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Title: The story of a border city during the Civil War
Author: Galusha Anderson
Release Date: July 3, 2023 [eBook #71105]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY
DURING THE CIVIL WAR ***
THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR
[Illustration:
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
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ST. LOUIS 1
II. FOREBODINGS OF CONFLICT 11
III. RUMBLINGS OF THE CONFLICT 32
IV. THE BOOMERANG CONVENTION 40
V. THE FIGHT FOR THE ARSENAL 63
VI. CAMP JACKSON 86
VII. RIOT, PANIC, SEARCH AND CONFISCATION 106
VIII. THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 120
IX. DECISION AND DIVISION 146
X. BITTERNESS 159
XI. SLAVES AND SLAVE-PENS 170
XII. PRISONS AND PRISONERS 188
XIII. LYON IN CONFERENCE AND IN CAMPAIGN 198
XIV. FREMONT AND FIASCO 206
XV. EXTRAORDINARY ACTS 227
XVI. HALLECK AND HIS MANIFESTOES 234
XVII. REFUGEES 251
XVIII. DIFFICULT CURRENCY 268
XIX. NOT PEACE BUT THE SWORD 271
XX. CHARCOALS AND CLAYBANKS 276
XXI. HOMES AND HOSPITALS 288
XXII. THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY SANITARY FAIR 309
XXIII. A DARK PLOT THWARTED 315
XXIV. NEGRO SCHOOLS 333
XXV. AFTER DARKNESS LIGHT 338
XXVI. RADICALS IN CONVENTION 342
XXVII. THE WIND-UP 360
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF ST. LOUIS IN 1860 _Frontispiece_
From a lithograph in the possession of the Missouri Historical
Society.
THE ARSENAL, ST. LOUIS, IN 1866 63
CAMP JACKSON, ST. LOUIS 89
From a photograph in the possession of the Missouri Historical
Society.
GRATIOT STREET PRISON, FORMERLY THE MCDOWELL MEDICAL COLLEGE 188
From an oil painting, the property of the Missouri Historical
Society.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON 198
GENERAL FREMONT’S HEADQUARTERS, ST. LOUIS 206
FACSIMILE OF A PASS, ISSUED TO THE AUTHOR IN 1861 215
THE AUTHOR, GALUSHA ANDERSON, IN 1861 218
From a daguerreotype.
HONORABLE FRANK P. BLAIR, JR. 279
From an oil painting, the property of the Missouri Historical
Society.
MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY W. HALLECK 279
MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS 279
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT 279
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN MCA. SCHOFIELD 279
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.
[Illustration:
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.
[Illustration:
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.
In the front window of a picture store on Fourth Street the artists of
the city were accustomed to display their paintings. The Southern
friends of Mr. Noble, as in his studio they gazed upon his embodied
protest against slave auctions, anxiously asked: “Are you going to
exhibit that painting in the window on Fourth Street?” He replied that
he had thought of doing so. They said, “If you do, you shall have no
social standing with us. Our relations with you will end forever.”
Almost all of the artist’s intimate friends were Southerners. To be cut
by them in that way seemed to him a very bitter trial. For the moment he
hesitated. Up to that time I had not known him; but I was known in St.
Louis as an uncompromising Union man; so, in his hesitation as to what
he should do, he called at my house, told me his whole fascinating
history, and asked my advice as to whether, in view of the threats of
his old friends, he should put his painting of the slave auction in the
show-window. I counselled him not to be turned aside by threats from
doing any right thing, and insisted that in his case his conscience was
involved; that he was bound in some way to bear witness to his
conviction concerning slavery, and that he should do it by his brush as
well as by his lips. I told him, come what would, he ought to display
his painting; that while it would cost him much so to do, there
certainly would be compensations for his sacrifice; that, in my
judgment, where he would lose one friend he would gain three; and that
those whom he would gain would be better than those whom he would lose.
At the close of our conversation he determined to act in accordance with
his own judgment and conscience, even if he lost all his old friends and
gained none.
The next day his “Slave Mart”[37] was in the show-window. Before it all
day long stood a crowd, ever going, ever coming. Thousands viewed with
admiration the work of the artist. There was a soul, a life in the
picture, that appealed to every onlooker. Some subtle power in it laid
hold of the imagination and touched the heart. The artist became more
widely known. He entered on a new career. Friends such as he never had
before sprung up on every hand. He afterwards painted John Brown going
out, with pinioned arms, to execution, and stooping to kiss a negro
baby. This historical painting was afterwards engraved, and the
engraving was extensively sold.
We have written enough to show how much it cost one in St. Louis, during
the war, to decide firmly with which party in the national conflict he
would cast his lot. Such decisions in a multitude of cases were
divisive; they often set in bitter antagonism husbands and wives,
parents and children; in not a few instances destroyed old friendships
and blotted out for a time the ordinary amenities of life, and even
split asunder Christian churches, the very body of Christ; and the
cleavage was so deep and radical that it remains to this day; some
churches still being designated either “North” or “South.”
The whole thing was amazing when it was enacted, the recollection of it
now is weirdly strange. But we should never forget that those who
uncomplainingly sacrificed for their country the tenderest relations of
life were as heroically patriotic as those brave men who fell pierced
with Minie balls on the “high places” of bloody battlefields.
CHAPTER X
BITTERNESS
I should be glad to omit all reference to the bitterness of feeling that
pervaded the minds of many in St. Louis during the period of the war,
if, without mentioning it, I could faithfully present what was there
enacted. But it was an important factor in the life of that city so long
as the gigantic and heroic struggle to preserve the Union lasted.
Happily such intense bitterness as then confronted us has forever passed
away. As a mere reminiscence it is like a wasp in amber, interesting
perchance, but harmless.
We shall best enable the generation born since the war vividly to
apprehend the extreme virulence of not a few in St. Louis at that time,
by calling attention to some concrete examples of it.
Soon after the taking of Camp Jackson, when a multitude of national
banners, large and small, began to be displayed, a mother with her
little son, who was not more than five years old, boarded an Olive
Street horse-car. Some one had given to the little boy a tiny flag. Up
to that moment she had not observed it. When she caught sight of it,
before all in the car she cried, in anger, “Where did you get that dirty
rag?” Then snatching it from the hand of her child, she threw it upon
the floor as though it were a viper, and stamping it beneath her feet,
said in a rage, “Let me never see you touch that vile thing again.” Such
an exhibition of wrath against the Stars and Stripes seems to us now
astounding, but it was all too common then.
This extreme bitterness, early in 1861, began to manifest itself against
the Germans of the city, who, as we have already noted, with hardly an
exception were openly and stoutly opposed to secession. Those who
favored the Southern Confederacy seldom if ever called them Germans, but
usually denominated them, “the Dutch.” The intense contempt which, by
the tone of their voices, they injected into that simple phrase, “the
Dutch,” was marvellous. And this scorn for our German fellow-citizens
was especially manifested by the gentler sex. The secession women,
belonging to the best society of the city, often poured out their
vituperation on the loyal Germans. At parties and receptions, more than
once I heard them hotly denounce the Germans as Amsterdam Dutch without
the Amster. This was shocking then, it is almost unbelievable now.
But even this pales before the irate utterance of a woman, who lived
hardly a block from my own door. A few weeks after the battle of
Wilson’s Creek, the body of General Lyon, who fell on that well-fought
field, was being borne through the city on its way for burial in his
native State of Connecticut. Some one said to this woman: “The hearse
with the body of General Lyon is coming down the street;” to which in a
flash she responded, “Good! if I had a piece of his liver, I’d fry it
and eat it.” Nobody but a woman could have compressed so much gall into
so few words. Shakespeare, who sounded the depths of woman’s soul, and
understood her power of passion as no other English writer ever did, in
his “Much Ado about Nothing,” put into the mouth of “Sweet Beatrice,” as
she raged against Claudio, “O God, that I were a man! I would eat his
heart in the market place.” What the prince of dramatists in imagination
attributed to woman, we saw in real life in St. Louis, in 1861.
If now in what we further relate in illustration of the bitterness of
feeling which for a season was manifested in our city, we shall find
amid the grave and solemn conflicts of civil war much that is ludicrous
and laughable, we must not forget, that by a merciful Providence this
tended to lighten burdens that otherwise might have been insupportable;
that the grave and the gay, the sad and mirth-provoking, the sublime and
the ridiculous often keep very close company, and that we are
responsible neither for the facts, nor for the strange juxtapositions in
which at times they presented themselves.
