THE SECESSIONISTS IN MISSOURI

63

a August 14, 1861.

News of the Battle of Wilson's Creek,' and the death of Lyon, reached Fremont on the 13th of August. The secessionists in St. Louis were made jubilant and bold by it. This disposition was promptly met by the Commander-in-Chief. Martial law was declared," and General McKinstry was appointed Provost-Marshal. Some of the most active secessionists were arrested, and the publication of newspapers charged with disloyalty was suspended. So tight was held the curb of restraint in the city that an outbreak was prevented. More free to act in the rural districts, the armed secessionists began again to distress the loyal people. In bands they moved over the country, plundering and destroying. Almost daily, collisions between them and the Home Guards occurred. One of the most severe of these conflicts took place at Charleston, west of Bird's Point, on the 19th,' when three hundred Illinois Volunteers, under Colonel Dougherty, put twelve hundred Confederates to flight. Two days afterward, a battery planted by Thompson, at Commerce, was captured by National troops sent out from Cape Girardeau; and everywhere the loyalists were successful in this sort of warfare. But the condition of public affairs in Missouri was becoming daily more alarming. The provisional government was almost powerless, and Governor Gamble, by a mistaken policy, seriously injured the public service at that critical time by refusing to commission military officers appointed by Fremont. The Presi dent commissioned them himself, and the work of organizing a force for the

¿ August.

e August 7, 1861.

ment about to descend the Mississippi and attack that place, was anxious to strengthen it and the supporting posts above it on the Tennessee shore, and hence his order for Pillows to evacuate New Madrid and hasten with his troops and heavy guns to Randolph and Fort Pillow. Pillow demurred, and charged Polk, by implication, with keeping back re-enforcements, and thwarting his well-laid plans for the liberation of Missouri. Polk retorted, and intimated that Pillows neglecting to fortify New Madrid, as he had been ordered to do, before the Nationals were ready for an offensive movement, was a blunder that now made the evacuation of that post a necessity. In his dispatch revoking the order for the evacuation of New Madrid, Polk directed Pillow to break up his base there, send his heavy cannon to Randolph and Fort Pillow, and, marching by the way of Pleasanton, join his forces with those of Hardee at Greenville. This was also distasteful to the Tennessee commander. He reported that he had tried the path and had been compelled to fall back to New Madrid on account of unsafe bridges; also, that he intended to move on Cape Girardeau by the river road. Polk, was annoyed, and wrote him a long letter on the 16th of August, in its tone deprecatory of Pillow's course; whilst the restless Thompson, who was now with Hardee, and now with Pillow, was eagerly urging a forward movement "I would like very much," he wrote on the 16th of August, "to have your permission to advance, as I am sure that I can take Cape Girardeau without firing a gun, by marching these moonlight nights and taking them by surprise. Every one gives me the credit of at least 7,000 men, and I have them frightened nearly to death." The following day he wrote to Pillow, saying, "If you wish a legal excuse for advancing, withdraw your control over me for a few hours, and then come to my rescue. We must not lose the moon; the weather may change, and the swamps become impassable."

Hardee, on the contrary, who desired, as a preliminary movement against Cape Girardeau, to seize the post at Ironton, the then terminus of the railway running southward from St. Louis, did not seem disposed to aid Pillow in his designs; whilst Polk, according to a letter from Lewis G. De Russey, his aid-de-camp, dated at Fort Pillow on the 17th of August, was anxious for Pillow and Hardee to join their forces at Benton, and march upon St. Louis. In this undecided state, the question concerning offensive movements in Missouri remained until the close of August, when the National forces at Ironton, the Cape, and Bird's Point, had been so increased, that any forward movement of the Confederates would have been extremely perilous "We can take the Cape, but what would we do with it?" Pillow asked significantly on the 29th. Hardee, an old and experienced officer, had positively refused to go forward, and Pillow and Polk would not risk such a movement without his concurrence. The conduct of the ambitious Pillow in this connnection became so insubordinate, that General Polk submitted a statement of it to the "War Department," at Richmond, on the 20th of August. "Considering you have usurped an authority not properly your own," wrote De Russey, in behalf of Polk, "by which you have thwarted and embarrassed his arrangements and operations for the general defense, he feels it his duty to submit to the War Department the position you have thought proper to assume." Events during the few succeeding days changed all plans.-Autograph Letters of Polk, Hardee, Pillow, Thompson, and others, from the close of July to the close of August, 1861.

