Most of this regiment were ready, when the call came, to enter the volunteer service of the United States. Many Germans of the city eagerly volunteered. Soon Captain Lyon had over three thousand men from St. Louis, all well armed and under drill. The number continued to swell till all anxiety for the safety of the Arsenal at last died away.

Now, however, a strange phenomenon arrested our attention. Many of those who were bent on forcing Missouri out of the Union, for the time being relaxed all effort. They seemed to have given up the contest. What led them thus to lay aside their open belligerency? We were able soon to solve this mystery. It had been often and confidently asserted that the Federal government was to send, from the adjoining free States, several thousand men to defend the Arsenal and other property of the United States. A little later some regiments from Illinois came. This wrought up the secessionists to fever heat. To their minds the introduction of troops from other States was an outrageous invasion of State sovereignty.

Moreover there had been for several weeks a persistent effort to misrepresent the attitude of the general government. While it was simply endeavoring to defend its property and domain, it had been dinned into the ears of the secessionists, in the most emphatic terms, that the object of the United States was invasion and subjugation; and as true men they must arise and defend their hearths and homes, wives and children against Lincoln’s minions. So our fellow-citizens, who had been devising every possible scheme to secure the secession of Missouri, thought it quite unnecessary for them to put forth any further effort to attain their object, since the incoming of soldiers from other States would produce such a revulsion of feeling against the Federal government, that the people without any further incentive would speedily determine to secede. They began to talk confidently of setting aside the decree of the Convention. But without proposing any further effort, they were quietly awaiting the natural drift of events. They believed that by the force of circumstances the State would be carried out of the Union and into the Southern Confederacy.

Their confident expectation was not altogether baseless. Clear-headed Union men saw the danger of introducing troops at that time from other States into our city. The authorities at Washington were induced to take this view of the case into serious consideration. The result was that for the time being they wisely changed their policy. Some regiments that had been ordered from Illinois to St. Louis were sent elsewhere.

Moreover, the President, carefully humoring the prejudices of those who tenaciously held the doctrine of State sovereignty, on April 30th, ordered Captain Lyon “to enroll in the military service of the United States the loyal citizens of St. Louis and vicinity, not exceeding, with those heretofore enlisted, ten thousand in number, for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the United States, and for the protection of the peaceable inhabitants of Missouri.” So the State rights men were beaten at their own game and on their own ground. In his order the President seemed carefully to respect the doctrine of State sovereignty. Only Missourians, and they from “St. Louis and vicinity,” were to defend the Arsenal and city. Could anything have been more fitting and beautiful? But the secessionists were altogether unwilling to take their own medicine. The order of the President was not to their liking. It took the wind out of their sails; it upset their calculations. If ten thousand volunteers were to be gathered from their own city and vicinity, and no troops were to come from adjoining States, State sovereignty would not apparently be infringed, and there would be no revulsion of feeling against the Federal government; and, most of all, if the secessionists should attempt to rise in force, these ten thousand local volunteers would in all probability quickly and sternly suppress them. The very care that the President had taken to humor their prejudices aroused them to intense and bitter activity against the Federal government. With warmth they asked if these ten thousand Missourians were not to be used in defending the property of the United States, the very property that they had vainly tried to get into their own hands? Was it not as unjust to use Missourians to guard Federal property within the boundaries of their own State as it was to use them to guard like property in Maryland or Virginia? Did not the President’s plausible policy ruthlessly override State sovereignty? Had not our Governor peremptorily refused to furnish the Federal government with Missouri soldiers to put down rebellion in the seceded States? Had he not already replied to Mr. Cameron, President Lincoln’s Secretary of War, that the requisition for troops from Missouri by the United States “is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and cannot be complied with?”[^[17]] They did not propose to submit quietly to such indignities. They were once more on fire for action, but their activity now showed itself not in any attempt to take the Arsenal, but in sharp denunciation of the Federal authorities, and in aiding in every possible way those already in open revolt.

On May 6th, an event transpired which excites laughter now, but to a large number of our fellow-citizens was natural and very serious then. The disloyal police commissioners of St. Louis, appointed by our secession Governor, in a solemn and weighty document, formally demanded of Captain Lyon the removal of all United States troops from all places and buildings occupied by them outside the Arsenal grounds. The commissioners declared that such occupancy was “in derogation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.”[^[18]] Captain Lyon in his reply to them asked: “What provisions of the Constitution and laws were thus violated?” The commissioners replied that originally “Missouri had sovereign and exclusive jurisdiction over her whole territory,” that she had delegated a portion of her sovereignty to the United States over certain tracts of land for military purposes, such as arsenals and parks, and asserted that outside of such places the United States had no right to occupy her soil. The whole thing was so ludicrous that thousands in St. Louis were merry over it. Police commissioners dictating as to where the United States should house the officers of its army and quarter its troops! But it was an object lesson that vividly revealed the absurdity of State sovereignty, in which so many at that time implicitly believed. Captain Lyon of course positively refused to comply with a demand so preposterous, and the commissioners with great gravity referred it to the Governor and legislature. Nothing more was ever heard of it.

During all this time the work at the Arsenal went right on. The number of volunteer soldiers daily increased. By the middle of June there were more than ten thousand of them, three fourths of whom were Germans. This latter fact should be specially noted since it alone can explain some events with which we yet shall have to deal. And under the command of Captain Lyon, the Arsenal ceased to be a bone of contention. It was no longer regarded with solicitude by the loyal of the city. It had become a bulwark of Unionism. Whatever came we felt measurably safe, since all the force of the Arsenal was now wielded to prevent the secession of Missouri, and to maintain the integrity of the Union.

CHAPTER VI
CAMP JACKSON

The story of Camp Jackson roots itself in that of the Arsenal. A few facts will show this. During the first days of April our disloyal Governor became unusually patriotic. He thought, or appeared to think, that our State was about to be pounced upon by some lurking foe, and must be made ready to defend itself. To ensure its safety against an enemy that no loyal eyes could anywhere discern, he determined to plant a battery of artillery on Duncan’s Island in the river immediately opposite the Arsenal. From this he was dissuaded, but he did plant one farther down the river at Powder Point, and another, to which we have already referred, on the levee, some distance above the Arsenal. All intelligent men of both parties understood at once that these batteries were hostile to the defenders of the Union, and if occasion offered were to be used in securing the Arsenal and its munitions of war for the secessionists. The Governor’s patriotic professions really deceived but very few. Still, to their honor, some charitable Union men strove to put the best construction on his words; but they were often in great perplexity when they tried to harmonize his words with his acts. While plotting for the secession of the State he constantly harped upon his devotion to it. To his mind evidently its secession from the Union would be its highest good.

Still, under existing circumstances, just what he intended to do, many could not even guess. Captain Lyon declared that he was in correspondence with the Confederate authorities at Montgomery. We then thought that this might be true, and now know from war documents that Lyon as usual was right. In reply to a letter written by the Governor on the 17th of April, and sent to Montgomery by private messengers, Jefferson Davis wrote: “After learning as well as I could from the gentlemen accredited to me what was most needful for the attack on the Arsenal, I have directed that Captains Green and Duke should be furnished with two 12–pounder howitzers and two 32–pounder guns, with the proper ammunition for each. These, from the commanding hills, will be effective, both against the garrison and to breach the enclosing walls of the place. I concur with you as to the great importance of capturing the Arsenal and securing its supplies.”

On that same 17th of April, Governor Jackson visited St. Louis and had a conference with the leading secessionists who resided there. Prominent among them was Brigadier-General Daniel M. Frost. He was born and bred in the State of New York. He graduated from West Point in 1844, and served both in the Mexican War and on the western frontier. He subsequently married in St. Louis, resigned his commission in the army, and went into business in his adopted city. He dipped into politics, became a State Senator, and was finally assigned to the command of the First Brigade of Missouri Volunteer Militia. Snead, who was aide-de-camp of our secession Governor and a soldier in the Confederate army, says that “The Governor trusted Frost fully.”[^[19]] And two days before the conference of April 17th, Frost presented to him a carefully prepared memorial,[^[20]] praying that he would authorize him to form an encampment of militia near our city, and order Colonel Bowen, then defending the western counties of the State against Kansas, to report to him for duty. General Frost also disclosed his plan for placing this encampment on the bluffs just below the Arsenal. This however was too bold a move for the politic Governor. It would too clearly reveal to all thoughtful observers his real purpose. He preferred so far as possible to veil his intention. He chose clandestine action. So while on that memorable 17th of April he refused the requisition of the Secretary of War for troops from Missouri in the vehement and absurd language already quoted, and secretly appealed by private messengers to Jefferson Davis for cannon with which to bombard and take the Arsenal, and in hot haste summoned the legislature to meet in extra session, at Jefferson City, on May 2d, in order “to place the State in a proper attitude of defence;” that all might be legally done, he fell back on the militia law of 1858, and ordered the commanding officers of the several militia districts of the State to call together, on May 6th, for six days, those legally required to do military duty for the purpose of drill in the art of war. This order gave General Frost liberty to form a military camp in any place he might choose within the limits of our city or county.

CAMP JACKSON, ST. LOUIS.
[Page [89]

But it was now too late to form his encampment as he had proposed to the Governor on the hills overlooking the Arsenal; the lynx-eyed, energetic Lyon had already occupied those heights with an adequate force of infantry and artillery. So Frost called his militia together on the western border of the city, in Lindell’s Grove, near the intersection of Olive Street and Grand Avenue. There, at the time designated by the Governor, he went into encampment. As he had urged in his memorial, Colonel Bowen was ordered to report to him. This to every loyal onlooker was a suspicious circumstance. Professedly the encampment was formed for the purpose of drilling the local militia, and at the start soldiers who were doing duty in the extreme western counties of the State were ordered to join it. While some of them hailed from St. Louis, many of them did not. Four companies of Minute Men in our city, open and avowed secessionists, with alacrity and enthusiasm responded to Frost’s call and stood foremost among the troops of his encampment.[^[21]] Young men from different parts of the State, one here and another there, also became part of this motley military force. It is true that some loyal young men had belonged to Frost’s command, and had been deceived as to his real character, but in the latter part of April, headed by Colonel Pritchard, they had abandoned it. Those that now gathered under his standard were homogeneous in sentiment. So by common consent, in honor of the Governor, they dubbed their encampment Camp Jackson. Still, every one that joined it took the oath of allegiance to Missouri and the United States. But this did not reassure us, since the significance of that act depended on each man’s view of State sovereignty and on his construction of the Federal Constitution.

The citizens of St. Louis looked on thoughtfully. Some of them were happy; but that very fact tended to make those of opposite views apprehensive. If the new encampment had been just what it professed to be, simply a place for military drill, there was not a loyal man in the city who would have thought of disturbing it. But there were disquieting rumors that its real character did not appear on the surface; that it had been formed to promote the secession of the State, that it had been put on the western verge of the city so that, at a moment’s notice, it could be used to suppress any movement that might be made by its loyal inhabitants; that the secessionists, having failed to take the Arsenal, proposed now, when the opportune time should arrive, to seize the city, and that the professed defence of the State was simply its defence against United States troops. So from the beginning of the encampment there was earnest debate among loyal men as to what was the wisest course of action, which continued until the whole city was heaving with suppressed excitement.

This excitement was augmented by an ugly report concerning the Governor. It was said that immediately after the munitions of war had been removed from the Arsenal to Springfield, Illinois, he had sent General Harding, his quartermaster general, to St. Louis to procure for the State all the arms and ammunition that he could find there; that he had purchased in our city several hundred hunting rifles, some camp equipage, and many tons of powder. This looked like preparation for war. For what purpose did the Governor of the State, whose professions were so bland and pacific, need tons of powder? Moreover, this war material was shipped to Jefferson City on May 7th, the second day of the encampment at Lindell’s Grove, under guard of Captain Kelly and his company, detailed from Frost’s brigade for that special duty. The more the loyal of the city learned or guessed at, the more certain they became that Camp Jackson was a menace both to St. Louis and the State. Still, the force at the Camp was not large. After Kelly and his company had been detailed for special duty elsewhere, there remained only between six and seven hundred men. But whatever was the strength of the force, the Union men of the city, with almost absolute unanimity, regarded it as hostile; still as to what ought to be done, they differed among themselves.