Into the two words, abolitionist and Yankee, a genuine Southerner and
secessionist, by his intonation and emphasis, condensed an amazing
amount of bitterness. To hurl either epithet at some despised Northerner
was the climax of vituperation. Nothing could be, nothing needed to be,
added. And such objurgation, harmless to the recipient, was often freely
indulged in, in our city.
I sat one morning in the study of Rev. G. J. Johnson, D. D., pastor of a
Baptist church on Sixth Street, when a Kentuckian came in to see us. In
a moment we saw that he was an ardent, impulsive soul. Without a break,
for some time he talked right on about the war and those who were
conducting the government. With rare volubility he denounced the
Yankees; but soon checked himself for a moment and asked if we were
Yankees? We assured him that we were not; so he went on with his bitter
tirade against the hated and despised Yankees. At last he stopped,
apparently to take breath, and asked, “Where were you born?” We replied
that we were both born and brought up in western New York. “Western New
York!” he excitedly exclaimed, “Western New Yorkers are the meanest kind
of Yankees!” We greeted his discourteous declaration with a peal of
laughter. At which he blushed, and, partially infected by our merriment,
with a smile, but without an apology, bade us good day.
In my church and congregation were two bright, attractive Southern
women. In sentiment however they were politically divided; one was for
secession, the other was for the Union. In January, 1861, the latter, in
some way, discovered that she was a distant relative of Mr. Lincoln.
Thereupon she visited Springfield, and called upon him. He heartily
urged her to spend several days under his roof. She was delighted to
accept this cordial invitation, and was charmed with her new-found blood
relation. She returned to St. Louis full of enthusiasm for the President
elect, and embraced every fitting opportunity to lavish upon him her
praises. By chance she and the other woman of opposite political
sentiment, of whom I have spoken above, making a social call, met,
without any collusion, in my parlor. The conversation soon drifted into
a discussion of the ominous events which were then agitating all minds.
Very soon Mr. Lincoln was spoken of and the lady who favored secession
called him a clown and a mountebank. This brought her Southern friend,
who was a Unionist, to his defence. Her words had in them no tinge of
bitterness, but they were positive and cordial. She said that Mr.
Lincoln was a relative of hers, a warm personal friend, that she had
recently spent, by his urgent invitation, ten days in his house, and
that he was no clown; if she had ever met a kind, warm-hearted gentleman
he was one. To hear Mr. Lincoln so warmly eulogized as a gentleman, and
that by a Southern woman, was a little more than the secession lady
could endure. She burst into tears, and said in broken accents,
“I—can—never speak—to you again.” She rose to depart. Confounded by this
unexpected explosion of spleen, and hardly knowing whether I was at home
or somewhere else, I managed to help my tearful friend to the door,
where, as politely as I could, I bade her good day. She did not respond.
Her choking emotions forbade it. With her handkerchief to her eyes, she
went sobbing down the street, because one of her own dear friends had,
in the most lady-like manner, declared that Mr. Lincoln was not a clown.
But the unseemly virulence of some prompted them to deeds of violence.
In the autumn of 1861, a young Southern fire-eater appeared one morning
on Fourth Street before the Planters’ Hotel, with a loaded revolver. He
flourished it around and above his head, boasting that as soon as he
should get a sight of Frank Blair, he would shoot him. A gentleman who
heard his braggadocio felt keenly solicitous for Mr. Blair’s safety.
Just then he caught sight of him on Fourth Street, about a square and a
half north of the hotel. Hastening to him, he reported what the hot
Southerner had just said, and pointed out to him his would-be murderer.
Mr. Blair was a tall, well-proportioned, vigorous man. He was among the
bravest of the brave. He never feared the face of clay. That chilly
morning he wore an overcoat with a cape. He at once threw the cape
across his breast and over his shoulder, and, to the consternation of
the friend, who had warned him of his imminent danger, walked directly
to the hotel, before which, with loaded revolver in hand, stood the
swaggerer, who, a few minutes before, had so loudly threatened to take
his life. Mr. Blair went past him, came within six feet of him, looked
him in the eye, but the poltroon did not shoot. He found it easier to
boast than to act. The piercing glance of his enemy cooled his heated
passion and made him a shivering coward. When Mr. Blair reached the
street south of the hotel, he turned on his heel and walked back, and
once more brushing by his cowed foe went on his way unhurt.
But even in the fair sex, bitterness sometimes manifested itself with
bloody intent. A lady who lived only a few rods from my door told me one
day that she intended to shoot Frank Blair. Mr. Blair was intensely
hated by Southerners for his pronounced free-soil views, and on account
of the leading part he was taking in saving Missouri from the madness of
secession. The more malignant disunionists determined if possible to put
him out of the way. It was more than once whispered that in due time he
would be assassinated. And here was a lady that was aspiring for the
honor of shedding his blood. Just why she so frankly declared her
intention to me, I could never understand. However, we were well
acquainted with each other, and she, knowing how warmly I contended for
the Union, evidently meant to annoy me by declaring her fell purpose.
Nevertheless, I made light of it, and said to her, “I don’t think Mr.
Blair will suffer much from you.” “Ah!” she replied, “I have a revolver,
and I am practising with it every day in the back yard and have already
become a good shot.” “Still,” I said, “I don’t think you will seriously
injure him.” She responded, “You will see pretty soon.” And sure enough
her opportunity for doing that meditated deed of blood soon came.
We have already noted the fact that when Lyon took Camp Jackson, he
divided his force and sent different detachments of it along different
routes, all converging on the encampment in Lindell’s Grove. A regiment
of artillery went through Chestnut Street, on which this lady of bloody
intent lived. Mr. Blair rode on horseback at the head of it. The street
was not very wide. He sat majestically on his horse. He was a splendid
target, enticing to any one who longed to shoot him. The house in which
our lady lived had at the second story an iron balcony on which French
windows opened. Some one said to her, “Frank Blair is coming.” She
seized her loaded revolver. She panted to become famous, and saw not
that at the same time, if she carried out her purpose, she would become
infamous. She grasped and turned the knob of the window; it swung back
on its hinges into the room; she put one foot out upon the balcony;
Blair was now nearly abreast of her, and only a few feet from her; just
behind him was a battery of artillery; this was the first time that she
had seen the brazen throats of cannon. Did she fire at that living
target on horseback? She utterly failed to act the assassin; the sight
of those six and eight pounders sent the blood from her head to her
heart; things went swirling around her; she faintly whispered “Oh! Oh!”
and fell back into the room in a dead faint. Blair rode on all
unconscious of his feminine foe, while the members of her family, with
cold water and hartshorn, anxiously labored to restore her to
consciousness. She at last opened her eyes, a sadder but wiser woman.
During the years of the war that followed, her neighbors, when they
greeted her, often asked, “And how is Frank Blair?” Just how we then
made merry over intended murder, it is now difficult to explain. The
lady of whom I write would have been shocked to have heard it so
characterized. She simply meditated the deed of a patriotic heroine. But
after her vaunted violence ended in a faint she seemed to lose all
interest in the war. The sight of a few brass field pieces drove out of
her forever all bitterness of spirit.
Belonging to the Presbyterian Church at the corner of Eighth and Locust
Streets was a good deacon by the name of Tucker. He was editor of an
evening paper. Believing with all his heart in the righteousness of
secession, and wishing both in season and out of season, to strike
telling blows against all advocates of Unionism, he came out in an
editorial, one Saturday evening, in which he said: “The devil preaches
at the corner of Sixth and Locust Streets, and he is just the same sort
of a being that he was more than eighteen hundred years ago; he wants
everybody to bow down and worship him.” Now since that was just where I
preached, the editorial was rather personal, and was intended to be
offensive. The deacon, fearing that I might miss reading his highly
complimentary words, and so lack the stimulus that they might impart to
my Sunday ministrations, early on the morning of the Lord’s day, sent a
copy of his paper to me by special messenger, having thoughtfully marked
his amiable editorial with his blue pencil. Instead of demanding
satisfaction of the pious editor as almost any hot-blooded Southerner of
that day would have done, the blue-penciled editorial was read at my
breakfast-table amid roars of laughter.
The good deacon a little while after left St. Louis, became a member of
Claybourn F. Jackson’s political family, fled with the Governor and his
staff to Arkansas and printed the proclamations of the discarded,
peripatetic government of Missouri, as it wandered here and there in
exile. About two years thereafter he died and, by the special permit of
the general in command of the department of Missouri, was buried from
the church where for many years he had filled the office of deacon. He
was an honest, earnest soul, striving according to his light to do his
duty.