1 The Confederates, as we have observed, call it the Battle of Oak Hill.

2 Morning Herald, Evening Missourian, and War Bulletin.

64

FREMONT'S STARTLING PROCLAMATION.

purpose of sweeping the insurgents out of the State, and clearing the banks of the Mississippi of all blockading obstructions to free navigation from St. Louis to New Orleans, went steadily on.

Satisfied that nothing but martial law and the most stringent measures toward the secessionists would secure peace and quiet to Missouri, and safety to the cause, Fremont took the administration of public affairs there into his own hands, and on the 31st of August he issued a proclamation, in which he declared that martial law was thereby established throughout Missouri, and that the lines of the Army of Occupation in that State extended, for the present, from Leavenworth, in Kansas, by way of the posts of Jefferson City, Rolla, and Ironton, to Cape Girardeau on the Mississippi River. He declared that all persons within those lines taken with arms in their hands should be tried by court-martial, and, if found guilty, should be shot;' that the property, real and personal, of all persons in Missouri, who should be proven to have taken an active part with the enemies of the Government, in the field, should be confiscated to the public use, and their slaves, if they had any, should be thereafter free men; and that all persons engaged in the destruction of bridges, railway tracks, and telegraphs, should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. All persons who, by speech or correspondence, should be found guilty of giving aid to the insurgents in any way, were warned of ill consequences to themselves; and all who had been seduced from their allegiance to the National Government were required to return to their homes forthwith. The declared object of the proclamation was to place in the hands of the military authorities the power to give instantaneous effect to existing laws, while ordinary civil authority would not be suspended, where the law should be administered in the usual manner.2

General Fremont acted promptly in accordance with his proclamation, and the greatest consternation began to prevail among the insurgents of Missouri, when his hand was stayed. He was most bitterly assailed by the enemies of the Administration, especially because of that portion of his proclamation which related to emancipation and confiscation. In the border Slave-labor States there arose a storm of indignation which alarmed the Government; and the President, anxious to placate the rebellious spirit in those States, requested Fremont to modify his proclamation concerning the confiscation of property and the liberation of the slaves, so as to strictly conform to an act of Congress passed on the 6th of August. Fremont declined to do so, and asked the President to openly direct him to make that modification, for his judgment and self-respect would not

3

1 M. Jeff. Thompson, already mentioned, and who became the terror of all law-abiding citizens in Missouri, issued a proclamation on the 2d of September, declaring that he was intrusted by Acting Governor Reynolds not only with the commission of brigadier-general, but also with "certain police powers," and said: "I do most solemnly promise that, for every member of the Missouri State Guard or soldier of our allies, the armies of the Confederate States, who shall be put to death in pursuance of the said order of General Fremont, I will hang, draw, and quarter a minion of said Abraham Lincoln."

2 Fremont specified, as reasons for his assuming the administrative powers of the State, the fact that "its disorganized condition, the helplessness of the civil authority, the total insecurity of life, and the devastation of property by bands of murderers and marauders," who infested nearly every county in the State, and availed themselves of the public misfortunes and the vicinity of a hostile force, to gratify private and neighborhood vengeance, and who found an enemy wherever they found plunder, demanded the severest measures to suppress these disorders, to maintain the public peace, and "to give security and protection to the persons and property of loyal citizens."

* See page 29.

THE GOVERNMENT AND SLAVERY.

• Sept. 11, 1861.