This military force had been called together under the form of law; it had done nothing illegal; it had not interfered with the liberties or privileges of any one. Should it therefore be disturbed before it had committed any overt illegal act? Such was the question anxiously discussed by Union men; while the secessionists evidently regarded the whole situation with great satisfaction, thinking that they now had at last a reasonable hope of securing their end without violating the letter of the law.

But nothing escaped the eye of Lyon. In some way, he knew everything that pertained to Camp Jackson, and proposed to do promptly and energetically his whole duty as an officer of the United States Army. He had now an ample force under arms and in process of drill. There has been some dispute as to the exact number of this force. The War Documents put it at about three thousand five hundred. Snead in his “The Fight for Missouri,” says that Lyon had, May 10th, seven thousand well-armed men. This is not at all sustained by the best authorities. But whatever may have been the exact number, he at all events was fully prepared for his work.

He did not however propose to seize Camp Jackson by force before completely satisfying his counsellors that such a step was absolutely demanded in order to preserve the city and the State from being forced into secession. He himself had not the shadow of a doubt that the Camp was hostile to the United States, and should be broken up. His opinion was based upon the known character of its commander, and of many of the men that he had gathered around his standard. He had also learned much that was suspicious and disturbing from those who had visited this encampment of militia. But he determined to view it with his own eyes, so that from personal observation he could testify to its real character. On the 9th of May, he arrayed himself in the bombazine gown and close veil of Mrs. Alexander, the mother of Mrs. Frank P. Blair. She was an invalid and blind. In a light, open carriage, he was driven by a colored servant up and down the avenues of Camp Jackson. He observed their names. He saw the arms of the militia and noted from whence they had come. No one challenged him. Many in camp knew Mrs. Alexander, that she was an invalid and blind, and was accustomed to be driven out for her health. When he returned from his ride, Mr. Blair sat chatting with Colonel Simmons on the porch of the southern house of the Arsenal. Mr. Blair rose to help his mother-in-law from the carriage, but saw, when the bombazine gown was slightly raised, a pair of stout cavalry boots. He and Simmons looked significantly at each other but said nothing.[^[22]]

That evening Lyon called together his Committee of Safety consisting of Oliver D. Filley, James O. Broadhead, Samuel T. Glover, John How and Julius J. Witzig. When this Committee met, Mr. Blair was usually present, and he sat with them at this important, pivotal conference. Lyon laid the whole case before them. He set forth in detail the facts pertaining to Camp Jackson. He portrayed its character. He testified to what he had seen. He declared it to be a nest of secessionists; that its design was to get control of the city and if possible carry the State out of the Union, and that the only thing which remained to be done was to capture it at once.

With this view three of the committee, together with Mr. Blair, were in hearty accord; but Mr. Glover, an able lawyer, strongly maintained that since the organization of the encampment was in strict conformity to the law of the State, and those gathered there had committed no overt illegal act, it would be rash to attack and overcome it by an armed force. If it had in unlawful possession arms that belonged to the United States, a writ of replevin should be served by the United States marshal on those in command there in order to recover these munitions of war without any infraction of law. If the United States marshal required any force to aid him in serving the writ, he might be accompanied by all the soldiers under Lyon’s command. Mr. How, while unconditionally for the Union, was a conservative business man and agreed with Mr. Glover. But Lyon and Blair and the majority of the Committee were so insistent for immediate radical action, that the minority at last reluctantly yielded to them. Nevertheless that very night Glover, with some confidential friends, prepared the writ of replevin, but on the following forenoon, Mr. Blair gave it a coup de grace in language more forceful than elegant.[^[23]] When the story about the writ got abroad it afforded the Unionists of the city much merriment. It was one of those humorous incidents that enlivened and cheered us amid much that was sad and depressing. Some repeated the words of Lincoln in his inaugural address: “The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government,” and then added, “by replevin;” and this evoked derisive laughter.

For two or three days rumors had reached General Frost that Captain Lyon was preparing to attack his encampment, and these rumors were so numerous and persistent, that Frost, on the morning of May 10th, addressed a letter to Captain Lyon referring to these ominous reports and wishing to know if there was any truth in them; also declaring that neither he nor his command intended any hostility “towards the United States, or its property or representatives.” How Frost could say this is a mystery. In January he secured from the disloyal Major Bell the pledge that he would not defend the Arsenal against State troops and so reported to Governor Jackson; in April he was in conference with the Governor and chief secessionists of St. Louis; in a formal memorial he had already prayed the Governor to authorize him to form a military encampment near the city, and advocated placing it on the heights above the Arsenal; immediately thereafter the Governor in an autograph letter, sent by two of the secessionists with whom he and Frost had been plotting to take the very property of the United States that Frost now declared he had no intention of touching, solicited personally from Jefferson Davis cannon to be planted on those heights, where Frost contended that his encampment should be formed. This very loyal man a little later went straight into the rebel army. He evidently went to his own place. On June 12th, 1861, he openly proclaimed himself a rebel.[^[24]] In December of that year he was doing for the Southern Confederacy the work of a spy at St. Louis.[^[25]] The sandy-haired, blue-eyed Captain at the Arsenal knew Frost’s real character; and did not deign to answer his letter that was so full of professed loyalty to the United States.

All of Lyon’s forces were at noon gathered at the Arsenal and ready to do his bidding. About two o’clock he divided his brigade into three detachments and ordered them to proceed by different routes to Camp Jackson. Two of them went on different streets up through the central part of the city, one along its western boundary. They arrived simultaneously on different sides of the camp and took possession of every approach to it. The artillery took positions on the higher points of ground around the encampment. The whole movement was executed with skill and precision. Lyon now sent a communication to Frost, setting forth what he considered to be the real character of his camp. He demanded the immediate and unconditional surrender of his entire command. He gave him thirty minutes to decide what he would do. Frost now had a brief consultation with his staff. They saw that they were surrounded by a force greatly superior to their own. To fight would be worse than folly. They chose the part of wisdom and surrendered. They turned over to the United States forces all their arms, ammunition, accoutrements and camp equipage.

The excitement produced in the city by the marching of Lyon’s troops through it, and by his investment and capture of the secession camp, was wide-spread and intense. To what deeds of violence it might lead no one could conjecture, but all feared some catastrophe. When the troops were moving towards the encampment, almost involuntarily I joined the throngs on the street that were hurrying thitherward. I met a large sandy-haired man, fully six feet in height, hat in hand, head partially bald, with shaggy over-hanging eyebrows. He was a stranger to me. He was not apparently in a rage, but his massive frame shook with emotion. He knew me, and with nervous, jerky gesticulation and in a loud tone of voice he cried, “This is the result of just such preaching as yours!” I replied, “What do you think Lyon is going to do?” With still greater vehemence he cried out, “He’s gone out to kill all the boys,—to kill the boys,” and strode on faster than I cared to go. He was a slightly exaggerated example of the agitation that swayed and impelled the thousands that were gathering in the neighborhood of that fated camp. It was invested at half past three in the afternoon. Then men came running from all directions with rifles, shot guns and pistols. When they heard of the movement of Lyon and Blair they had, by common impulse, started out, with such weapons as they could command on the spur of the moment, to re-enforce the brigade of Frost. It was a pity that they arrived too late. If they had been thirty minutes earlier the number of prisoners taken by Lyon would have been largely increased, and possibly the unfortunate and needless effusion of blood, which marked the close of the scene at Camp Jackson, would have been avoided.

Lyon offered to release the prisoners if they would swear to support the Constitution of the United States, and not to take up arms against the Federal government. This they then refused to do on the ground that they had already taken the oath of allegiance to the United States, and to repeat it would be a confession of disloyalty. So they were marched out of the camp, forming a long column between two lines of Union soldiers. While this column of prisoners was being completed those farthest in advance were brought to a halt. That brief delay resulted in bloody disaster. Many of the prisoners belonged to families of high social standing in the city. The soldiers that were in line on either side of them were mostly Germans, always scornfully called Dutch by the secessionists. Throngs of angry men and women pressed up close to them, gesticulating and heaping upon them opprobrious, stinging epithets. It was difficult for them to endure this without retaliation. Among those who upbraided them were the men who had hurried thither with arms to re-enforce the camp. With their rifles, shotguns and pistols in hand they bitterly taunted, and struck with their fists, the captors of their relatives and friends. Human nature at last gave way. A few of the soldiers at the head of the column turned and fired into the mocking, vituperative crowd and for their rash act were promptly put under arrest. By that volley happily no one was injured. But the firing enhanced the fury of the disloyal in the gathered and gathering multitude. Some, pressing upon the soldiers, spat upon them. Some threw stones into their ranks; there were two or three shots from the turbulent throng, when, at the lower end of the columns of soldiers, one or two volleys were poured into the excited throng. It was positively denied that any officer commanded the soldiers under him to fire. These undisciplined volunteers were unable to stand motionless and in silence when attacked by stones and guns. The result was pitiable. The number of killed and wounded was about twenty-five. Not alone those guilty of jeering and attacking the soldiers were struck down, but chiefly the innocent, who had been attracted to the spot by the general and unusual excitement, and some of them were women and children. This catastrophe stirred the city to its depths. While the loyal rejoiced over the capture of the camp, they deplored the unnecessary bloodshed that had attended it; still, taking into account the irritating provocation, they could not lay the blame wholly on the raw German troops; nevertheless, the secessionists, humiliated and exasperated, swore that they would avenge the capture of their camp.

At about half past five, soldiers and prisoners began their long march to the Arsenal. The streets through which they passed were lined with people agitated with deep but diverse emotions. Some viewed with smiles, if not with open-mouthed exultation, the column of disarmed, tramping prisoners, shut in between files of newly armed Germans; the same scene stirred others to bitter execration. From the windows of some houses the soldiers were saluted by the waving of handkerchiefs; from the windows of others women expressed their bitter scorn by spitting at them. These troops with their crestfallen prisoners marched along a street which crossed the one on which I lived. A lady from the South was spending a few days with a family that lived next door to me. She was a very pleasant person, and altogether sane on every subject except that of secession. Any allusion to that seemed at once to unbalance her. She stood with quite a large group of spectators at the intersection of the streets, viewing the troops as they began to file past with the prisoners. She trembled with excitement. She forgot her ladyhood. She clenched and shook her fist at the soldiers, and cried, “They’ve got my lover.” A moment after she ran up to, and spat upon, a soldier; in a twinkling he broke ranks, leveled his bayonet toward her, and chased her down the street before my door. A sergeant followed him, seized him by the collar and led him back to his place in the marching column.

When night was slowly shutting down on the city, soldiers and prisoners arrived at the Arsenal; the former to stand guard over their new charge, the latter to think after the excitement of the day was over on this sudden and unexpected change in their affairs.

For supper they were offered ordinary soldier’s fare; but having been luxuriously fed at Camp Jackson from the tables of their secession friends, they scorned army rations. They not only refused to eat but, to show their contempt for their captors and their resentment for being treated as prisoners of war, they kicked over the buckets of coffee provided for them, and tossed the hardtack and bacon over the enclosing wall of the Arsenal. They were not very hungry, but some of them afterwards reported that they were treated with indignity and that the Yankees tried to starve them.

At the taking of Camp Jackson there was a spectator, then comparatively unknown, who was destined to fill a large place in his country’s history. He was a graduate of West Point and had served with fidelity as a subordinate officer in the regular army. Besides such service he had been by turns a banker in San Francisco and New York, an attorney in Leavenworth, Kansas, and superintendent of a military academy in Louisiana. Just then he was president of a street horse-car railway in St. Louis. Such, up to that time, had been the checkered career of William Tecumseh Sherman.