Moreover, it fell to my lot not only to be at times the subject of
objurgation in secession newspapers, but the enemies of the Union also
honored me by threatening to take my life. On a June morning of 1861, a
gentleman accosted me at the Post-office, whither I had gone for my
morning mail, and with pardonable inquisitiveness and much earnestness
asked if I went out nights. I assured him that I did. He then urgently
advised me not to do so, saying that he knew that a plot had been laid
to kill me. I answered that I had very important duties as a Christian
pastor, and when in order to perform them it was necessary for me to go
out in the evening, I must go regardless of consequences to myself.
Although a stranger to me, he declared himself to be a friend, and that
he said what he did out of personal solicitude for me. He wished to know
if I were not afraid. I assured him that I had not the slightest
consciousness of fear; and that come life or death I proposed to stand
at my post and do my duty. He went his way and I went mine. Soon it
occurred to me that I did not ask his name, and who my solicitous friend
was I never learned.
Very soon thereafter a neighboring pastor called upon me, and with
evident anxiety which expressed itself both in his words and in the tone
of his voice, detailed what he had heard about the planned assassination
of myself. He thought that I was in imminent danger and that perhaps it
might be best for me to leave the State. I replied that I suspected that
some of these gruesome stories had been invented to frighten me from my
post; and, if that was the design, the authors of them had missed their
mark. As for myself I had no apprehension of any special danger, and I
had settled the question as to what course I should take; it was my
unalterable purpose to go right on in the discharge of my duties as a
minister of the gospel and as a citizen of Missouri and of the United
States, if the heavens fell. What the foundation of these murderous
rumors was I never attempted to discover. Society in the city was
wrenched from its moorings, and was tempest-tossed. That some cherished
wild and bloody purposes was only too evident. Now and then a citizen,
under the darkness of night, was done to death in the street, and they
who did the deed of blood were never discovered. Men’s minds were filled
with apprehension. Their imaginations were weirdly active. No human mind
fully understood the situation; none but the divine mind could fathom
and comprehend it. No man could see the dangers that stealthily lurked
by his pathway; then as ever there was only one safe thing for any true
man to do, trust in God and fearlessly do his duty as he saw it day by
day.
In November of 1861, General Halleck took forcible possession of the
main rendezvous of the secessionists of the city and seized the arms,
furniture, books and papers that were found there. One book among others
stirred up no little excitement. In it were several pages of names of
our citizens. One column of names was written in red ink, the rest in
black. Upon investigation it was ascertained that it was the declared
purpose of the disloyal, who made the place their headquarters, when the
city should be taken by the Confederates, to seize those whose names
were written in red and, without trial, hang them from the nearest
lamp-post or telegraph-pole; while those whose names were written in
black were to be thrown into prison and tried by court martial. At the
head of the red list stood the flaming name of Frank P. Blair. Beneath
his many of us were permitted to read our names upon that blood-red roll
of honor.
The instances of malignity now noted by us are but a few among many.
Still such bitterness was far from being universal. There seemed to be
comparatively little of it among the loyal. They were resolute, but not
often virulent. They were animated by confident hope. Few of them, after
Camp Jackson was taken, ever believed that Missouri would secede. They
however saw the need of constant vigilance. They coped with an able foe;
but feeling that their star was in the ascendant, they gave themselves
largely to works of charity, generously meeting the wants of both
friends and foes. On the other hand, the cause of the disloyal was
clearly on the wane. The fact was so evident that they were often in a
state of desperation. In such trying circumstances some of them gave way
to blind passion. Their better natures were overborne and some of them
expressed their pent up bitterness in hot, hasty words, or in despicable
deeds; still a large majority of them, in all the stress of the hour,
cherished and manifested a kindly spirit. But it has been necessary for
us, in order faithfully to depict society as it was in St. Louis during
the war, to present some of the many sad and startling exhibitions of
bitterness.
CHAPTER XI
SLAVES AND SLAVE-PENS
When the Civil War broke out, as we have before said, there were only
about fifteen hundred slaves in St. Louis. Among these the females,
specially demanded for domestic service, far outnumbered the males.
While the system of slavery was essentially barbarous and cruel, most of
these bondmen were kindly treated. Occasionally, however, some brutal
master gave vent to his passion and punished his slaves with
unreasonable and unbridled severity. A man of my acquaintance, who had
among his household servants a small colored girl, not more than fifteen
years old, for trivial offences, used to take her into the bath-room,
remove all her clothing, and then hold her for many minutes at a time
under the streaming cold water of the shower bath. Her cries, while
undergoing this torture, could be heard in the street and in the houses
of his neighbors. And while humane slaveholders denounced the savagery,
such was the law, and such was public sentiment, that nobody ventured to
take the part of the poor slave girl, while her owner and tormentor
gloried in his cruelty, evidently regarding the punishment as original
and a mark of his genius.
But, on the other hand, there were some masters who were conspicuous for
their kindness to their slaves. One of the deacons of my church was a
slaveholder. He was a Virginian by birth. His slaves came to him by
inheritance. He was a tall man with sandy hair and a mild blue eye. In
him, linked with sterling ability, were rare modesty and unusual
benevolence. Giving seemed to be a luxury to him. He contributed to
every good cause to the extent of his ability and often beyond what
could have been reasonably required of him. The suggestion of a smile
was always upon his lips. No one that observed it could ever forget it.
It was a part of the man; the outward expression of the sunshine of his
soul. And yet this noble, tender-hearted man held his fellow men in
bondage.
About two months after I became his pastor, in response to his cordial
invitation, one evening I dined with him. After the cheerful meal was
over, he took me aside into a private room, and to my astonishment and
delight said: “If you ever wish to say anything in the pulpit against
slavery you need not hesitate on my account; there are two things that I
abominate: one is selling liquor, and the other is selling niggers.”
Yes, he said “niggers;” they all did. He then told me that he had
inherited his slaves, and felt under solemn obligation to care for them.
He also declared that they were all manumitted, and that their
manumission papers were in a certain drawer in a bureau, which he
pointed out to me; so, if he should die, they would all be free. But he
said, “I do not wish them to know this. They are all young and I am
trying to train them, so that when they know that they are free and must
shift for themselves, they will be able to earn their own living. They
are well cared for; for the present I am the nigger of this household.”
So he was. Marshal Brotherton served everybody, even his own slaves.
The sexton of my church was a colored man. Everybody called him George.
One day he said to me, “I am the slave of Marse Brotherton. If he should
die, I’se afraid I’ll be sold down souf. Won’t you speak to him about
it, and axe him to make me free?” I told him that I would, and I soon
found my opportunity to do so. My good deacon then told me the story of
George. A few years before George belonged to a man who lived in the
county of St. Louis, outside the city. His master died. When settling up
his estate the executors put George in the county jail for safe-keeping,
intending to sell him to New Orleans slave-traders. Mr. Brotherton was
at that time sheriff of the county. Visiting the jail one day, George
entreated him to buy him and keep him from being carried down to the New
Orleans slave market, which all slaves instinctively dreaded. Mr.
Brotherton did not need a servant, but his heart was so touched with
pity for him that he bought him. He at once opened an account of which
the slave knew nothing, charging George a fair price for keeping, and
crediting him with his earnings. In a little while the slave had paid
for himself. His manumission papers were then made out. All this was
concealed from George. He was a freeman, but did not know it. Mr.
Brotherton had set him up in the wood and coal business, was teaching
him how to buy and sell and keep his account books, so that he could
intelligently care for himself. Having heard this interesting and
touching story of my sexton and Christian brother,—for George was a true
believer in Christ and an exemplary member of the church,—I asked Mr.
Brotherton if in his judgment it would be well for me to tell him that
he was a freeman in order to relieve him of anxiety. For a moment that
bewitching smile played upon his lips, and then he said, “Yes, you may
tell him if you want to.”
The next day I met George at the church. It was a great joy to me to
tell a man who thought that he was a slave that instead he was a
freeman. And my poor pen cannot depict either his happiness or mine, as
I told him that simple story of his master’s kindness and benevolence of
which he had been the unconscious recipient. He listened at first
amazed; then joy beamed from those large, tear-filled, black eyes. He
seemed at once to be transformed. In broken utterances he expressed his
gratitude to his master and to me. There was no happier soul on earth
than he just then. He had come to his duties that day supposing that he
was a slave; he did those duties with the new-born sense that he was
free. No two states of mind could be in sharper contrast. To him old
things in a moment passed away, and all things became new.
