CHAPTER V.

BORDER STATES AND FOREIGN RELATIONS.

THE disposition of the border slave States was one of the most difficult problems with which the Government had to deal. When the President issued his call for seventy-five thousand men, the Governors of Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as those of North Carolina and Virginia, returned positive refusals. The Governor of Missouri answered, "It is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and cannot be complied with." The Governor of Kentucky said: "Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked. purpose of subduing her sister Southern States." The Governor of Tennessee: "Tennessee will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thousand, if necessary, for the defence of our rights and those of our brethren." The Governor of North Carolina: "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina." The Governor of Virginia: "The militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers at Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view." Every one of these Governors was a secessionist, with a strong and aggressive party at his back; and yet in each

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THE STRUGGLE FOR MISSOURI.

[1861.

of these States the secessionists were in a minority. It was a serious matter to increase the hostility that beset the National arms on what in another war would have been called neutral ground, and it was also a serious matter to leave the Union element in the Northernmost slave States without a powerful support and protection. The problem was worked out differently in each of the States.

At the winter session of the Missouri Legislature an act had been passed that placed the city of St. Louis under the control of Police Commissioners to be appointed by the Governor, Claiborne F. Jackson. Four of his appointees were secessionists, and three of these were leaders of bodies of "minute-men," half-secret armed organizations. The Mayor of the city, who was also one of the Commissioners, was known as a "conditional Union man." Other acts showed plainly the bent of the Legislature. One made it treason to speak agaist the authority of the Governor, and gave him enlarged powers, while another appropriated $3,000,000 for military purposes, taking the entire school fund for the year, and the accumulations that were to have paid the July interest on the public debt.

A State convention called to consider the question of secession met in February, and proved to be overwhelmingly in favor of Missouri's remaining in the Union, though it also expressed a general sympathy with slavery, assumed that the South had wrongs, deprecated the employment of military force on either side, and repeated the suggestion

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that had been made many times in other quarters for a national convention to amend the Constitution so as to satisfy everybody. The State convention made its report in March, and adjourned till December.

This proceeding appeared to be a great disappointment to Governor Jackson; but he failed to take from it any hint to give up his purpose of getting the State out of the Union. On the contrary, he proceeded to try what he could do with the powers at his command. He called an extra session of the Legislature, to convene May 2d, for the purpose of "adopting measures to place the State in a proper attitude of defence," and he called out the militia on the 3d of May, to go into encampment for six days. There was a large store of arms (more than twenty thousand stand) in the St. Louis arsenal; but while he was devising a method and a pretext for seizing them, the greater part of them were suddenly removed, by order from Washington, to Springfield, Illinois. The captain that had them in charge took them on a steamer to Alton, and there called the citizens together by ringing a fire-alarm, told them what he had, and asked their assistance in transferring the cargo to a train for Springfield, as he expected pursuit by a force of secessionists. The many hands that make light work were not wanting, and . the train very soon rolled away with its precious freight. The Governor applied to the Confederate Government for assistance, and a quantity of arms and ammunition, including several field-guns,

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CAPTURE OF CAMP JACKSON.

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was sent to him in boxes marked "marble." He also ordered a General of the State militia to establish a camp of instruction near the city, and gathered there such volunteer companies as were organized and armed.

General Scott had anticipated all this by sending reënforcements to the little company that held the arsenal, and with them Captain Nathaniel Lyon, of the regular army, a man that lacked no element of skill, courage, or patriotism necessary for the crisis. The force was also increased by several regiments of loyal home guards, organized mainly by the exertions of Francis P. Blair, Jr., and mustered into the service of the United States. When the character and purpose of the force that was being concentrated by Jackson became sufficiently evident from the fact that the streets in the camp were named for prominent Confederate leaders, and other indications - Lyon determined upon prompt and decisive action. This was the more important since the United States arsenal at Liberty had been robbed, and secession troops were being drilled at St. Joseph. With a battalion. of regulars and six regiments of the home guard, he marched out in the afternoon of May 10th, surrounded the camp, and trained six pieces of artillery on it, and then demanded an immediate surrender, with no terms but a promise of proper treatment as prisoners of war. The astonished commander, a recreant West-Pointer, surrendered promptly; and he and his brigade were disarmed and taken into the city. All the "marble" that had come up

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LYON IN COMMAND.

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from Baton Rouge and been hauled out to the camp only two days before was captured and removed to the arsenal, becoming once more the property of the United States.

The outward march had attracted attention, crowds had gathered on the route, and when Lyon's command were returning with their prisoners they had to pass through a throng of people, among whom were not a few that were striving to create a riot. The outbreak came at length; stones were thrown at the troops and pistol-shots fired into the ranks, when one regiment levelled their muskets and poured a volley or two into the crowd. Three or four soldiers and about twenty citizens were killed in this beginning of the conflict at the West. William T. Sherman (the now famous General), walking out with his little son that afternoon, found himself for the first time under fire, and lay down in a gully while the bullets cut the twigs of the trees above him.

Two days later, General William S. Harney arrived in St. Louis and assumed command of the United States forces. He was a veteran of long experience; but ex-Governor Sterling Price, commanding the State forces, entrapped him into a truce that tied his hands, while it left Jackson and Price practically at liberty to pursue their plans for secession. Thereupon the Government removed him, repudiated the truce, and gave the command to Lyon, now made a Brigadier-General. After an interview with Lyon in St. Louis (June 11), in which they found it impossible to deceive or swerve