Immediately after the taking of Camp Jackson, a rebel flag at Fifth and Pine Streets came down never to be run up again. This was the first visible effect of Lyon’s victory. The lowering of that symbol of disunion was witnessed by a modest man, before whom was opening a marvellously brilliant career of which as yet he had not even dreamed. He was then thirty-nine years old. He too was a graduate of West Point, and while an officer of lower rank had distinguished himself by efficient and brilliant service. But for a time, turning aside from a military life, he had been a farmer, a speculator in real estate, and a leather-dealer. But now, when needed in defence of the Union, he had offered his services to his country through the Governor of Illinois, and had come over to St. Louis on a tour of observation. He heard the shouts that the taking of Camp Jackson and the coming down of the Stars and Bars from the roof of the secession rendezvous drew from loyal throats. Soon after he started in a horse-car for the Arsenal that he might personally congratulate Captain Lyon on the wise and timely work that he had so resolutely and skilfully done. In the car a young Southerner, full of anguish and wrath over the lowering of the secession flag, said to him: “Things have come to a d——d pretty pass when a free people can’t choose their own flag. Where I came from, if a man dares to say a word in favor of the Union, we hang him to a limb of the first tree we come to.” The modest man, into whose ears he poured this vengeful screed, quietly replied: “After all, we are not so intolerant in St. Louis as we might be; I have not seen a single rebel hung yet, nor heard of one; there are plenty of them who ought to be, however.”[^[26]] To this stinging rebuke there was no response. The young and fiery secessionist was dumb before a man of power; he felt, but could not understand, the humbling force of his simple words. The name of that unswerving Unionist and patriot, Ulysses Simpson Grant, is now in our own nation, and in all nations that love freedom, a household word.

But the excitement that was created in the city by the capture of Frost and his brigade is indescribable. Throngs gathered on all the principal thoroughfares. On Fourth Street, then the centre of the retail trade of the city, crowds moved to and fro eager for news. They bore banners of various and diverse devices. One band of men as they pushed excitedly along cheered, another going in the opposite direction answered the cheer by a groan. Distinguished and influential citizens addressed an excited multitude in front of the Planters’ Hotel, endeavoring to allay their seething passions. At different places in the city men were speaking to impromptu audiences, in which some were cheering while others were yelling defiance, to bring them if possible to calmness and reason. In different directions a shot could now and then be heard. As soon as it was dark, from fear of riot, the saloons and restaurants were closed and their doors were bolted and barred. The windows of many private houses were also shut and securely fastened. The theatres and all places of public amusement were empty. The police were on the alert, but were taxed to the utmost to nip in the bud any show of disorder. In spite of their vigilance and efficiency a crowd made a charge on Dimick’s gun-store on Main Street, broke open the door and secured fifteen or twenty guns, when the gathering mob was dispersed by about twenty policemen armed with muskets. But as the night wore on the excitement abated; men by degrees sought their homes and their beds; some in quietude to rejoice over the brightening prospects of Unionism, others to mourn over the fading hopes of secession.

When morning dawned, the prisoners at the Arsenal viewed more favorably the conditions on which the day before parole had been offered them. All but one now took the prescribed oath of allegiance to the United States, and, thereupon being paroled, left for their homes, where they were joyfully greeted and sat down to well-loaded tables. The plucky one, however, persisting for a time in his refusal to subscribe to the oath, remained in durance vile. But many of those who were paroled openly declared that they did not intend to abide by their oaths, excusing their purposed perjury on the specious plea that an oath taken under compulsion is not binding.

This disregard of the oath of allegiance stirred up all good men in our city to consider its sanctity and to protest against its wanton violation. Still, most of those captured at Camp Jackson, in spite of the fact that they were paroled because they deliberately swore that they would not take up arms against the United States, enlisted sooner or later in the army of the Southern Confederacy.

The sudden and unexpected taking of Camp Jackson carried consternation into the secession legislature, then in extra session at Jefferson City. It was announced to them between five and six o’clock in the afternoon. The members of the Assembly were discussing a militia bill, which, after receiving the news, they passed within fifteen minutes. In haste they sent it to the Senate, where it was passed instanter without debate.

This bill, which General Harney later characterized as a secession measure, created a military fund for arming and equipping the militia of the State. All moneys in the treasury collected for other and specified objects were diverted to this purpose. To augment this military fund taxes on the assessed value of property were enormously increased. Even the school tax was subsidized for three years. Moreover, the Governor was authorized to call on the banks for a loan of five hundred thousand dollars. By this bill, the militia were required to take an oath that asserted fealty to Missouri as first and supreme;[^[27]] so dominant was State sovereignty in the minds of these secession legislators.

At half past seven the legislature, which had become calmer and in some measure reassured, met once more to discuss the anomalous condition of affairs. But as there seemed to be no immediate danger, these disloyal lawmakers adjourned at half past nine, and, with most of the peaceably disposed inhabitants of Jefferson City, retired for the night. But their rest was soon broken. A little after midnight the bells began to ring furiously; a tremendous thunder-storm was just bursting upon the city; amid vivid lightning flashes, deafening thunderclaps, and torrents of pelting rain, men on foot and on horseback flew through the city, summoning with stentorian cries the legislature to assemble with all possible despatch. It met in secret session at half past three in the morning. Without deliberation it gave the Governor absolute control over St. Louis and conferred upon him extraordinary powers for suppressing insurrectionary movements throughout the State.

What terrible thing had produced this panic? A rumor, flying on the wings of darkness, had reached the city that Colonel Blair, with two thousand troops, was on his way to the State capital. He was coming on the Pacific Railroad. Steam-cars moved rapidly and this hostile invasion must be met at once, if met at all. Without any delay the Governor and his staff began to remove war material from the city. Under the cover of darkness they sent twelve thousand kegs of powder into the country. An armed and tumultuous band of men moved eastward and burned the railroad bridge over the Osage. This relieved the fears of those at the capital, since Blair with his German minions would for a time, at all events, be hindered by that swollen and bridgeless river. But it was all a baseless fright. Colonel Blair and his soldiers were serenely sleeping at St. Louis, having been lulled to their slumbers by the satisfaction that in taking Camp Jackson they had done a good day’s work for the Union.

The next day, the 11th of May, all the material captured at Camp Jackson was removed to the Arsenal. Then all the city knew, what Lyon had known before, the hostile nature of that captured camp. Its main avenue was named Jefferson Davis; one of its principal cross-streets Beauregard. Its arms, both muskets and cannon, had been stolen from the Arsenal at Baton Rouge. They had been consigned as marble[^[28]] to “Tamoroa, Care of Greely and Gale.” This was of course a mere blind, since the firm of Greely and Gale was distinguished in the city for its outspoken loyalty. But the officers of the steamer on which these munitions of war were brought up the river to St. Louis were in sympathy with General Frost and his immediate counsellors, and, without raising any question, delivered this war material, not to those to whom it was consigned, but to those for whom it was intended. Among the cannon were the pieces that Jefferson Davis had ordered to St. Louis, that were to be placed, according to the plan of General Frost and the Governor, on the bluffs, overlooking the Arsenal, in order to capture it; but since the opportunity to plant them there had passed, they were taken instead to Camp Jackson. Everybody who did not know before, knew now that Camp Jackson was an ally of the Southern Confederacy.[^[29]] Some of the young men within that camp, as has been claimed, may have been hoodwinked Unionists, but considering all the evidences of the disloyal character of the encampment, daily thrust before their eyes, if they were deceived, they must have been unusually stupid.

CHAPTER VII
RIOT, PANIC, SEARCH AND CONFISCATION

While on the 11th of May, the day succeeding the capture of Camp Jackson, the frenzy evoked by that startling event had measurably passed away, it had been succeeded, in the minds of many of the disloyal, by a grim determination to take summary vengeance on the victorious Unionists. On that very day, at the evening twilight, the opportunity presented itself for carrying out their vindictive purpose. It was rumored that a regiment of Home Guards, made up largely of Germans, was about to return from the Arsenal, where it had just been armed. In some way a band of fiery secessionists ascertained the route that the regiment would take on its return march, and for the purpose of harassing and attacking it, hid themselves behind the pillars of a Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets. In dwelling-houses opposite the church were some of their allies. They had planned to attack the regiment simultaneously on both flanks. And when in the gathering darkness, these newly armed men were peacefully passing westward along Walnut Street, their concealed foes at first jeered and hissed them. This was followed by unprovoked and dastardly attack. Missiles of various kinds, from both sides of the street, were hurled into the ranks of these new, undisciplined volunteers. A revolver was fired at them from behind the pillars of the church and a soldier fell dead. Two shots then rang out from the windows of the houses opposite the church. The soldiers in the van, now thoroughly demoralized, wheeled about and wildly fired down the street. The musket-balls flew in every direction. Some hit the church, some the houses opposite the church, while some were poured into their own ranks. When the firing ceased six men lay dead on the pavement: four of their own regiment, three of whom they themselves had killed, and two unarmed citizens; while several innocent passers-by were wounded.[^[30]] This sad event stirred up much vengeful passion. There was crimination and recrimination. Feeling on both sides ran high. It was intense, bitter, hot. Portentous rumors filled the air. Apprehension of something awful pervaded many minds. Disaster seemed impending. On a city thus agitated and torn midnight darkness at last graciously fell. A merciful Providence had at least held the contending multitudes back from general riot.

Morning dawned. It was Sunday, the 12th of May. The heavens were partially overcast, and there was a chill in the air. Very few besides the newsboys were seen in the streets. The general silence seemed in some way to foretoken the near approach of some overwhelming calamity. Abject fear had taken possession of many minds. The doors of hundreds of dwelling-houses were shut and bolted, and the windows darkened by blinds and shades were securely fastened. No one passing along the nearly deserted thoroughfares could escape a certain weird influence that enwrapped him and all things about him. Objects the most familiar wore an unusual and an uncanny aspect. What power was this which, from enfolding shadows, reached out its formless yet mighty hand and grasped thousands in our city and held them quivering with terror in its relentless grip? This, for want of a better name, men have called a panic. How it comes no one has ever been able to tell; how it departs never to return is equally mysterious. But on that Sunday morning, so long ago, it had thrown its horrid spell over St. Louis. And while men according to their varied constitutions were differently affected, none wholly escaped its dread touch. Still, what it was, no one was astute enough to explain, but that it was an awful reality thousands in the evening of that day of inexplicable alarm could testify.

The day before, General Harney had returned from Washington and resumed his old command. Before the gray dawn of the day of panic, some prominent citizens, incited by fear of which they could give no rational explanation, implored the General to protect them against the murderous Dutch (Germans), who were about to kill them and loot and burn their houses. When Harney asked them for the evidence of their declarations they had nothing more substantial to offer than Dame Rumor. Still, wishing to quiet their fears, he decided to yield to their entreaties so far as he could do so with dignity. So he sent from the Arsenal detachments of soldiers to those parts of the city, represented to be most exposed to the incursions of what he himself believed to be purely imaginary foes. He also issued a proclamation and posted it up in all of the most frequented streets and public places, declaring to the people that he nowhere saw any evidence of special danger, and appealed to them to lay aside their groundless fear. These considerate acts of the General had exactly the opposite effect from what he intended; instead of quieting the people they excited them still more; instead of allaying, they intensified, their alarm. And such an outcome was altogether natural. Bodies of armed men marching hither and thither through the city and stationed at different points as guards, and a proclamation hurriedly issued on Sunday morning, seemed to them to be tangible proof of the existence of greater danger than they had supposed. And, as the hours of the morning wore away, the apprehension of some awful calamity about to fall upon the inhabitants of the city grew until a great multitude were filled with terror.

At the usual hour for morning service, I went to church. On my way thither, I saw but few going to the different houses of worship. My own congregation was about one third of its usual size. Most of the church officers were absent. At the close of the service, groups of the small audience exchanged with each other a few words, declaring that in their judgment there was no danger, that the general fright was baseless, and then evidently with some degree of anxiety quickly departed for their homes.