How can the acts of this Virginia slaveholder be explained? Why did he
deal kindly with his slaves? What led him to make such great pecuniary
sacrifices in manumitting them? The explanation is probably in part to
be found in the benevolent disposition with which God had endowed him;
but in addition to this he was a genuine Christian. He was vitally
united to Christ. Christ was in him and he had the Spirit of Christ. He
was living the life of Christ. He had much of Christ’s love to his
fellow men. He never for a moment doubted the manhood of his slaves, and
he felt impelled by the spirit within him to treat them as his fellow
men. He was a constant reader of the Bible. He had, I think, the
best-thumbed New Testament in my entire congregation, and the truths of
the gospel were antagonistic to slavery. He evidently very profoundly
believed what the great apostle to the Gentiles wrote: “There is neither
bond nor free: for we are all one in Christ Jesus.”
A few months after I made my home in St. Louis, my good deacon wished me
to go with him a few miles out of the city and call upon Captain Harper,
one of his close friends. He did not tell me the real reason why he
wished me to make the captain a visit, but thereby hangs an interesting
tale. On a beautiful autumn day, we drove out to the farmhouse of his
friend. We were welcomed with genuine Southern hospitality. After a few
moments conversation under the shade-trees in front of the house, Mr.
Brotherton said, “I think that you would enjoy a walk over the farm with
Captain Harper.” To this I eagerly assented. The farm appeared to be in
perfect order; the fences were well built, the fields were thoroughly
tilled, and the maturing crops were abundant. It was the best kept farm
that it had been my lot to see up to that time in my adopted State.
There were several hundred acres of it. Here and there in different
directions I saw on the farm neat cottages painted white. I asked the
captain what they were. He told me that they were occupied by German and
Irish families, the families of the men who worked his farm. “A few
years ago,” he said, “I carried on this plantation by slave labor. I had
twenty-one slaves. But one day as I was walking across this field, where
we now are, the thought came to me for the first time in my life that my
slaves had the same right to themselves and to the product of their
labor, that I had to myself and the product of my toil. And this
conviction was strong and persistent; I could not shake it off. But what
could I do with my slaves? The laws of the State were such that if I
should give them their freedom they would be worse off than in their
bondage. I then thought of the Colonization Society and decided to free
my slaves, and, if I could get their consent, to send them to Liberia. I
called them all together one day in my dooryard, and told them that I
had been convinced that I had no just right to them or to their labor;
but I pointed out to them the woful plight of free negroes in Missouri,
told them of the free State of Liberia, of the Colonization Society and
of my wish to send them to live among their own people in Africa. I told
them that they were now at liberty to do as they pleased, but that I
should advise them to learn trades, and if they would do so, at the end
of three years I would send them to Liberia. They all accepted my offer,
except Mammy, whom you saw at the house. She said that she would not go
‘nowhere for nobody;’ and she has never left my home. Some of my slaves
learned the trade of the carpenter and joiner, some that of the
shoemaker, some that of the mason, others that of the cooper, and some
of them remained here on the farm and I did what I could to teach them
to be independent farmers. When the three years of their apprenticeship
had passed, I sent them through the Colonization Society to Africa.” As
I listened to this wonderful story, so modestly and artlessly told, I
felt like taking off my hat to my new acquaintance. This was a kind of
abolitionist that I had never before met. For conscience’ sake he freed,
educated, and deported his slaves to a free state. It cost him fully
sixty thousand dollars. But he cheerfully made the sacrifice that he
might satisfy his sense of justice. I knew now why my deacon had been so
insistent that I should with him visit Captain Harper. The Captain was a
man after his own heart. Both had been born and reared in the midst of
slavery, and both had become emancipators of their own slaves. They were
practical abolitionists, but both would then have indignantly repudiated
a title so opprobrious at that time in their own neighborhood and State.
Richard Anderson, the colored Baptist pastor to whom we have referred in
a previous chapter, caring for a church, the members of which were fully
half slaves, had many interesting and suggestive experiences. One winter
he conducted for a few days a protracted meeting. At the close of an
earnest and sensible sermon,—for he was an excellent preacher, sometimes
truly eloquent,—he invited those who wished to be Christians and desired
the prayers of the Church to come forward and take the front seat
immediately before the pulpit. It was called the “mourners’ bench.”
Those who occupied it were supposed to be mourning over their sins. Six
persons, four men and two women, in response to his invitation came
forward and occupied that front seat. As he stood before them he saw at
a glance that they were all slaves, and his talk to them was suited to
their condition. He had a quaint humor of which he appeared to be quite
unconscious. Among other things he said, “You are slaves; you belong to
your masters; you have very little in common with other people. But
there is one verse in the Bible that was written especially for you:
‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and ye that have
no money, yea, come.’ Now you have no money, but you can have as much
religion as any one else; you can have as much as the President of the
United States, and a good deal more than I believe he has got.” Mr.
Buchanan, who was still in the White House, was very unpopular among the
colored people, which may account for this surprising and
mirth-provoking remark on so solemn an occasion.
But this colored pastor had many sad, heart-breaking trials. This is one
of them. Two members of his congregation, a widowed mother and her
little daughter, were slaves in the family of a Presbyterian deacon. In
the autumn of 1860 the mother came to him, sobbing and wringing her
hands, because her master had determined to sell her to a New Orleans
slave-trader, and to retain in his own household her little daughter.
She must take her chances in the dreaded slave market, and be sold to
whom she knew not, a fate from which the slaves of the border States
shrank with untold horror, and must be torn from her only child, her
greatest earthly solace. But what could her pastor do? He too belonged
to the servile race, and in his boyhood had been a slave. Too vehement
protestation on his part would damage the case rather than help it. But
he fearlessly sought out her master, and pleaded as well as he could the
case of the distressed mother. Whatever the deacon may have felt as he
listened to the modest, earnest pleading of that great-hearted black
pastor, he inflexibly held to his resolution to sell his dark-skinned
sister in Christ; not that she had been an unfaithful or inefficient
servant, but because the deacon needed money, and as he thought must
have it. So he carried out his purpose. The day came when, with a
hundred or more consigned to the same pitiless fate, she boarded the
steamer at the levee to be carried to her doom. Her little slave
daughter was there to give her the last tearful kiss and embrace. Her
faithful pastor stood by filled with sorrow and deep down in his soul
hot with righteous wrath. The steamer moved out from the levee, the
anguished mother and the pastor waved to each other their red bandanas,
and slowly the vessel with its freight of sorrow disappeared down the
river.
Immediately after, I met this pastor with his burden of grief, and he
told me the sad tale. He said: “Think of it! she came to me for comfort.
And I did the best I could.” I said to him, “I don’t see what you could
have said to comfort her.” He replied, “There was not much that I could
say; but I did tell her that God was down there as well as up here, and
in some way he would take care of her, and that when she got to heaven,
where the wicked cease from troubling, she would not find that
Presbyterian deacon there to torment her.” He uttered this in dead
earnestness, and with a solemn gravity befitting the heart-breaking
story, seemingly without the slightest consciousness of the mingled
humor and sarcasm of his last declaration.
Belonging to my congregation, though not a member of my church, was a
banker and slaveholder. He was a Mississippian by birth and education,
and profoundly believed in the righteousness of slavery. Knowing that I
came from the North, he set out to convince me that African slavery was
not only right, but beneficent and beautiful. But he little suspected
how difficult the job was that he had undertaken. However, to attain his
object, he proceeded in a cautious, artful manner. He invited me and
mine to dinner. It was a very natural move for a man to make in
reference to his pastor. But once warmly welcomed under his roof and to
his table loaded with the best from the market, his unseemly ardor in
setting forth the attractiveness of the “peculiar institution” slightly
revealed his ulterior purpose in making me a recipient of his bountiful
hospitality. But the dinner was good, his wife was a charming hostess
and his young daughters were winsome. Under the circumstances it became
me to be a good listener, to make some commonplace remarks, and to ask
questions with an air of innocence. This seemed to encourage mine host,
and he set forth with much particularity and with the accent of
conviction the manifold benefits of slavery as it existed in the United
States. I made no adverse comment, which incited him to illustrate the
beauties of human bondage by the condition of the slaves in his own
household. He was the proud owner of two. One of them was a mulatto,
over six feet in height, and between twenty-five and thirty years of
age. He was good-looking, and evidently a man of energy and decision. My
host said, “Did you see Wash when you came in?” I assured him that I
did, and that I was very much impressed by him. “Well,” he said, “Wash
has been with me for many years; I think a great deal of him, and he is
warmly attached to me and my family. Nothing could persuade him to leave
me. I have perfect confidence in him. He is also a man of good judgment.