65

allow him to do it himself.' The President accordingly issued an order to that effect," and a most powerful war measure, which was adopted by the Government less than a year later, and which now promised, as such, the most efficient aid to the National cause, was made almost inoperative. Only those slaves who were actually employed in the military service of the Confederates were to be declared free by the President's order. So cautiously did the Government move at this time, in the matter of slaves, that special orders were issued to commanders in other Departments on the subject, all having a tendency to calm the apprehensions that a general emancipation of the bondsmen was contemplated.

1 "If I were to retract of my own accord," said Fremont, "it would imply that I myself thought it wrong, and that I acted without the reflection which the gravity of the point demanded. But I did not. I acted with full deliberation, and with the certain conviction that it was a measure right and necessary; and I think so still."

2 The conservative attitude of the Government in relation to slavery, at that time, however expedient it may have been as a soothing policy toward the border Slave-labor States, was a disappointment to its friends abroad, who well understood the object of the conspirators to be the formation of a great empire whose political and industrial system should be founded on human slavery. In Western Europe, the long controversy on that subject in our National Legislature had been watched with great interest; and the more enlightened observers, when the war broke out, believed and hoped that the prediction of a distinguished member of Congress (Joshua R. Giddings), made in that body in 1848, when members from Slave-labor States insolently threatened to dissolve the Union if their wishes were not gratified, would be fulfilled. He said that when that contest should come, the lovers of our race will then stand forth and exert the legitimate powers of this Government for freedom. We shall then have constitutional power to act for the good of our country and to do justice to the slave. We will then strike off the shackles from his limbs. The Government will then have power to act between slavery and freedom, and it can then make peace by giving liberty to its slaves."-See Giddings's History of the Rebellion, page 431.

They were disappointed when, in Mr. Seward's carefully written dispatch to Minister Dayton, on the 22d of April, 1861, they were assured that the majority of the people of the Republic were willing to let the system of slavery alone, and that whatever might be the result of the war then kindling, it would receive no damage. "The condition of slavery in the several States," he said, “will remain just the same, whether it succeed or fail. There is not even a pretext for the complaint that the disaffected States are to be conquered by the United States if the revolution fail; for the rights of the States, and the condition of every human being in them, will remain subject to exactly the same laws and forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeed or whether it shall fail. In the one case the States would be federally connected with the new confederacy; in the other, they would, as now, be members of the United States; but their constitutions and laws, customs, nabits, and institutions, in either case will remain the same. It is hardly necessary to add to this incontestable statement the further fact that the new President, as well as the citizens through whose suffrages he has come into the administration, has always repudiated all designs, whatever and wherever imputed to him and them, of disturbing the system of slavery as it is existing under the Constitution and the laws."

The prediction of Mr. Giddings was fulfilled, while those of his friend and co-worker in the anti-slavery movement, contained in his official assurances, were not. They only served to inflict moral injury upon the cause of the Government, and discourage the friends of humanity; and such also was the effect of the conservative action of the Government on the subject of slavery during the earlier period of the war. It was not until the President issued his Emancipation Proclamation, sixteen months later, that the warmest sympathies of the lovers of liberty and the rights of man, in the Old World, were manifested for the cause of the Government.

VOL. II.-43

66

MOVEMENTS OF INSURGENTS IN MISSOURI.

CHAPTER III

MILITARY OPERATIONS IN MISSOURI AND KENTUCKY.

a

1861.

ONTRARY to general expectation, the Confederates did not pursue the shattered little army that was led by Sigel, from Springfield to Rolla.' McCulloch contented himself with issuing a proclamation to the Aug. 12, people of Missouri, telling them that he had come, on the invitation of their Governor, "to assist in driving the National forces out of the State, and in restoring to the people their just rights." He assured them that he had driven the enemy from among them, and that the Union troops were then in full flight, after defeat. He called upon

the people to act promptly in co-operation with him, saying, "Missouri must be allowed to choose her own destiny-no oaths binding your consciences." This was all that the Texan did in the way of "driving the enemy out of the State," after the battle of Wilson's Creek. His assumptions and deportment were offensive to Price and his soldiers. Alienation ensued, and McCulloch soon abandoned the fortunes of the Missouri leader for the moment, and, with his army, left the State.