It was now between twelve and one. The clouds of the morning were gone. The sun shone brightly. But the few people venturing out into the streets seemed even more cheerless and terror-stricken than earlier in the day. Here and there a carriage, filled with anxious faces, was driven hurriedly along. Just after my dinner, about two o’clock, my landlord and next-door neighbor, a moderate secessionist, cautious, conservative, phlegmatic, called to see me. He asked, apparently with great coolness: “Do you think that we are in any special danger?” I answered, “No, I do not think we are. The Germans, who have inspired so many with alarm, have no ill will towards us. The fear, now agitating so many in the city, has not a particle of foundation.” “Well,” he replied, “that is just what I think, but”—and here he betrayed his suspicion that there might be some danger which did not appear on the surface—“do you think when General Harney declared this morning in his proclamation that there was no cause for alarm, he concealed anything from the public?” I assured him that I fully believed that the general was acting a truthful and honorable part. He said: “I think so too,” and bade me good day; but within thirty minutes, an open two-horse carriage drove up to his door; his family brought out satchels, bags and pillow-cases, hastily stuffed with necessary articles of clothing, threw them pell-mell into the vehicle, and unceremoniously clambering in after them, drove away at breakneck speed as though they were pursued by some invisible demon.

This led me to go out and walk hither and thither through the central part of the city. The scene presented to my view was surpassingly strange. Carriages and wagons filled with trunks, valises, hastily made bundles, and frightened men, women and children were flying along the streets towards every point of the compass. Some scared souls, unable to obtain a vehicle of any kind, were walking or running with breathless haste, carrying all sorts of bundles in their hands, under their arms or on their shoulders. All these were fleeing from imaginary danger. But the fancied conflagration and slaughter which they believed themselves to be escaping were to them awful realities, enacted, with all their attendant horrors, over and over again within their minds.

Some of the panic-stricken fled into the country and found shelter in outside villages and farmhouses. A gentleman, who lived several miles northwest of the city, told me that these frightened fugitives filled all his spare beds, and lay all over the floors of his upper and lower hall and parlor. He was a Union man and poked fun at his unexpected secession guests on their senseless terror, but finding them just then incapable of mirth, and seeing that they were still keenly suffering from imaginary horrors, he mercifully desisted.

The scene at this farmhouse was representative of many similar scenes on that night in all the country about St. Louis. But many of the fugitives crossed the river on the ferry-boats and sought refuge in black-Republican Illinois. A host of them also filled the steamers at the levee and went north to Alton and Quincy, and South to Cairo and Columbus, while some of them refused to land till they reached Memphis. It is difficult for any one not an eye-witness to believe that such a stupid stampede could ever have taken place.

But some of the terror-stricken, who did not flee, acted with equal folly. A secession acquaintance of mine, living but two squares from my door, early in the day transformed his house into a fortress. He invited under his roof a dozen or more of his southern friends. Among them they had sixteen guns of various kinds. They barricaded the door and windows of the house, leaving loop-holes through which they could shoot. And there behind these hastily constructed defences, during all that Sabbath day, they waited with shivering apprehension for the coming of the dreaded foe, determined, if they should be called to lay down their lives, to sell them dearly.

But evening came. During the day no one had been injured. Nothing had transpired to justify the abject fear of so many thousands of people. Yet many of the terrified, who still remained in the city, were apprehensive lest the expected blow might fall under the cover of the gathering darkness. At the hour of evening service I was, as usual, in my pulpit. Only about sixty or seventy were in the pews. Only one officer of the church was present. Three neighboring pastors of other denominations were there. My wife and my sister were the only women in the congregation. I preached without making the slightest reference to the events of the day, believing that to be the wisest course. When the last word was spoken, the little company quickly and quietly dispersed. I learned the next day that we were the only Protestant congregation in the city that publicly worshipped on that anxious evening, and that the most prominent men in my church and congregation, belonging as they did to the Home Guards, were absent because engaged in military duty. With their muskets they were endeavoring to protect their terrified fellow-citizens against imaginary foes.

On Monday one of them gave me a detailed account of the movement of the Home Guards the night before. Early in the evening they threw a line of scouts across the city from east to west. Each soldier in the line was a square from his fellow. They then began to feel their way cautiously toward the southern part of the city, where most of the Germans lived, who were supposed to be so bloodthirsty. As they reached each street, running east and west, the scouts halted until word was passed from one to another along the whole extended line; then they crept on again toward that awful, invisible enemy. Nobody was abroad on the streets. The city was almost as still as a churchyard. The very stillness added to the general terror and made the flesh of the timid creep. A little before midnight these doughty scouts as they slowly moved southward, carefully scanning every street, alley and house for some lurking foe, saw before them armed men coming towards them from the south. They hailed each other. Word was passed along the whole of their respective lines; at last they were all gathered together. They were not enemies but friends, all equally intent on keeping the peace. Each man eagerly told what had been transpiring during the day in the part of the city to which he belonged. These scouts that had gone southward said that hosts of American-born citizens, living in the central part of the city, heard and fully believed that the Germans were coming up in force to loot and burn their houses and put them to the sword. On the other hand, the armed Germans said that the southern part of the city, where they lived, had all day been filled with terror, because a baseless rumor was firmly believed that the American-born citizens to the north of them were coming down to loot and burn their dwellings and kill them. Having thus told of the mutual fears of those whom they represented, and found their fancied foes to be their ardent friends, gloom gave way to merriment and joy. The whole day with all its fantastic scenes inspired by abject fear seemed now a huge joke. All anxiety gone, these mutual guardians of the peace shook hands with each other and shook their sides with laughter. Proud of the city in which they lived and grateful for its continued safety, they gave three cheers for her. The sound of those ringing cheers at midnight carried assurance and quietude to many that heard.

The next morning the lethargy of the city was as profound as the excitement of the preceding day had been intense. Before nine o’clock very few were astir. Here and there a pedestrian passed along on some necessary errand. On some streets market-wagons lumbered by. The morning markets, usually so full of life, were half deserted. However, as the day wore on, signs of returning activity multiplied; but when men met each other, they made scant allusion to the scenes of yesterday. There was evidently a good deal of thinking, but there certainly was very little talking. Many appeared to be ashamed of themselves. Those who had been terrorized manifestly desired to cover up and forget their folly; those who had not been much moved by the general alarm, in kindness restrained themselves from saying, “I told you so.” This was cheering. It showed that neighborly kindness and true manhood had not perished in the panic; that what was noblest and best in those who disagreed so radically on great questions of state policy, stretched itself over all their differences like a rainbow on the clouds of a passing storm.

But hundreds of our fellow-citizens were still in the places to which they had so hurriedly fled. On Monday most of them heard that no ruthless enemy had wrapped their dwellings in flames and slaughtered the defenceless; that the current of affairs in their beloved city was flowing on unimpeded and unruffled. By Tuesday a large number of them had quietly returned to their homes, and by the end of the week even those that sought refuge in distant cities shamefacedly came back. Unannoyed they resumed their duties. Few made any curious inquiries, or even alluded to their strange and groundless terror and ludicrous flight. No event so startling and unique was apparently so soon and utterly forgotten.

However, to make this portrayal of the panic adequate and just, one more thing must be specially noted. While but few could wholly escape its subtle and awful influence, I knew of no Unionist, nor heard of one, that through fear fled from the city. They did not for a moment believe that the loyal Germans intended violence to anybody. They therefore looked upon the scene of terror enacted before them with both amusement and amazement; but most of them learned, probably for the first time, how terribly real to frightened men and women imaginary evils can be, and so for their returning secession neighbors they had only kindly greetings.

Other stirring events soon claimed our attention and absorbed our thoughts. As soon as the panic was over, General Harney, in a vigorous proclamation, sustained the act of Lyon in taking Camp Jackson, enumerating the evidences that the camp was hostile to the general government; denounced the military bill recently passed by the legislature as an indirect secession ordinance, a nullity and not at all to be obeyed by the people of the State; declared that all the power of the United States would be used to maintain its supreme authority, and that “no subterfuges, whether in the form of legislative acts or otherwise, can be permitted to harass or oppress the good and law-abiding people of Missouri.”

This manifesto of the commanding general was a genuine surprise both to the secessionists and Unionists. Up to this time the former had regarded him as a moderate Unionist, whose hesitancy and vacillation enabled them to plot almost unmolested against the general government; while the latter had at times even doubted his loyalty to the Union. But now both parties saw the real sentiment of his heart. On account of it the secessionists were quite dispirited. The Missouri Republican, a semi-secession, Democrat paper, the next morning gave voice to their disappointment by saying, “We are bound hand and foot; chained down by a merciless tyranny; are subjected and shackled.”[^[31]]

But on all sides men were now asking, “Will the general by act make good the words of his proclamation?” He did not leave them long in doubt. His conclusive reasoning evidently was that if, for the protection of loyal citizens, it was necessary to capture Camp Jackson, it was equally necessary to break up all other places where the disloyal were gathering means which, at the opportune moment, they might use to secure the secession of the State. So, on the 17th of May, just five days after the panic, in order “to preserve the peace of St. Louis and promote the tranquillity of Missouri,” warrants were issued by the Federal Court for the search of all places within our city suspected of harboring articles contraband of war. With these warrants in hand, United States Marshal Rawlings, accompanied by a squad of Federal soldiers, under the command of Captain Sweeney, proceeded to the State Tobacco Warehouse on Washington Avenue, and to the Central Metropolitan Police Station on Chestnut Street.[^[32]] Both of these places were dominated and controlled by secessionists. In the latter gathered those police commissioners, who were appointed by the Governor, and reflected his notions and policies. At the Warehouse were found several hundred rifles, muskets, cavalry pistols, holsters, and small boxes of ammunition; and at the Police Station two pieces of cannon and many rifles. The marshal took possession of this war material, and the accompanying soldiers captured all the aiders and abettors of treason found in these nests of disloyalty. We all now saw that General Harney was acting up to his brave and true words, and that the judges and officers of the United States courts were intent on recovering, so far as possible, the stolen property of the general government; that both the civil and military powers were joining hands in enforcing the law and in suppressing secession and revolt.

But very soon after this exhibition of energy and loyalty on the part of Harney, anxious to preserve the peace of his beloved Missouri, on the 21st of May, just four days after the search and seizure narrated above, he entered into a formal agreement with Price,[^[33]] then the major-general of the Missouri militia, in which he committed the whole military care of the State to the latter, binding himself not to use United States troops in Missouri for the suppression of disorder or the defence of any of its inhabitants, unless asked to do so by the State authorities. In short he covenanted to abandon utterly all initiative in military operations within our commonwealth, and to subject himself to the lead of the commander of the State militia. This agreement pledged the Federal government to uphold in the most practical fashion the doctrine of State sovereignty; it sustained the very thing which the United States was marshalling its armies to oppose and if possible to crush out forever. Over this ill-starred covenant with our enemies, every Unionist of St. Louis and Missouri was sick at heart. Such an agreement carried out would have been the death-blow to all loyalty throughout the State. The Unionists of St. Louis wondered how a general, who had been so outspoken against disunionism a few days before, could be so hoodwinked as to enter into a solemn compact by which he permitted the enemy of his country to bind him hand and foot. As he ought to have expected, the government which he had so utterly misrepresented in this strange compact with Price promptly removed him from his command, and put in his place Lyon, who a few days before had been made brigadier-general.

Lyon took hold of his new duties with a will. In the latter part of May, by his order, the steamer “J. C. Swan” was seized at Harlow’s Landing, about thirty miles below the city, and brought up to the St. Louis Arsenal.[^[34]] This was the boat that surreptitiously brought from Baton Rouge the arms that were captured at Camp Jackson. By due process of law she was confiscated and put into the service of the Union. But nothing escaped the eagle eye of the Yankee general at the Arsenal. He seemed intuitively to apprehend the designs and movements of the Confederates. So while with one hand he seized this recreant steamer, with the other he intercepted at Ironton, on the Iron Mountain Railroad, several tons of lead en route for the South. A party of secessionists resisted the military force sent to make this capture, some shots were fired, but happily no blood was shed. That lead was diverted from the Southern Confederacy. Lyon saw to it that it was shot not at Union men, but by them at the enemies of the Union.