I never buy a horse or trade horses unless I first get Wash’s opinion.”
And so he went on extolling his slave, who seemed to me to be a manlier
man than his master.
Having exhausted the subject of Wash, he began to dilate on Mammy. “Did
you notice her?” he said. “She waited on the table. She has nursed these
daughters of ours, and loves them as though they were her own children
and they love her. Why, sir, she is so attached to her home and to us
all that nothing could tempt her to leave us.” Well, to hear mine host
talk, if one had never known anything about slavery except what he set
forth, it could not but have been considered in some respects a
beneficent institution.
He at last asked his wife to play the piano, while the young daughters
danced. I noticed Mammy in an adjoining room, looking in upon the happy
scene and in her delight showing her ivory. About ten o’clock, with many
warm wishes each for the prosperity of the other, we parted, I to think
of the beneficence and beauty of slavery, and my host probably to
contemplate his success in commending to my good graces an institution
that I had been educated to abhor.
But what was the sequel of that evening’s conversation? What light did
the immediate future throw back upon it? Was my genial host’s emphatic
and repeated declaration that nothing could entice Wash and Mammy from
their home verified? The war came on apace. Everything appeared to be
out of joint. The most stable relations of life were unexpectedly and
strangely upset. Property in slaves grew precarious. And the first slave
in St. Louis reported in the papers as having run away was Wash.
His master was an officer of a bank. The young men employed there, to
whom he had declared as he did to me that nothing could induce Wash to
leave him, asked him if he intended to catch his runaway slave and bring
him back. He replied, “No, let him go, I never liked to have him around
anyway; I am glad that he has gone.” While this quite flatly
contradicted his previous utterances, under the circumstances it was
wisest not to attempt to apprehend his fleeing chattel. But for many
weeks, almost every day, some one in the bank would exasperatingly ask
him, “How is Wash?” But did Mammy, so full of affection and so delighted
with her home, prove true to her master and mistress? About two weeks
after Wash’s departure, she left without giving notice to the family.
She slept in the second story of the house. In the night she made up a
budget for herself, and threw it out into the yard. She then made a rope
of her bed-clothes, fastened one end of it to her bedstead, and threw
the other out of the window. Her improvised rope reached nearly to the
ground. She climbed down the rope, took up her budget and departed. That
household never saw that devoted mammy again. Such incidents are
representative of hundreds of others at that time. To be sure many of
the slaves were true to their masters and remained with their families
to the close of the war; but those who wished to leave did so, and the
fugitive slave law, having suddenly become a dead letter, could no
longer be invoked to catch them.
And the slaves had a pretty clear idea of the meaning of the war. They
knew that their own bondage was the real bone of contention. They
believed that their chains were to be broken and that they would soon be
free. Very early in the war the slaves saw the drift of events. As they
met each other they gave joyful expression to their expectation of
freedom, believing it to be near at hand. The morning after Camp Jackson
was taken, all the equipage of the camp was carried in army wagons down
the street near my door. Out of curiosity a promiscuous crowd had
gathered at the corner of the street to see the sight. Two female slaves
belonging to a family near by stood there grinning with delight. A young
woman, a pronounced secessionist, from one of the Gulf States, said,
with an air of triumph, stretching out her arm and excitedly shaking her
hand, “We’ll whip you yet.” In response, quick as a flash, the two slave
girls, pointing to the loaded wagons, gleefully cried out, “They’ve got
all your tents.” I knew those slaves, but had not known that they had
any interest in the war. However, it was now clear that they understood
its real meaning and took sides with the Unionists.
But slave-pens were a necessary adjunct of slavery. Even though, by
barbarous laws, men, women and children were made chattels, they still
continued to feel, think and will. And since many of them abhorred their
condition, it was necessary to pen them up so that they might be
securely kept and safely handled. Without thick stone walls, windows
barred with iron, strong doors locked and bolted, such property while
being bought and sold might vanish.
When in my pulpit, facing my congregation, I also faced, only half a
square away, a hideous slave-pen. It was kept by Mr. Lynch, an ominous
name. I sometimes saw men and women, handcuffed and chained together, in
a long two-by-two column, driven in there under the crack of the
driver’s whip, as though they were so many colts or calves. Had they
committed any crime? Oh, no, they had been bought, in different parts of
the State, by speculators, as one would buy up beef-cattle, and were
kept in the pen to be sold to the good people of St. Louis and of the
surrounding towns and country districts; and those not thus disposed of
were bought by slave-dealers for the New Orleans market.
In 1859, some preachers from the eastern States, who had been at New
Orleans, attending the annual meeting of the Young Men’s Christian
Association of the United States, on their return to their homes,
stopped for three or four days in our city. They painted in glowing
terms the lavish and delicate hospitality that they had received in the
commercial capital of Louisiana. Appreciating the truth of all they
said, I nevertheless asked them if they visited the famous slave market
of that city. They said that they did not. I affirmed that they had
missed a great opportunity of seeing the other side of the picture; that
when they had seen and experienced the Christian hospitality of that old
Spanish and French city, they ought also to have viewed in contrast a
slave auction there—as heartless and cruel a scene as the wide earth
afforded. Regretting that they had so superficially done New Orleans,
they said, “Have you any slave markets here?” I replied, “We have some
slave-pens, but they are as paradise to perdition to the slave market
down there. Nevertheless, to-morrow I will show you the sights,
slave-pens included.”
In the morning, three or four of the residents of the city joined us, so
that we had a party of nine. We first visited the Mercantile Library
with its treasures of art. “Now,” I said, “since we are always impressed
by contrasts, let us go from tasteful rooms, books and art to Lynch’s
slave-pen.” All were agreed, and we were soon on our way. I had some
slight acquaintance with Mr. Lynch, having often spoken to him as he sat
out on the sidewalk in warm weather before his pen. He was sitting there
when we arrived. “Good morning, Mr. Lynch,” I said, “these gentlemen
wish to go into your slave-pen.” “Certainly,” he said, “gentlemen, I am
glad to see you.” He evidently thought that we had come to trade with
him. As we entered the room immediately in front of the pen, one of the
party, a tall ungainly-looking lawyer, full of humor and fun, said, “Mr.
Lynch, look out for these fellows, they are a pack of abolitionists.”
Lynch received the declaration simply as a chaffing joke and laughed
heartily. It was, however, sober truth. He put his great iron key into
the lock, turned back the bolt, swung open the door, and turning his
face towards us, said, “Gentlemen, I have not much stock on hand
to-day.” Every man in our company was shocked beyond expression by that
brutal announcement. We filed solemnly in. He shut the door and left us
alone and undisturbed to examine his “stock.” The room was in shape a
parallelogram. It was plastered and had one small window high up near
the ceiling. There was no floor but the bare earth. Three backless,
wooden benches stood next to the walls. There were seven slaves there,
both men and women, herded together, without any arrangement for
privacy. Some of the slaves were trying to while away their time by
playing at marbles. One fairly good-looking woman about forty years old,
tearfully entreated us to buy her, promising over and over again to be
faithful and good. In that sad entreaty one could detect the harrowing
fear of being sold down South. Her plaint was more than a good pastor
from Troy, N. Y., could endure. Coming up close to my side he said, “For
God’s sake, Anderson, let us get out of here!” I rapped on the door; Mr.
Lynch opened it; we thanked him for his kindness, bade him good day, and
marched silently down the street. There was now no joking, no merriment.
We turned the corner into another street. We were hidden from Lynch’s
gaze. My friend from Troy stopped; in indignation he stamped his foot;
he was in agony of spirit; he planted his heel on the brick sidewalk
and, turning the toe of his foot hither and thither again and again, he
ground the brick under his heel. It was an instinctive bodily movement,
an irrepressible outward expression of his intense desire to grind
slavery to powder. At last he exclaimed, “Thank God, I never had
anything to do with that.” “Don’t be too sure about that,” I replied,
“how have you voted? Now,” I added, “let us go to a slave-pen at the
corner of Fifth and Myrtle Streets, where they keep little colored boys
and girls for sale.” “No,” he vehemently replied, “I will not go a step,
I have seen enough. You could not hire me to go there with all the gold
in California.”