Price now called upon the secessionists to fill his shattered ranks. They responded with alacrity, and at the middle of August he moved northward toward the Missouri River, in the direction of Lexington, in a curve that bent far toward the eastern frontier of Kansas, from which Unionists were advancing under General James H. Lane. With these he had some skirmishing on the 7th of September, at Drywood Creek, about fifteen miles east of the border. He drove them across the line, and pursued them to Fort Scott, which he found abandoned. Leaving a small force there, he resumed his march, and reached Warrensburg, in Johnson County, on the ¿September. In the mean time, he had issued a proclamation to the Aug. 28. inhabitants of Missouri, dated at Jefferson City, the capital of the State, in which he spoke of a great victory at Wilson's Creek, and gave the peaceable citizens assurance of full protection in person and property.

Lexington,' a town on the southern bank of the Missouri River, three hundred miles, by its course, above St. Louis, and occupying an important frontier position, was now brought into great prominence as the theatre of a desperate struggle. It commanded the approach to Fort Leavenworth by water; and when Fremont was apprised of Price's northward movement, and the increasing boldness of the secessionists in that region, he sent a

1 See page 54.

* Capital of Lafayette County, Missouri, and then containing about five thousand inhabitants.

NATIONAL TROOPS AT LEXINGTON.

67

small force to Lexington to take charge of the money in the bank there, and to protect the loyal inhabitants. This little force was increased from time to time, until early in September, when Price was approaching Warrensburg, the number of Union troops at Lexington was nearly twenty-eight hundred,' commanded by Colonel James A. Mulligan, of the "Irish Brigade" of Chicago, Illinois. Mulligan, with his men, reached Lexington on the 9th of September, after a march of nine days from Jefferson City, and, being the senior officer, he assumed the chief command. Peabody's regiment had come in, on the following day, in full retreat from Warrensburg, having been driven away by the approach of the overwhelming forces of Price."

Satisfied that Price would speedily attack the post, Colonel Mulligan took position on Masonic Hill, northeastward of the city, which comprised about fifteen acres, and on which was a substantial brick building erected for a college. He proceeded at once to cast up strong intrenchments on the eminence, in compass sufficient to accommodate within their area ten thousand men. His first line of works was in front of the college building. Outside of his embankments was a broad ditch, and beyond this were skillfully arranged pits, into which assailants, foot or horse, might fall. The ground was also mined outside of the fortifications, with a good supply of gunpowder and suitable trains. But the troops, unfortunately, had only about forty rounds of ammunition each, and six small brass cannon and two howitzers. The latter were useless, because there were no shells. Hourly expecting re-enforcements, Mulligan resolved to defy his enemy with the means at

hand.

On the morning of the 11th of September, after a violent storm that had raged for several hours, Price moved from Warrensburg toward Lexington, and that night encamped two or

SIEGE OF LEXINGTON.

lege building. Some outworks were captured, and the Nationals were driven within their intrenchments; not, however, until several fierce struggles had

1 These troops were composed of the Thirteenth Missouri, Colonel Peabody; First Illinois Regiment of Cavalry, Colonel Marshall; five hundred Missouri Home Guards, and the Twenty-third Illinois, of the Irish Brigade, Colonel Mulligan.

2 These troops had been sent from Lexington to Warrensburg, to secure about $100,000 in money. Price was informed of this movement, and had hurried forward, by forced marches, to seize the treasure before the National troops could reach there. He was too late, and to his disappointment was added great indignation, because of caricatures which some of the German officers, who were clever artists, had left behind, illustrative of the distress of the Confederates when they should find the treasure gone.