The exportation of lead from Missouri was one of the cherished plans of the Southern malcontents. As early as May 1st, 1861, Samuel Tate, writing from Charleston, South Carolina, to the Hon. A. M. Clayton of Montgomery, Alabama, pressed upon his attention the importance of keeping Missouri under the control of the Confederacy. Without her, he urged, the last hope would be cut off “for a full supply of provisions and lead.”[^[35]] He said, “Governor Jackson is with us. His people are with us, except at St. Louis, where they are divided. The first thing we know, we shall be out of powder, lead and percussion caps.” So, early in the war, one clear-headed man, south of Mason and Dixon’s line, understood our Governor, and saw what an important storehouse for the rebel armies Missouri would be, and insisted that no effort should be spared to unite her destiny with that of the Confederacy. But Lyon had otherwise determined; and during that ever memorable month of May, mainly through his initiative and under his direction, the most startling events followed each other in rapid succession. Camp Jackson was taken; the rebel flags were lowered; nests of secessionists were broken up and their arms, gathered with hostile intent, were captured; a treacherous steamboat was seized and confiscated; a train of cars laden with lead for the Southern Confederacy was intercepted. At that early stage of the war, all these things were surpassingly strange to us, and by them for weeks the whole city was kept bubbling with excitement.

CHAPTER VIII
THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS

Before the war of the rebellion, the pulpit had ably discussed in all of its aspects the question of slavery. And as the mighty conflict for the preservation of the Union was approaching, all the vast issues wrapped up in it were handled with rare skill by distinguished preachers both of the North and the South. But since in St. Louis Christian ministers holding opposite views on the great national questions of slavery and secession stood face to face, for a time they refrained from speaking upon them publicly. They were not silent from cowardice; so far from that, it required no small degree of self-control to hold their peace. They shut their lips lest by speaking they should unnecessarily disturb the peace of the community.

Moreover, many a pastor, out of tender regard for the members of his church and congregation, for some months at the beginning of the Civil War refused to discuss in his pulpit the question of the hour. Unless, in his judgment, the public good imperatively demanded it, he felt unwilling to wound the feelings of Christian friends and split his church into hostile parties by openly proclaiming his patriotic convictions. Nor should we fail to note that most of the preachers of the city rightly felt that their work primarily was distinctively spiritual, rather than political; that however sacred might be their duty to their country, there were duties still higher and still more sacred. They were also persuaded that they should, so far as in them lay, calm the public mind rather than agitate it; should strengthen reason and cool passion; promote love and discourage hatred and revenge. Accordingly, such men as Eliot of the Unitarians, Post of the Congregationalists, Nelson of the Presbyterians, Schuyler of the Episcopalians, the staunchest of Union men, and each of them a tower of strength in the city, seeking to do the largest possible good in a community divided and torn by antagonistic political doctrines, for a season refrained from giving public utterance to their Union sentiments. When, however, they did speak, they boldly discussed with great ability and thoroughness the duties which citizens owe to the State.

During the winter of 1860–61 there was but one clergyman in the city, who publicly spoke upon the great national issue, and he was a pronounced and prominent secessionist, or, which was the same thing under a different label, a conditional Unionist. And strange to say, this good Presbyterian brother regarded the introduction of politics into the pulpit with holy horror; at all events he thought that his brethren in the ministry should refrain from discussing in the house of God disturbing political problems; nevertheless, he, in an elaborate discourse, on the Lord’s Day, set forth in his pulpit, “The Ultimatum of the South.” But our ministerial brother apparently failed to see that “wherein he judged another he condemned himself.” He not only preached a political sermon, but published it in pamphlet form, and did what he could to scatter copies of it all over the State. So he was not after all really opposed to preaching politics, but to preaching politics that antagonized his own cherished political views. Not his own, but his opponent’s politics degraded the pulpit.

Since, however, it is my purpose to present in these pages not only my observations of others, but also my own experiences, I trust that it will not be regarded as egotistical and indelicate on my part, if I carefully portray some scenes in which I was called to be an actor. From 1858 to 1866 I was pastor of the Second Baptist Church of St. Louis and preached at the corner of Sixth and Locust Streets, in a plain, steepleless, brick meetinghouse, painted lead color. The membership of the church was five or six hundred, and for three years of my pastorate, the men outnumbered the women. The church contained an unusual number of able, aggressive young men. In the congregation the rich and the poor sat side by side. All walks and pursuits of life were there represented. In the pews were a goodly number of lawyers, some of them among the ablest advocates and counsellors in the State. One of them, James O. Broadhead, not a Baptist, a member of the Union Safety Committee, was a man of conspicuous ability. He was a native of Virginia, liberal-minded, conservative, clear-headed. He was an ardent patriot without fanaticism. While instinctively shrinking from all extreme positions on the vexed political questions of the hour, he was unswervingly loyal to the Union. In those dark tempestuous days, he stood like a granite rock amid the swirling waves of passion.

Moreover, in the congregation, and also in the membership of the church, was William M. McPherson. He came from the poor whites of Kentucky. What he was he owed largely to a godly mother. Amid great disadvantages he secured the rudiments of an English education. He then studied law at night, in his humble Kentucky home, by the light of flaming pine knots. He also taught a country school to put an honest penny into his empty purse. While yet in the beginning of his professional career as a lawyer, he came to St. Louis. He there at one time filled the office of United States attorney. Out of tender remembrance of his mother, and a sacred promise that he made her, he regularly attended church. He became a Christian. During my pastorate, out of choice he was an usher in the middle aisle, and none that received his attentions could ever forget the gracious kindliness of his manner. But back of his marked benevolence of spirit lay immense power of will. When he laid his hand to a work within or without the church, if human energy could accomplish it, it was quickly done. He was passionately devoted both to his city and his country. In the darkest days of the war, he was as true to the Old Flag as the needle to the pole. To preach to him and others of like spirit was an inspiration.

In my church were seven deacons, all of them loyal to the Federal government. Of some of them we shall have occasion to speak in another connection. But one of them, Daniel J. Hancock, a Gibraltar of strength to his pastor, I refer to here, on account of an interesting incident in connection with the public mention of his name. General Hancock, who in the Civil War acquired a world-wide military fame, spent the winter of 1860–61 in St. Louis. His father, who was a deacon of a Baptist church in Pennsylvania, paid him a visit. One Sunday morning they both worshipped with us. Before the sermon a collection was to be taken for some special object. I said, “Will Deacon Pratt and Deacon Hancock pass the contribution boxes?” General Hancock’s father, not knowing that there was a Deacon Hancock in my church, was on his feet in a moment, ready to do the duty asked. The general, pulling his father’s coattail, said to him in a whisper, “There is a Deacon Hancock in this church.” Was not the general’s readiness for any duty on the battlefield in large measure an inheritance?

As the winter wore away, and in turn spring and summer came, military officers in constantly increasing numbers appeared in the congregation. I very distinctly remember General Sumner. Every Sunday night for two or three months, he sat to my right near the pulpit. Being slightly deaf, he got as near as he could to the speaker. He was tall and graceful in form and movement, a man who would attract attention even in a crowd. He was afterwards conspicuous in the great battles of Fair Oaks, Antietam and Fredericksburg.

What I have now said may suggest with some distinctness the circumstances under which I performed my pulpit ministrations. But I was full of unrest because I had not spoken concerning the duties that we all sacredly owed to our country. I felt that sooner or later every man, who had any influence whatsoever, regardless of his surroundings, must speak out boldly on the great national issue. This conviction was re-enforced by two distasteful incidents thrust upon my attention. The first was this. At the Sunday morning service I usually prayed for the President and his advisers. So long as Mr. Buchanan was in office this appeared to be agreeable to all; but no sooner was Mr. Lincoln inaugurated than some began to object to this part of my prayer. In private conversation they gave free expression to their resentment. The congregation was divided on the question. Among themselves they warmly debated it. No one as yet had uttered his protest to me. But I had heard of the strenuous objection urged against my petition for our Chief Magistrate. Believing, however, that I was discharging a sacred duty, a duty positively enjoined in Scripture, I kept right on praying publicly for the President. There was as yet no sign of yielding on either side. Relations were already strained, if not wrenched. Something must be done, so, at least, thought the opposition forces. They got together and requested William M. McPherson, on their behalf, to talk the matter over with me. While he had no sympathy with their opposition, in order that he might do something in the interest of harmony in the church, he consented to lay their grievance before me. He invited me to meet him at his business office, that our interview might be strictly private. Since I had no truer friend, I gladly responded to his courteous request. When we met he at once said: “A considerable number of the church and congregation have sent to you through me an earnest petition that in the future you should forego praying publicly for the President. And they have asked me to induce you, if I can, to grant their desire.” I replied: “Such prayer is no new thing in my pulpit ministrations. I prayed for Mr. Buchanan and no one objected to that; and I do not see why any one should now object to my praying for Mr. Lincoln.” “Ah!” he answered, “that is just the sore point; they think that praying for Lincoln is partisan, that it is praying against the South; and can’t you for the sake of peace forego it?” I responded, “If Lincoln is as bad as they say he is, I am sure that both I and they ought to pray for him; he needs our prayers. Moreover, be so kind as to say to your brethren and mine, that according to the Protestant idea, prayer is indited by the Holy Spirit; and if the Holy Spirit leads me to pray publicly for the President, I must do it even though it may be disagreeable to my fellow men.”

My reply seemed to please him, and he said: “Shall I say that that is your message to them?” “Certainly,” said I, and our interview thus ended very pleasantly; but as I went towards my home, I became more positively convinced than ever, that all true men holding positions of trust in the city would soon be compelled to speak out with no uncertain accent on the question that was threatening to disrupt the Union. When the pews in opposition to good government go so far as to attempt to dictate the prayers of the pulpit and to repress all petitions for the President, the pulpit must either become subject to the pews, or squarely assert and defend its independence.

The second incident, constantly rankling like a thorn in my side, was the secession flag, already mentioned in a previous chapter. It fluttered over Sixth Street, about half a square from my church. Going to and fro in the discharge of my duties, I was compelled to pass beneath it. With many others, I wondered why the military authorities did not take it down by force. I did not then know, what all learned later, that just at that time they were in pursuit of larger game; that they were planning to strike at the centre of secession in our city, and so for the moment were wisely ignoring its incidental manifestations. But I had reached the limit of my patience, and could no longer mutely endure the flaunting of disloyalty. A fire was fiercely burning within my bones. I felt that it must have vent, or I should be consumed.

It was nineteen days before the taking of Camp Jackson. Sunday, April 21st, dawned. It was a warm bright day. My morning audience was large and attentive, but I was far from being happy. Back of the morning message there was another flaming in my soul for expression. No one yet knew what I contemplated doing in the evening. In the afternoon I met on the street one of my good deacons and made known to him my intention. Although a pronounced Unionist, for the sake of peace in the church and congregation he tried to turn me from my purpose; but when he found that my mind was fully made up, he said, “Well, if you must preach on secession, give them a 12–inch columbiad.” He had evidently overestimated the size of my gun, but such as I had, it was my fixed purpose to fire.

The evening came. The sky was clear. It was neither hot nor cold. The balmy air of spring enticed people from their houses. The church was unusually well-filled, and my secession friends were present in large numbers. I read for the Scripture lesson the 13th chapter of Romans, in which Paul teaches the duty of obedience to established government. Those in the pews listened with almost breathless interest to the words of the great Apostle. But while I read, two deacons of the church, who had been engaged in seating the congregation, standing under the gallery, between the doors of entrance to the audience room, had this suggestive colloquy. Both of them were unconditional Union men; but one of them, formerly a citizen of Massachusetts, nervously anxious to keep the peace, said to the other, who had once lived in Maryland, and afterwards in Indiana, “I hope the pastor is not going to preach to-night from any text in that chapter.” His associate in office replied, “Aren’t you willing that your pastor should take his text from any portion of the Word of God?” He responded, “I ought to say yes, but I confess that in the present circumstances I can’t.” Considering the sections of the Republic from which these gentlemen hailed, we should naturally have thought that their respective attitudes would have been the exact reverse. We should have looked for unyielding grit in the New Englander, and for pliancy in the Marylander. But happily in our country geography does not determine character, and this incident shows how two good men and true in St. Louis, in those dark days, were divided as to the line of action that should be taken to secure what they mutually and earnestly desired.