This pen where slave children were kept was much larger than Lynch’s.
The traffic in children seemed to be specially brisk and profitable. The
inmates of this grim prison-house were from about five to sixteen years
old. Both sexes were there. When the slave-trader bought a mother and
her children, she was sometimes for a season shut up with her brood in
that hated place. Every few weeks there was an auction of these black
children, with all of its repulsive, heart-breaking scenes. On one such
occasion the auctioneer commended to a crowd a beautiful mulatto girl,
about sixteen years old, as having the blood of a United States senator
running in her veins. Some in that gaping throng listened with delight;
but a gentleman from the East, a mild-mannered man, unexpectedly flamed
out with indignation, and denounced the auctioneer and the whole vile
slave-trade. For this drastic, burning denunciation he was threatened
with violence. But this man of gentle spirit and manners, when aroused,
proved to be a veritable “son of thunder,” and he defied his assailants.
“When,” he said, “this shameless injustice is not only periodically
enacted in our city, but our whole State is plunged into ignominy by
offering for sale a daughter of a United States senator, I cannot and
will not hold my peace. Do what you please. I denounce the outrage.”
Those that threatened him were cowed into silence; the disturbance was
only a momentary ripple; the auctioneer went on with his nefarious task;
the girl with senatorial blood was knocked down to the highest bidder.
And then another, and another, and another, boy or girl, was sold under
the hammer till the fall of the curtain of darkness put temporary end to
the shameless work.
A man connected with this pen defended the breaking up of families by
the sale of slaves. He said that black mothers and children did not much
mind being separated; that they had little, if any, real affection for
each other; it was very much like separating a cow and her calf. A
little while after, at that very slave-pen, I saw the disproof of his
words. A man had just bought there, at private sale, a little boy about
ten years old. The lad’s mother was with him. As he was taken away from
the pen, he began in his grief to howl as though his heart was breaking.
After he had been taken about two squares, his purchaser, annoyed by the
wailing, returned with him to the pen, secured the loan of his mother
till he could get his tearful chattel to his home, without attracting a
curious and sympathetic crowd on the street. Once there his little slave
could be quieted by a sugar plum or a whip. When the lad was at last
under the roof of his new master, the bereft and sobbing mother was led
back to the desolate pen to be sold to some other master in the city or
State, or to some trader who would take her down to the rice or cotton
plantations of the South.
But when the war came on, there was no longer any demand for slaves. The
traffic in human beings suddenly ceased. Lynch shut up his pen. The
military authorities seized the pen at the corner of Fifth and Myrtle
Streets and transformed it into a military prison. No little colored boy
or girl was ever again to be sold there. The place hallowed by the sighs
and tears of bondmen and of motherless children was for a time to become
the prison-house of those who had bought and sold their fellow men, and
were now waging unholy war against the very government that had
protected them and their slaves,—the government that had complacently
caught and returned to them their chattels who had attempted by flight
to cast off their bondage and secure freedom for themselves and their
children amid the frosts and snows of Canada.
One morning in 1862, an old negro, who for many years had been a drayman
for a mercantile firm on Second Street, was full of merriment. He was
overheard mumbling something to himself and every now and then breaking
out into a laugh. His employer said, “Joe, what is it? What’s the
matter?” He responded with a chuckle, “Strange tings happen des days!”
“So, what things?” “You kno’s dat slave-pen, corner Fifth an Myrtle?”
“Yes.” “Well, de col’ed folks used to carry in tings dar fo der chillen
to eat. Dis mawnin, boss, I seed white folks carrying in tings for der
folks to eat. Ha! ha! strange tings happen des days.” Sure enough, the
tables were turned. Wrongs were being righted. Justice, poetical
justice, was being meted out. “With what measure ye mete it shall be
measured to you again,” saith the Lord.
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small,
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.”
CHAPTER XII
PRISONS AND PRISONERS
It is not my purpose to give a complete history of the military prisons
in St. Louis during the war. There were several of them. They were for
the most part improvised to meet the exigencies of the hour. The
military authorities seized certain buildings belonging to the disloyal,
which, by a little alteration, were easily and quickly made suitable for
the reception of political prisoners. Among these buildings was the
slave-pen, mentioned in the preceding chapter, at the corner of Fifth
and Myrtle Streets. Another was the McDowell Medical College on Gratiot
Street.
Dr. McDowell, who founded this college, and had conducted it
successfully for many years, was one of the staunchest of pro-slavery
men, and a pronounced and bitter secessionist. He was tall and imposing
in appearance. His long, white locks, thrust back of his ears, hung down
over his coat collar. His eyes gleamed from beneath shaggy, gray
eyebrows. Any stranger would have noted him in a crowd as an unusual
character. Although he was old, his step had the elasticity of youth. He
was an antagonist that few men cared to encounter. For years he had been
active in politics. On the stump he at times denounced those of opposite
views in terms of unmeasured severity. On one occasion, having some
apprehension that his opprobrious epithets might provoke violent
opposition, just as he began his speech, as a warning to all
antagonists, he drew his revolver and ostentatiously laid it down on the
desk before him and then proceeded with his fiery harangue. At the
beginning of the war he left our city for the more congenial society of
the Southern Confederacy, and the military authorities confiscated his
college building and made it serve the cause that its owner hated and
denounced.
[Illustration:
GRATIOT STREET PRISON, FORMERLY THE MCDOWELL MEDICAL COLLEGE.
[_Page 188_
]
The military prisons of St. Louis were sanitary and well kept. No one
within them was permitted unnecessarily to suffer. All had enough
wholesome food. The fare of the prisoners was as good as that of the
soldiers who guarded them. In winter, so far as it was possible, they
were kept warm and comfortably clad. Most of them were incarcerated, not
for ordinary criminal acts, but because taken in arms against the United
States, or detected in aiding those who were intent on breaking up the
Union. Not a few of them had been accustomed to the luxuries of life,
and could not but contrast their prison with the homes from which they
had come. Still, while they inevitably suffered more or less, taking
everything into consideration, the government treated them with great
leniency. Their friends were often permitted not only to minister to
their necessities, but also to eke out their prison fare with the
delicacies of the season.
But a few incidents, which came under my observation, and in some of
which I was an active participant, will more clearly reveal what
transpired in those military prisons than any general statements that I
could make, however full and just they might be. Early in the war I
received a note from an officer at the Arsenal, stating that the son of
an honored Baptist minister of Illinois was a prisoner in the
Guard-house and wished me to visit him. I at once went to see the young
man in his prison-house. I found him in a wretched plight. The
Guard-house was far from being a model of neatness. The young man’s
clothing was begrimed and repulsive, his face and hands unwashed, his
hair unkempt, and to his foot was riveted a chain to which was attached
a heavy iron ball. He was cowed in spirit, and had nearly lost heart and
hope. He timidly told me his story. He was a boy scarcely out of his
teens. He had patriotically enlisted in the Union army, but having had a
very imperfect notion of the rigorous discipline to which every soldier
must necessarily be subjected, he had grown weary of his task and more
than once had tried to desert, not fully realizing how heinous his
offence was. I saw at a glance that, instead of being cast down on
account of his heavy punishment, he ought to be grateful that he had not
been court-martialed and shot. While his condition aroused my sympathy,
I laid before him the gravity of his crime, then vainly pleaded with the
military authorities for his release. They argued that his offence was
so great he richly deserved further punishment, and that his release
would be detrimental to the discipline of the army. The boy at last
became very sick in his prison. His father, large both in body and in
heart, came, and so put the case of his son before the officers in
command, that they discharged him from the army.
This case was a type of many others. Some young men, among the hundreds
of thousands that enlisted in the Northern and Southern armies, failed
adequately to count the cost of what they so enthusiastically undertook
to do. Two young men of St. Louis, who enlisted in the Confederate army,
were doing duty under Price, in Missouri. November had come with its
chilling storms of rain and sleet; and without a tent they were
compelled to spend a night in the shelterless field. They had gathered
some logs and sticks and were endeavoring, as the gusts of wind swept
over them, to light a fire; but their kindling was wet and the wind
would quickly blow out their matches. Shivering with cold that seemed to
pierce to the very marrow of their bones, looking in blank despair on
those wet sticks and logs, one of them said: “Joe, soldiering is not
what it is cracked up to be. It is just hell, and I am going to get out
of it as soon as I can.” Still he was an ardent Southerner, but just for
a little his burning zeal was damped and cooled by a chill November
rain.
But my chief experiences were with Confederate prisoners. While the
disloyal of my own denomination abhorred my politics and exercised at
best a rather strained and attenuated brotherly love towards me, when,
for any cause, they were so unfortunate as to get into prison, they
often urgently appealed to me for succor.
Out on the Gravois road, a few miles west of the city, lived a Baptist
preacher. He had sandy hair, a florid face, a muscular frame, and was
about six feet in height. While rough in his manners, he was a man of
great force. Brought up, or as he said, “raised,” in Mississippi, he was
an uncompromising rebel. Late in the autumn of 1861, up in the State, at
the town of Mexico, in a dark night, he swiftly rode on horseback
through the lines of the Federal troops stationed there, and as he did
so holloed: “Hurrah for Jeff Davis.” He was tracked to his home and
arrested. He appeared at my door about nine o’clock in the morning, in a
buggy, sitting between two United States officers. One of them rang my
bell and I went out to see their prisoner. While he heartily despised me
for my loyalty, he had evidently concluded that I was just the man to
help him in his dire extremity. I asked the officers on what charge he
had been arrested. They said that they had not been informed. I then
asked him the same question, and he said that he did not know. He told
no lie, but at the same time he could have very accurately guessed.
Still, he could not have been reasonably expected to incriminate himself
before the officers who had him in charge. He blubbered over his sad
plight and entreated me to intercede with the provost marshal on his
behalf. His tears, however, were not on account of his misdemeanor; he
evidently cried because he had been caught. Nevertheless, I told him
that I would do what I could for him.
A heavy damp snow was falling fast. I had to go on foot through it fully
a mile and a half to intercede for this enemy of my country; while he
rode to his prison-house in a buggy at the government’s expense. On my
way I met one of my deacons, a physician. He was by birth a Kentuckian,
but staunchly loyal. Thinking that I had no right to expose myself to
that pitiless storm, he asked me in peremptory tones where I was going.
I told him. He then wished to know what offence the imprisoned preacher
had committed. I replied that I did not certainly know, but a report was
abroad that he had ridden in a dark night through the picket line of the
Federal army at Mexico, and, having been called upon to halt, had put
spurs to his horse, and had holloed as he rode at breakneck speed to
elude the musket-balls of the soldiers, “Hurrah for Jeff Davis!” The
deacon cried out in indignation, “You go home out of this storm and let
him sweat.” But I could not break my word to the prisoner, so I trudged
on, saw the provost marshal, and pleaded as earnestly as I could for my
incarcerated brother. He said that he would grant me anything that I
might ask within the bounds of reason, but on account of the imperative
demands upon him, he could not try the prisoner until the next day.
Having done my best at the office of the provost marshal, I walked a
mile through the damp snow, that was still copiously falling, to the
prison at the corner of Fifth and Myrtle Streets, to make known to my
rebel neighbor the result of my effort on his behalf. When I told him
that his case could not be heard till the next day, he said in a
disappointed tone: “Then, I must stay here all night,—it is a horrible
place.” “Yes,” I quickly replied, “it is a slave-pen.” His eyes filled
with tears as he said, “I never sold a slave.” His reply made me regret
the thrust that I had inconsiderately given him. But in a moment he
added, “I wish that I had some apples and tobacco.” Though I did not use
tobacco myself I went through the storm about a mile, purchased for him
out of my own pocket the desired articles, carried them back to him, and
giving him my best wishes, I bade him good day, leaving him in that old
slave-pen to his tobacco, apples and thoughts.
The next morning he was brought before the Military court, which having
heard his case, through its great leniency decided, in spite of his
grave offence, to discharge him. Returning to his home he had to go by
my door; but he did not call to thank me for what I had done on his
behalf; neither did he write me, nor did he ever in any way express the
slightest gratitude or appreciation of what I did for him on that stormy
day in order to secure his deliverance from the slave-pen prison.
A word more in reference to so extraordinary a character may not be
amiss. Many months afterwards he had the brass to come to me again.
Without any allusion to our relations in the past, he at once went on to
say, that General Schofield by a military order had taken away the
firearms of all in his neighborhood, and among the rest his shotgun had
been seized and confiscated; that wild turkeys were coming into his
cornfield, and he wished me to ask the general to grant him a permit to
buy a shotgun so that he might shoot them. Making no allusion to what I
had done for him in 1861, I asked him, “Are you a Union man?” He
replied, “Yes, in the Constitution.” “Why,” I said, “do you say in the
Constitution? Why do you not say, yes, I am a Union man?” “Well,” he
answered, “the fact is, I am a secessionist.” “Why,” said I, “did you
not then honestly say so?” “Oh! I don’t want to talk about that,” he
responded, “I want to get a shotgun.” I then said to him, “I will ask
the general to grant you a permit to get one on the condition that, if
Missouri becomes a free State, you will leave it forever.” He said that
he would gladly agree to that since he would not live in a free State.
So I went with him to the military headquarters and said to the general:
“This is Rev. Mr. ——, a Baptist minister; under your order his shotgun
was taken away from him. The wild turkeys are coming into his cornfield
and he has nothing to shoot them with. I cannot vouch for his loyalty,
but I feel quite sure that if he has a shotgun he will not shoot
black-Republicans, and he wishes you to give him a permit to buy one.”
The general replied, “I will grant the permit, if you say so.” “Well,” I
responded, “I think it safe to do so;” and writing out the permit he
handed it to the secession preacher, who went away happy. I never saw
him again. A friend told me that a few months afterwards he heard him
bitterly denounce me in a large public assembly.
But let us now turn to another scene. On Thanksgiving Day of 1861, a
secession family, living next door to me, determined to cheer some of
their disloyal friends shut up in the Gratiot Street prison, by setting
before them an abundant and delicious dinner. Their neighbors of like
political views threw themselves with ardor into the scheme. Early in
the day baskets full of appetizing food were brought from every
direction, until these parcels, piled one upon another, quite covered
the floor of their front hall. Then a covered wagon appeared at the
door. Into it all these tempting viands were hastily packed and carried
to the military prison. Those in charge of them asked the officer of the
day, if they could give the prisoners a Thanksgiving dinner. He assured
them that it would give him great pleasure to receive the food that had
been so thoughtfully and kindly provided, but since it was contrary to
orders to allow any outsiders to enter the prison, he would himself
distribute the contents of the baskets and be careful that the most
needy should not be overlooked. Two Iowa regiments that had just arrived
had been sent down to Gratiot Street to do guard duty. They were weary,
cold and hungry. The officer who had received the food, sent by devoted
secession women, deeming these newly arrived soldiers to be the most
needy, gave to them the roast turkey, fried chicken, mince pies,
cranberry sauce, roast pig and apple sauce, and kept the disloyal within
the prison walls on wholesome, but coarser, diet. While that commanding
officer told no explicit lie, the ethics of his act will hardly bear
very close inspection. He may have justified his deception by the fact
that we were in a state of war, and have erroneously thought that war
excuses “a multitude of sins.”
A little later, one of my ministerial brethren was lodged in the same
prison. After having been there for several weeks, being in great
anguish of spirit, he sent for me. When I met him he entreated me to
secure if possible his discharge from that repulsive place. My heart was
touched at his distress, and I assured him that the military authorities
would gladly release him if he would take the oath of allegiance to the
United States. I urged that this was a very reasonable demand on the
part of the government that had protected his property and person for
many years, and had never interfered in the slightest degree with his
rights or liberty. He was, however, unconvinced, and sullenly refused to
do what I urged upon him. But a few days afterwards, sick at heart from
lying in prison, he decided to take the oath, did so, and was
discharged. But when he went out to his freedom his conscience smote him
for what he had done. He walked along the street hesitatingly and in
zigzag lines. At times he stopped and gazed intently on the pavement.
One of his friends met him and asked: “What is the matter?” He replied:
“Matter enough, I was overpersuaded to take the oath of allegiance to
the awful government of the United States, and feel as if I should go to
hell.”
Such were some of the military prisons and such were some of the
prisoners in St. Louis during the civil war. Those who kept these
prisons and guarded these prisoners were patriots, intent on preserving
the Union; those who were incarcerated and guarded were equally intent
on disrupting the Union and establishing the Southern Confederacy, whose
corner-stone, according to its Vice-President, was slavery. Both could
not have been right, but both believed themselves to be right, and
suffered for their faith.