But the service moved on. The very air seemed tremulous with excitement. While singing the hymn immediately before the sermon, anxious expectation was depicted on the faces of the audience. I announced as my text Romans, the 13th chapter, the 1st and 2nd verses: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”

When I began to speak such a hush fell upon the congregation, that at the pauses between the sentences, I could hear the flicker of the gas. A large bronze-faced man, a stranger, had been seated near the centre of the audience room, in the end of a pew, that opened into the middle aisle, so that he was directly before me. My eye instinctively turned to him and at times seemed to be riveted upon him. I thought that he must be the deacon of some Baptist church back in the State. At first he was restless, and frequently changed his position; so I concluded that he was a secessionist and did not like what I was saying. But when I was a little more than half way through my discourse, he cried out, so that all in the house heard him, “Amen,” making the a long and emphatic. My wrong impression of him was at once corrected. He was, as I had surmised, a Baptist deacon, but from Illinois, not from Missouri, and his hearty “amen” added to the already intense excitement of the congregation. The sudden consciousness of having in him an ally instead of an enemy gave me a new sense of freedom, and I preached on with more than my usual ease and fervor, closing with these words: “I wish to bear my own individual testimony, to express the feelings of my heart. I love my country—I love the government of my country—I love the freedom of my country. It was purchased by the blood of our fathers, and when I become so base, so cowardly, so besotted that I dare not speak out in behalf of that for which they so bravely fought, I pray that my tongue may cleave to the roof of my mouth.

“But, brethren, we need have no fears as to the ultimate issue. The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. In this conflict your property may be swept away, and all may be reduced to a common level. Your life and mine may be sacrificed on the altar of our country, yet Jehovah, who presides over the scene, will bring the nation forth from the ordeal wiser, purer, nobler. If the scythe of rebellion is swung over our whole land, mowing down all of our free institutions, leave us the Christian family, the Christian Church, and the time-honored Bible, and in the track of the destroyer, they will spring up with new life, new power, and new glory. ‘The Lord reigneth: let the earth rejoice: let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.’”

For the last hymn I gave out “My country, ’tis of thee.” I am quite sure that it had not been sung for many months in St. Louis; at all events, as a congregation, we had refrained from singing it lest somebody might be offended by it. My secession friends did not even deign to open their hymn-books, but stood dumb while we sang. But compensations for their silence had been providentially provided. A part of a congregation of loyal Methodists, passing our house of worship on the way home from their evening service, had crowded into the vestibule, and listened to the close of my discourse; lingering there, they sang the national hymn as only Methodists can. Also a band of loyal Unitarians going along Locust Street by the church just as we began to sing, stood on the sidewalk, under the open windows, and sang with fervor. Half a square away a gentleman, sitting in his parlor with its windows shut, heard our patriotic song and was glad.

At the close of the service, a stranger unceremoniously approached me, and with some excitement of manner asked, “Do you expect to remain in the city?” I assured him that I did, but that it was a matter of indifference to me whether I did or not. Expressing the opinion that the people of the city would not permit me to remain, he disappeared in the departing crowd. Who he was, whence he came and whither he went, I knew not. From my own soul a burden had been lifted. As well as I could, I had spoken on behalf of our country. My mistake was that I had not spoken sooner. With a light heart I went back to my home and slept.

I must now mention what was to me an exceedingly important event, to which on account of its sacredness I should make no allusion if it were not intertwined with an incident which sets in a startling light the determination of not a few in St. Louis at that time to suppress, even by brute force, freedom of speech. Two days after the delivery of my sermon on “The Duty of Obedience to Established Government,” profoundly believing in the Union, I was married. But our city was so agitated and divided, that it was deemed best both by my bride and myself to make but a short wedding trip. We thought that we should not be long absent from pressing duties at home. So we went no farther than Cincinnati. We left behind us a flagless city; but when we reached the great city on the Ohio, it was just one gorgeous bouquet of national banners. The exhilaration and ecstasy of that scene no words can express. The remembered experience, the patriotic exultation of that hour, lingers like undimmed sunshine in my soul.

We remained in Cincinnati over the following Sunday. By a happy prearrangement, the young and eloquent Irish preacher of Quincy, Illinois, Rev. H. M. Gallaher, supplied my pulpit. As he began the evening service, a turbulent crowd gathered on Sixth and Locust Streets, in front and by the side of the church. They had evidently come together to mob me for my discourse the week before. When Mr. Gallaher was offering prayer before the sermon, some one of the crowd on Locust Street hurled a brickbat through the window, immediately to the left of the pulpit; the great window-pane was shivered in pieces, but the missile aimed at the preacher happily failed to reach its mark. It was caught by a Venetian blind and fell harmless to the floor. In spite of the sudden, unexpected crash, the plucky Irishman prayed on as though nothing had happened, and his cool persistence probably averted further disaster. My marriage had been a private one. Only a few intimate friends had witnessed it. Nobody had advertised it; so those intent on executing mob law upon me quite naturally supposed that I was in my pulpit. But, for some unknown reason, somebody in that vengeful throng began to suspect that their coveted game had slipped through their toils. While the fearless preacher in the pulpit continued to pray in apparent oblivion to splintering glass and a falling, resounding brickbat, two men from the mob without, pushing partly open one of the doors of the audience room, intently watched him. They evidently became satisfied before he closed his prayer that the object of their malice had in some way eluded them. They reported to the noisy, angry crowd in the street. The clamor gradually subsided. There followed for a few minutes a murmur of voices, then the disappointed multitude little by little melted away.

This menacing event greatly disturbed the officers of my church. Knowing the train on which we were returning to St. Louis, several of them came to greet us and tell us of the mob. They feared that it might gather again to carry out its fell purpose, and anxiously asked what line of action would be wisest and best? In a moment I decided what I should do. I told them that those who did not hear my sermon, but had learned of it merely from flying rumor, had exaggerated and false notions concerning it; that they had unquestionably misconceived its spirit; that I would at once write it out, just as I had uttered it in the pulpit, and print it in The Missouri Republican; that that journal of doubtful loyalty gladly published articles on both sides of the national question, and was very generally read by the secessionists; and that when those who were bent on mobbing their fellow-citizens for their honestly expressed political views should read it, they would not fail to see that it was not quite as objectionable as they supposed, and would lay aside their vengeful purpose.

Those who had anxiously sought my counsel approved, some of them with apparent reluctance, this proposed line of action. So I went directly from the boat on which we were ferried over the river, to my study, sat down to my self-appointed task, and did not rise until it was done. Over the sermon I wrote the following explanatory and conciliatory note.

“Since the delivery of this sermon, on the evening of April 21st, its statements and sentiments have been greatly misrepresented. While it was not prepared for publication, no word of it in fact having been written before its delivery, at the suggestion of judicious friends, we give it to the press, in order to correct the mistatements that have been made.”

I at once carried my manuscript to the editors of The Republican, who apparently received it with pleasure. The next day it was published, and having been so extensively talked about, it was widely read. The effect of its publication was just what I had anticipated. The excitement aroused by the spoken discourse, whose scope and spirit had been greatly misapprehended by those who did not hear it, measurably died away; but no one thereafter doubted where my pulpit stood on the vexed question which was then dividing the nation.

The next Sunday morning, when I stepped into my pulpit, I had before me one striking evidence of the effectiveness of my patriotic sermon. In one entire row of pews, stretching from the pulpit to the outer door, there were only three families. There my secession friends, whom I highly esteemed, had been accustomed to sit; but a discourse on loyalty to the general government had driven them away, never to return. That row of empty pews was on the north side of the middle aisle, but a Southern brother of high standing with a twinkle in his eye said to me, “That is the South side of the house.” We deeply regretted to lose those who so unceremoniously left us; but as no man or set of men is indispensable, we went on prosperously without them. Their departure in some measure strengthened us. They had been a disturbing element, and after they had gone, we had that power that flows from unity of spirit and action.

They took with them when they seceded a bright young Scotchman; but after an absence of six weeks, he returned. At the close of the morning service he very cordially greeted me, and said in his broad Scotch accent: “I suppose you have noticed that I have been away. I went with the rest, and we were foolish enough to think that when we departed the roof of the church would fall in and the walls would fall down; but every morning, when I went to business, I looked over this way, and saw that she still stood, and so I thought I would come back.” But all did not have the horse-sense of this Scotchman; only a few of the seceders ever returned, but others came to take their places, and by the following October the pews were fuller than ever; but many who sat in them wore the shoulder-straps of army officers.

There was, however, one sad, yet ludicrous, incident, connected with my sermon on “Obedience to the State,” which shows that the brutal spirit of the mob was not wholly extinct. On Locust Street, two squares west of our house of worship, stood the Central Presbyterian Church. Its pastor was Rev. S. J. P. Anderson, D. D. He had occupied that position for fifteen or twenty years, and both on account of the length of his pastorate and his acknowledged ability was generally known, even among non-churchgoers, while I, having the same surname, had been in St. Louis not quite three years. It was therefore perfectly natural for godless outsiders to attribute to him my pulpit utterances, which had stirred up so much bad blood. So they determined to chastise him for what I had said. Now he was a secessionist. In the preceding winter he had preached the sermon to which we have already alluded, on “The Ultimatum of the South.” While of course he would have utterly condemned all mob violence, still the men who had marked him out for brutal usage were in political fellowship with him. They watched for an opportunity to carry out their ruthless purpose, and found it. He was accustomed, every Saturday night, just at dusk, to go to the Post-office, at the corner of Third and Pine Streets, to get his mail. There was then no free delivery. His assailants hid themselves in an alley which ran into Pine Street, and as he was passing by, threw brickbats at him, one of which struck him on the cheek, and knocked him down. The next day his face was so swollen and painful that he could not preach. They aimed at me and hit him. They ignorantly knocked down their own political ally. They compelled him to be my substitute. He unwillingly suffered in my stead. He soon recovered, and I hastened to assure him of my deep regret that he had been compelled to suffer vicariously for me. To which he very naturally replied: “Yes, indeed, I don’t wish to be mixed up with you.” Nor did I wish to be politically mixed up with him, however useful in this case it had been to me. On one point we were in absolute agreement, our mutual desire not to be confounded with each other in the public mind.

Two more incidents, though pertaining wholly to my own church and congregation, are worthy of notice, as revealing the peculiar sensitiveness of those among whom we lived and toiled. My secession brethren determined if possible to oust me from my pastorate; they declared that their opposition to me was solely because I had introduced politics into the pulpit. To carry out their purpose, they drew up a paper setting forth their grievances, and urgently praying me to resign. They made an extended canvass for signatures, but had such meagre success that they abandoned their project.

They then sent a committee to me, asking that, inasmuch as I had fully expressed my views on the great national issue, I would hereafter refrain from all utterance on the subject in my pulpit, promising, if I would enter into such an agreement, that they would resume their places and duties in the church. But I assured them that, while it would give me great pleasure to yield to their wishes, I could not enter into any such compact; that I might be under solemn obligation to speak again, and that I must not become a party to any bargain that would debar me from doing my whole duty. My answer enraged the chairman of the committee, and he declared that I wanted “to kick them out of the church.” I replied, “You will bear witness that that is your language, not mine. I should be glad to keep you all in the church, and have you willingly grant me unrestricted freedom of speech; but whether you go or stay I cannot put my neck under the yoke that you have prepared for it.” With this interview, so far as I am aware, ended their efforts to drive me from my post or to padlock my lips.

The sermon that provoked so much opposition had in itself no special merit. It was the time of its utterance, and the circumstances in which we were then living, that gave it importance. It proved to have been the first out and out Union sermon preached in St. Louis, and, with the sermons of other preachers North and South, was published in Moore’s Rebellion Record. There are some sentences in it that must be set down both to the hot blood of youth and the aggravation of the times; but at all events it was an utterance of intense conviction.

But in our varied experiences it is clear that the good far outweighed the bad. There was more honey than gall, more love than hate, more self-sacrificing toil for others than self-seeking; and while some Christian pastors were anxious and harassed, and all churches were more or less agitated and some of them divided, in the face of a common danger, sectarianism for the time being seemed to be utterly swept away. In the loyal churches men and women, irrespective of denomination, frequently met to pray for the Republic. Trinitarian and Unitarian, Baptist and Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Episcopalian stood or kneeled side by side and poured out their petitions to God for our distracted city and country. They prayed with special fervency for the President, his Cabinet, the deliberating Congress and gathering army.

In addition to the meetings in the different churches, we frequently met for prayer at nine o’clock in the morning in one of the large halls of the city. There were often from fifteen hundred to two thousand present. At the close of each devotional hour the whole congregation rose and simultaneously lifting up their right hands repeated in concert, after the leader of the meeting, the oath of allegiance to the government of the United States. During my life I have looked upon many impressive scenes, but never upon one so morally sublime as that. At each repetition of that oath, the loyalty of every one that took it with his hand uplifted to the God of nations, daily grew deeper and stronger. Every one thus crowning his prayer for his country with his oath of fealty to it went out from those meetings with a mightier purpose to do all within his power to maintain the integrity of the Union.

There were many very peculiar incidents in the churches, growing out of the excitement of the time, some of which are indelibly impressed upon my mind. An eccentric lawyer regularly attended the weekly prayer-meeting of my church. He rightly held that we should be specific in our prayers, and lived up fully to his conviction. He was very tall, and while offering prayer he usually stood by a supporting post and leaned his head sidewise against it, reminding one of a massive prop placed to strengthen a weakening pillar. In that unusual attitude of body, he asked God with minute particularity for the things that he desired. When he prayed for any public official or general in the army he called him by name. He prayed for the soldiers that they might have good health and strength, and courage in battle, and be obedient to their commanding officers, and that God would direct the Minie balls when they shot and make them effective, that the enemies of our country might be speedily subdued. Whatever any one may think of such prayers, they at all events caught the attention of even the dullest and waked up the sleepers.

We note also a very different incident, which was still more indicative of the feelings which at that time swayed many minds in our city. A lady of my congregation was exceedingly prejudiced against preaching politics, without having any clear notion of what politics was. She once sat immediately before me when I was speaking to the children of the Sunday-school. To illustrate and enforce my thought, I related an incident concerning a drummer-boy, whereupon she nudged with her elbow a woman who sat by her side, and said in a tone so loud that I distinctly heard her, “I do wish the pastor would let politics alone.”

An excellent Presbyterian pastor, with whom I often conversed, was greatly perplexed as to whether he should preach on the subject of secession. He was intensely loyal; but his church was not large and in national politics was apparently about equally divided. In determining his duty he sought my counsel. I told him that, taking into account all the circumstances, he ought in my judgment to forego, for a time at least, the public discussion of the national problem. While he seemed satisfied that I had pointed out what was wisest for him to do, he found it very difficult to keep silent concerning his country even for a season. Patriotism burned hotly within his heart. To get some relief he preached one Sunday afternoon on Paul’s words, “I have fought the good fight.” He began his sermon by saying, “There are then some fights that are good. The fight against sin is a good fight. The fight against the devil is a good fight.” But just as he pronounced the last sentence, a pew-door flew open spitefully, and one of the ablest women of his church walked excitedly down the middle aisle and out of the outer door, never again to return. Immediately after the service he went to see her. He went too soon. She had not had time to cool; moreover his prompt visit tended to pamper her self-importance. He gently asked why she left the church so abruptly? She replied that she left because she was offended, and said that she thought he ought not to have preached from that text. But he inquired why that text displeased her. She said, “Did you not say that some fights are good fights?” “Certainly,” he replied, “and are they not?” “Oh, yes,” she responded, “but you meant the fight against the Southern Confederacy.” That was probably the fact. He was giving, perhaps unconsciously, just a little vent to his own flaming patriotism. She felt it. She intuitively knew it. He could not persuade her to return to her place and her duty. That good pastor, sorely beset and tried, at last delivered fully his patriotic message and resigned. From such an event we learn how difficult it was to be a good and faithful minister of Christ in a border city at the beginning of our civil war.

But there were also many cheering occurrences during those dismal days; some deeds of sense and self-restraint illumined the thickening gloom.

“How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

Early in 1861, before the river to the South was obstructed, a Christian gentleman from Mississippi often came up to St. Louis on business. Whenever he stayed over Sunday he worshipped with my congregation. He was a pro-slavery man and a secessionist. In those days I always prayed publicly for the country, for all that were in authority, and that all efforts to break up the Union might be thwarted. One of my brethren asked him if the prayers did not offend him. He pleasantly replied, “No, not at all; I pray with your pastor till he gets to the country, and then I just skip that.” He was one of those rare souls that in a time of discord and conflict are lifted above unseemly passion, and kept with his brethren, from whom he politically differed, “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Nor must I fail to notice a warm-hearted, impulsive member of my church, a Kentuckian by birth. He firmly believed that secession was constitutional and right, and that slavery was of divine origin. He had not yet learned that “what is inhuman cannot be divine.” He was filled with indignation when I maintained in the pulpit that there was no just cause for rebellion against the Federal government, and that instead we were under solemn obligation to obey it; notwithstanding, soon after he invited me, together with my wife, to dine at his house just outside the city. At the appointed time he sent his carriage for us. On our arrival, after warmly greeting us at the gate, he said to me, “I think that you had no right to preach on the subject of secession; but you thought you had, and I do not think that this difference of opinion should destroy our Christian fellowship. You have had your say, and now that I have had mine, be so good as to walk into the house and make yourselves at home.” I assured him that his position was altogether satisfactory to me; and that I rejoiced that we could hold and express antagonistic political views without marring our brotherly love. Considering how fiery the disposition of this good man was, the stand that he took was as gratifying as it was surprising. The grace of the gentle and forgiving Lord, in whom he trusted and whom he loved, had in some measure been imparted to his own soul. Thus in the midst of much that was unlovely and repulsive there were here and there many noble acts that fascinated us, and allured us to Christ-like living.

From the few incidents which we have here presented, it is painfully evident that at the beginning of the war the influence of the pulpits and churches of St. Louis in shaping public opinion on national questions was sadly divided. Some of them were decidedly for the Union; some were just as decidedly for secession; in some churches the membership was so evenly divided between Unionism and secessionism that it was deemed inexpedient to make any allusion in the pulpit to the great national issue. All things considered, the preponderating influence of the pulpits and churches seemed to be in favor of secession. But as time rolled on the Union sentiment of the churches gradually became stronger, and before the close of the war decidedly predominant. Some pastors, unquestionably loyal to the general government, at first doubted the expediency of publicly expressing their views, but finally boldly uttered their entire thought. As a whole the Union pastors were as true as steel, and each in his own chosen time, in the midst of clashing forces and interests, unflinchingly did his patriotic duty. The state of affairs was such as might reasonably have baffled the wisdom of the wisest. It was a time that tried men’s souls.

But the press was quite as dubious in its testimony and influence as the pulpit. There were in our city over fifty periodicals of all sorts. Full half of these either advocated or apologized for secession; and some of those that stood for the Union were faint-hearted and spoke with hesitation and feebleness. There were eleven dailies, great and small—and some of them were very small, their editors scarcely knowing in the tumult surging around them whether their souls were their own. And since to a large extent each citizen took his cue from the paper that he read, the press, take it all in all, propagated among the masses of the city much of its own dubiousness and bewilderment. However among the dailies were two great political organs, that did much to mould public sentiment, The Missouri Democrat and The Missouri Republican. Their very names confused strangers, since the Democrat was the organ of the Republicans, and the Republican was the organ of the Democrats. The Democrat years before had been established in the interests of Free-soilism, which had long been a pronounced and growing sentiment in Missouri and especially in St. Louis. It naturally therefore became the organ of the Republican party, and was uncompromisingly for the Union. Its trumpet always rang out loud and clear; it had no uncertain sound. The paper had able editors who advocated the cause of the Union with unusual clearness, breadth and power. They permitted no one, whether he were keen or dull, to misunderstand them. So, in a reign of doubt and bitter conflict, their paper became a mighty ally of the Federal government, and did much to bring order out of confusion, to harmonize antagonistic forces, and at last to restore the reign of civil law. It is doubtful if this great journal ever received its just meed of praise. Noiselessly, day by day, it scattered in thousands of homes its message in behalf of the Union. That message gradually cleared the vision of those who read. Friends of the general government were multiplied by it. It was a tremendous force for the right. Its influence for all that was truest and best in government can no more be gathered up and weighed than one can collect and weigh the sunbeams.

Its great rival, The Missouri Republican, was also a power, and, on the whole, for good. It was exceedingly conservative, and by its utterances did much to moderate and cool burning and unreasoning passion. It seemed usually to be nicely balanced on the fence. It had two editors, one a secessionist, the other a Unionist. The secessionist was somewhat advanced in years and, after writing his editorial, left his office for the day about four o’clock in the afternoon. The Unionist editor was much younger, and wrote his editorial about nine o’clock at night. And these two editorials, conservatively advocating opposite views of the great national conflict, daily appeared side by side. But this old and influential journal was very widely read, and, consistently with its position of neutrality, published any decent and reasonable article for, or against, the Union. Its constituency, though largely disloyal in sentiment, read what it published on behalf of the Union. So to their own advantage, as well as to that of the Federal government, they were thus led to read and think much on both sides of the question that was then dividing the nation. But the general public, deeming it a weakness and a sign of duplicity to receive and publish all sorts of articles, advocating the most diverse and contradictory views, with more force than elegance dubbed this great paper, “The swill-tub.” Nevertheless, it seems reasonable, all things considered, that to have had then and there one such journal was a mighty power for good.

Early in the summer of 1861, when the people had become eager for war news, some of the papers began to issue evening editions. This new move was sensational simply because it was unusual. A wag, commenting upon it, said, “They issue these evening editions to contradict the lies that they tell in the morning.” But neither editors nor their critics, especially in times of social upheaval and commotion, can at once determine what among flying rumors is true and what is false.

Now if we ask in what direction at the beginning of the war, the press of St. Louis threw its influence, we see that taken as a whole, like the pulpit, it was double-tongued. Some journals were for and some against secession. Some were vacillating, at times both for and against—they blew both hot and cold; some were simply bewildered; some half-apologized for the rebellion; some were lost in the fog of State sovereignty. The editors on either side of the national question, and those on the fence, were doubtless honest; nevertheless their varied and discordant voices confused the public mind. It was not strange that the people were divided. They listened to a divided pulpit; they read the deliverances of a divided press. But while amid this din of antagonistic voices some were confused, many in downright earnestness began to think for themselves, and in spite of the clashing utterances of the pulpit and the press, at last thought themselves out of the mist into the clear light of day.

CHAPTER IX
DECISION AND DIVISION

As soon as Camp Jackson had been taken, and the panic which so closely followed it was over, a new spirit pervaded the entire community. Those who had been halting between Unionism and secession felt almost irresistibly impelled to decide with which party they would act. And those who from the start had quietly but firmly allied themselves with the one or the other, and for prudential reasons had refrained from declaring their political faith, now felt constrained to show their true colors. The process of open alignment was rapid. Society seemed to be suddenly transformed. We felt as though we had been transported in a state of unconsciousness to another world and when there had waked up in astonishment, gazing upon new and strange scenes. At first some thought that the celerity with which men were being converted to Unionism was marvellous; but in this they were deceived. There were, to be sure, many striking political conversions, but in the vast majority of cases, what amazed observers was not conversion, but a frank and open declaration of principles that up to that hour had been secretly held. Almost everybody seemed to be confessing his political faith. The star-spangled banner which, out of deference to the feelings of secession neighbors, had been so long concealed, began to be hung out from the balconies and windows of public buildings and private dwellings. It now waved from the cupolas of schoolhouses and even from the steeples of some of the churches. Union teamsters decked their mules and horses with it. Little children on their way to school, or playing in the streets, carried it. Just as sometimes in the spring the sudden coming of the warm sunshine and showers stars the cherry and apple trees all over with blossoms, so our city, so long bannerless, all at once bloomed with the Stars and Stripes. Badges made of strips of red, white and blue were also extensively worn both by men and women, while on every side, at morning, noon and night, could be heard the song born of the hour, “Hurrah! For the Red, White and Blue.” And the suddenness of this outburst of patriotism for a time threw those who had been struggling in doubt and gloom to prevent the secession of Missouri into a delirium of joy.

Nevertheless secessionism in St. Louis was neither dead nor hopeless. It was, to be sure, for the time being overawed; but it was in fact as tenacious and determined as ever. Our disloyal fellow-citizens were led to believe that the city would be at last captured by the rebel army, and both it and the State turned over to the Southern Confederacy. So, bating neither heart nor hope, they labored incessantly for the realization of this purpose. In secret they plotted to secure the secession of the State. Protected by United States troops, they harbored in their homes spies from the rebel army. Some of them themselves acted the part of spies and were arrested for their crime. Many of them contributed freely of their substance to help disrupt the Union and establish the Confederacy. But while they worked clandestinely,—as they were compelled to do if they worked at all,—most of them in social intercourse manfully declared their sentiments. In fact the time had at last come when true men on either side abhorred those sordid souls that sat on the fence, ready for the sake of self, at the opportune moment, to jump off upon the side of those who should chance to be victorious. The words of Dryden in his “Duke of Guise,” written concerning the Whigs and Tories of his day, slightly altered, fittingly depict them.

Not friends, nor rebels they; nor this, nor that;

Not birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat;

A twilight animal; true to neither cause,

With union wings, but rebel teeth and claws.[^[36]]

One of my own deacons, a true and brave man, at first hesitated as to the stand he ought to take. With him it was a matter of conscience. He was not swayed by any sordid motive. His associations had been largely with Southern and pro-slavery men. He regretted that I had felt impelled to speak from my pulpit for the Union. But when asked by some of his secession brethren to sign a petition to which I have already referred, asking me to resign my pastorate, he began earnestly to think what he ought to do. He said to those that solicited him to put his name to that petition, “I have never yet openly opposed any one of my pastors; and even now, while I regret that our present pastor publicly discussed a political question, I cannot sign this petition without careful consideration. I wish to take it home with me to-night, and pray over it, before I decide what to do in reference to it.” He prayed. He determined not to sign it. He began to think as never before. He now observed that all the newspapers and journals that came to his house were pro-slavery and secession; and he decided to secure for daily reading some that presented the opposite view. He at once subscribed for two Union papers. He looked over his library and did not find a book in it that was antagonistic to slavery. He went at once to a bookstore and bought three anti-slavery books, which he carefully read. Within a few days his mind was completely revolutionized. He had decided what to do. Every fibre of his being was for the Union. He soon called me into his office and said: “Pastor, you made one serious mistake. You ought to have preached against secession at least three months before you did.” And the good deacon was undoubtedly right. From that time all measures taken for the preservation of the Union seemed to him to be dilatory. He chafed because the President held back his emancipation proclamation. After the war was over, St. Louis sent him to Washington as one of its representatives. But we should not forget how much such a decision made in that time of political upheaval cost him. It may seem easy to us now, but it tried the soul then. It broke up old associations, and for a time at least made lifelong friends enemies.

In my own neighborhood there lived a most excellent Christian family. It consisted of husband and wife and four or five children. The children, I should judge, were from twelve to eighteen years of age. But the father and mother were divided on the great national issue. He was decidedly for the Union, she just as decidedly for the Southern Confederacy. At the dinner hour almost every day, in the presence of their children, they hotly discussed the question on which they were divided. This procedure at last menaced the union of the household. But with good sense, the father, before his whole family, proposed to the mother that, for the sake of peace in their home, they declare a truce until the close of the war. The wife and mother acceded to this timely proposal. The national question was never thereafter mooted under that roof; but when the war ended I noticed that the wife as well as the husband was for the Union. Silence and events had prevailed. But this divided household was not an isolated case. There were scores of families in the city made discordant and unhappy over the burning issue of the hour.

In those days of decision there was a distinguished judge of one of our courts who was a Southerner by birth and education. He was pro-slavery in sentiment, but a decisive, ardent Union man. One morning he met an old Southern friend at the Post-office, whither in those days we all went for our mail. As usual they cordially greeted each other. Then the judge said to him: “I understand from others that you are an enemy of the Old Flag?” He replied that he was. Then responded the judge, “You are my enemy. Never recognize me again by look or word.” That decision was positive and irreversible; the division was sharp and irreconcilable.

Living on the same square with myself was a man of Southern birth. He was a pleasant, agreeable gentleman. I held him in high esteem. I had been called by him to minister in his household in a time of sickness and death. Tenderness of feeling had marked our intercourse in those sad days. He and I had never exchanged a word on the subject of secession. Still, one morning as I met him and as usual saluted him, he did not, as he had been wont to do, return my salutation. I concluded that, absorbed in something else, he did not see me. I could not believe that his seeming discourtesy was intended. Two or three days after, I greeted him again, but obtained from him no sign of recognition. I determined not to give up my friend without one more effort. A week later I met him on the sidewalk near his own door, stood within four feet of him, looked him straight in the face, and said, “Good morning,” calling him by name; but he made no response either by word or look. He was no longer my friend, but my enemy. Why? He had learned from others that I was for the Union,—that was the explanation of his rudeness. During all the war we frequently met, but passed each other as though we were walking, insensate posts. I always felt a strong impulse to speak once more, but I checked it, lest speaking might give to my dumb neighbor useless offence. Such experiences as this were peculiar to those who lived in a border city during the war of the rebellion.

But the open alignment of men and women in our city for or against the Union, disturbed, if it did not destroy, in many of our churches the Christian fellowship that had hitherto existed. Where the membership of a church was politically very largely of the same mind, the friction arising from the few in opposition, while deplorable, did not very seriously interfere with its general harmony. In such a case the small minority either remained and held its peace, or else withdrew noisily or quietly, while the main body of the church, freed from irritation and unified, continued its legitimate work with increased power and efficiency. But where the members of a church were about equally divided on the great national issue their contention sometimes became acrimonious. When such conflict was waged, brotherly love was overwhelmed, and the very existence of the church itself was imperilled. I well knew one such church. It occupied, in the northern part of our city, a very important field for aggressive Christian work, but by its internal dissensions its influence for good was neutralized. It was of course no wonder that they were absorbed in the gigantic national battle then being waged. Not only the most vital political interests were at stake, but a great moral question was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. These Christian men and women were irresistibly impelled to take sides. Some of them were fighting for the Union and against slavery; others against the Union and for slavery. They were all honest and intensely earnest. The government of their church was democratic, and they were continually counting noses. Each party sharply watched the other lest in some unexpected exigency it should be outvoted. Their pastor, worn out by their belligerency, resigned and quit the city. All real Christian work in that church was now at a standstill. Something must be done to prevent the church itself from being blotted out. The case was desperate and called for heroic treatment.

The remedy was forthcoming. A neighboring pastor, who had at heart both the highest good of his country and of the kingdom of God, persuaded two of his brethren to take their letters from his church and to unite with that. They did so, and that gave those there who were loyal to their country a majority. With them he considered a series of measures, which both he and they believed to be for the highest good of that contentious and divided Christian body. A meeting was called to consider them. Some of these measures were very distasteful to the secession party in the church; so they were long and hotly debated. That memorable meeting began at eight o’clock in the evening and did not adjourn until two o’clock the next morning. A little after one in the morning a measure long and stubbornly resisted by the secessionists passed by a bare majority; in their resentment a half dozen of them asked for letters of dismission; these were of course promptly granted; when they discovered that by their spiteful withdrawal they had given their opponents an assured majority, they requested to be restored to membership again, but their request was ignored. And now for a time pandemonium seemed to have broken loose. A half dozen of either party were on their feet at once, each in loud tones addressing the moderator, while he pounded with his gavel and cried, “Order! Order!” At last the tempest subsided. The discomfited left. The remaining projected measures were quickly passed, and the meeting adjourned. Both the victors and the vanquished were all good brethren. But both did what, under soberer circumstances, they would not approve. Nevertheless, after that stormy business meeting prosperity came to that church. Their house of worship, which had been only half constructed, was soon after finished. A strong, level-headed pastor was called, and a Sunday-school of more than a thousand pupils met there every Lord’s day.

The divisive work, which we are endeavoring to set forth, went on through almost the whole period of the war. As late as January 9th, 1862, it appeared in the Chamber of Commerce. A number of Union business men applied for membership. The secession members of the Chamber were bitterly opposed to their admission, and by the ballots which they controlled secured their defeat. This insulting and unbusiness-like act split the Chamber of Commerce in twain. The Union members withdrew and established the Union Chamber of Commerce. Thus at the very centre of trade in our city corrupt politics overruled legitimate business. For a time the eternal laws of exchange gave place to scheming policies of secession. In that border city, men who did not believe in the Union and in free labor refused for awhile even to barter with those who did. Every human association seemed to be rent asunder. But this unjust and short-sighted action of the secessionists in the Chamber of Commerce stirred up much bad feeling throughout the city. It was vehemently denounced. Very few outside the extreme disunionists rose up to defend it. It was folly so unmitigated that it soon reacted on its authors; what they attempted to make a stronghold of secession soon ceased even to exist, and the Union Chamber of Commerce remained without a rival; and there every worthy business man was welcomed irrespective of his political opinions.

But notable events, in swift succession, were now casting new light on the problems over which armed hosts were contending and for the solution of which they were freely pouring out their blood. The views of receptive souls were rapidly becoming broader and more national. Some original secessionists under the increasing illumination joined the Unionists, and did it at great personal self-sacrifice. Their Southern friends looked upon them as traitors to the Southern Confederacy, and scorned them. They cut them on the street; they socially ostracized them. It required great moral courage in one born and bred in the South, to become, in that border city, an out and out, patriotic nationalist. But no inconsiderable number were equal to the demand. For the sake of an undivided country they gave up tender social relations and the amenities of life and boldly proclaimed their change of heart.

In illustration of this I wish briefly to call attention to one of the many converts to Unionism. Just before the war there was a slave auction on the steps of the Court-house. An artist, Mr. Thomas S. Noble, made sketches of the impressive and shameful scene. He was a Southerner, but from a child had been opposed to the system of slavery. He then and there determined from the sketches which he had made to depict on canvas that sale of men and women under the hammer of the auctioneer. But he was too busy with other work to put his hand at once to this projected task. And while it was deferred the war broke out. Out of sympathy for the people of the South he enlisted as a soldier in the Confederate army. When the term of his enlistment expired, he returned to St. Louis, and took up again the work of his studio. On account of his absence his patrons to a considerable extent had fallen away from him. He found that he had leisure time on his hands, and so determined to begin the work of painting the slave auction, projected so long before. In his mind this public sale of men and women was a typical national crime. It was sanctioned by both State and national law. The steps of the Court-house in which both were interpreted and enforced became without protest a slave mart. The Stars and Stripes floating over the heads of the auctioneer and cowering slaves exposed to the gaze of the curious throng made the sale a national offence. Under a sense of this flagrant national injustice he began to paint and the product was a mighty protest against the crime of legalized bondage. With his sword he had just been fighting for slavery and the Southern Confederacy; now with his brush, he was contending against both. And his brush was mightier than his sword.

But he was soon put to the severest test. What he had painted with exhilaration and joy brought upon him the sharpest of trials. In a social way some highly esteemed Southern friends dropped into his studio. For the first time they looked on his slave auction, or “Slave Mart” as he called it. Knowing nothing of his real attitude towards slavery, they nevertheless at once felt the powerful protest which that new painting uttered against slavery and its accompanying evils.