CHAPTER XIII
LYON IN CONFERENCE AND IN CAMPAIGN
War really began in Missouri at the taking of Camp Jackson. But many
hoped against hope that the fire that then began to flame might be
dampened and extinguished. Eminent citizens of St. Louis besought the
Governor and his chief of staff, General Price, to ask for a conference
with General Lyon, that, by a frank, honest interchange of views, some
basis for peace might be discovered. This these officers reluctantly
consented to do. When their request was presented to General Lyon, some
men, who commanded his confidence, urged him to grant it, in order that
no one in the future might be able to say that he refused to consider
any measure by which war might have been honorably averted. Lyon,
yielding to this reasonable solicitation, agreed to participate in the
proposed conference. But with him time was precious. Harney had
relinquished his command of the department on May 30th, and Lyon had
assumed it on the following day. Since that time he had been exceedingly
busy in gathering and equipping troops. To him war in Missouri, probably
fierce and protracted, was inevitable, and he was bending every energy
upon the work of preparation, that he might be able to wage it
successfully. He considered any suspension of his activity as
intolerable. Whatever was done by way of compromise must be done without
delay. So he fixed an early day for the solicited conference. He
announced that if the Governor and his general, or either of them,
“should visit St. Louis on, or before, the 12th of June, in order to
hold an interview with him for the purpose of effecting, if possible, a
pacific solution of the troubles in Missouri, they should be free from
molestation or arrest during their journey to St. Louis, and their
return from St. Louis to Jefferson City.” Thus assured of safe-conduct,
in the afternoon of June 10th, Governor Jackson, General Price, and one
of the Governor’s aides-de-camp, Thomas L. Snead, left the State capital
for our city. On the following morning, June 11th, they apprised Lyon
that they were at the Planters’ Hotel. In the afternoon of that day, the
conference took place.[38] The fact of that vitally important meeting
became generally known. All intelligent persons in the city were full of
interest, not to say anxiety, in reference to the outcome.
[Illustration:
BRIGADIER-GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON.
[_Page 198_
]
Both parties to the rapidly developing national conflict were ably and
fittingly represented in the conference. The Unionists felt that their
interests, identical with the national interests, would be wisely
guarded by General Lyon, Colonel Blair and Major Conant. General Lyon
opened the conference, stating that it would be conducted on the side of
the Union by Colonel Blair, than whom no one was better equipped for the
responsible task. But as the deliberations between these men of
irreconcilable views proceeded, Lyon, who had profoundly studied the
underlying questions and principles that divided the Federals and the
Confederates, and was by nature aggressive and inclined to disputation,
gradually assumed the part of leader in that momentous interchange of
views, while Mr. Blair lapsed into silence, a satisfied and admiring
listener. State and national sovereignty there met face to face. They
were opposites. Both could not be true. Hours passed in seeking some
basis of agreement, but none was found. So long as each party held his
view unflinchingly, there could be no common standing ground. Colonel
Blair, afterwards speaking of the conference, declared that he said
little or nothing, and did not need to; that General Lyon, in the most
thorough and lucid manner, analyzed every proposal submitted by the
Governor, pointed out every subterfuge and held up to the light every
fallacy. The main contention of the secessionists was that the United
States had no right to organize and arm Home Guards, nor to send troops
into, and to occupy, the territory of sovereign Missouri; if General
Lyon would agree to these vital propositions, on other grounds they were
willing for the sake of peace to make what seemed to them great and
humiliating concessions. But what they asked no loyal officer of the
United States army would or could grant. So, after the conference had
lasted nearly five hours, and all the views presented had been
thoroughly discussed, Lyon closed this memorable, crucial debate by
saying: “Rather” (he was still seated and spoke deliberately, slowly and
with peculiar emphasis) “rather than concede to the State of Missouri
the right to demand that my government shall not enlist troops within
her limits, or bring troops into the State whenever it pleases, or move
its troops at its own will into, out of, or through the State; rather
than concede to the State of Missouri for one single instant the right
to dictate to my government in any matter however unimportant, I would”
(rising as he said this, and pointing in turn to every one in the room)
“see you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and every man, woman and
child in the State dead and buried.” Then turning to the Governor, he
said: “This means war. In an hour one of my officers will call for you
and conduct you out of my lines.” And then, without another word,
without an inclination of the head, without even a look, he turned upon
his heel and strode out of the room, rattling his spurs and clanking his
sabre.[39]
The report of the abortive deliberations of the conference spread with
lightning speed through the city and State. But notwithstanding the
untoward result, it brought relief to all loyal hearts; for while all
desired peace, a host of true men and women preferred war to peace with
dishonor. Like their general, rather than tamely yield the vital
question at stake, they were ready to sacrifice their property and lay
down their lives. It was inspiring to feel the touch and thrill of this
unselfish devotion.
The Governor and his attendants at once returned to Jefferson City. They
reached their destination at two o’clock in the morning of the 12th. The
Governor at once issued a proclamation, calling for fifty thousand
volunteers to repel the invasion of the State.[40] For fear of the
speedy coming of Lyon by rail, General Price ordered the railroad
bridges across the Osage and Gasconade to be burned. Jefferson City was
hastily evacuated. The archives of the State were removed, and such
material of war as had been gathered at the capital, including even the
armory and workshop. The rebel forces were concentrated at Boonville,
farther to the west, for the purpose of holding that place and the
Missouri River long enough at least for the secessionists in the
northern counties of the commonwealth to rally to the support of the
fugitive State government. The Governor desired if possible to segregate
and solidify the disloyal, and so carry the State by force over into the
Southern Confederacy.
But the lynx-eyed, alert Lyon thwarted that scheme. When he left the
Planters’ Hotel in the evening of June 11th, he at once telegraphed the
national War Department for five thousand additional stand of arms, and
for authority to enlist more troops in the State.[41] What he asked was
granted without hesitation or delay. The next day, with characteristic
energy, he prepared his small army for an offensive campaign. A part of
it, on the 13th, he ordered to Springfield, in southwest Missouri, to
cut off the retreat of Price, whom he expected to drive in that
direction. Knowing that he could not use the Pacific Railroad, since its
main bridges had been destroyed, on the same day, with the rest of his
army, he moved up the Missouri by steamboat. On the 15th, he quietly
took possession of Jefferson City, and garrisoned it. On Sunday, the
16th, he was steaming on toward Boonville. On Monday, a few miles south
of that city, he met and easily dispersed the rebel army, which, having
been hastily gathered, was raw, undisciplined, and poorly armed. The
collision between these hostile forces did not, in the sacrifice of
life, reach the dignity of a battle. Only two or three on each side were
killed and a few wounded. The Union army, however, took a goodly company
of prisoners, together with considerable war material and camp equipage;
and this comparatively bloodless conflict secured the end that from the
beginning Lyon had clearly in view. By taking Camp Jackson in May, he
had suppressed the open disloyalty of St. Louis and the counties
adjacent to it, assuring their support of the Union; by dispersing
Price’s gathering host at Boonville he cleared the Missouri River of all
formidable hostile forces; isolated the counties north of the river,
which were rich, populous, and largely disloyal; drove the fleeing
Governor with his general and army panic-stricken into the extreme
southwest of the State; and sent General Price, with several members of
his staff, on a flying expedition into northwestern Arkansas, to urge
General McCulloch of the Confederate army to invade Missouri and deliver
him and his retreating troops from utter disaster.
Lyon and his army were received with exultant gladness by the many loyal
citizens of Boonville, and on the 18th he issued a proclamation,
assuring all that were peaceful and law-abiding of his protection. He
also paroled the prisoners that he had taken, putting them under oath
not again to take up arms against the United States.
Without going further into detail, which would be aside from our object,
it is sufficient to say that Lyon, following up his victory at Boonville
as best he could, with the inadequate force under his command, finally
made his headquarters at Springfield. There we must leave him for a
time. Every act that he had thus far performed, every step of his
victorious march, had been watched with breathless interest by both the
loyal and disloyal of St. Louis. The former well knew that his victory
was theirs; the latter considered his triumph their defeat.
But while Lyon with unusual energy and startling celerity was
prosecuting his victorious campaign in the State, a lamentable event
within the city saddened all hearts. On the east side of Seventh Street,
between Olive and Locust, in a substantial brick building, was the
Recorder’s Court. On Saturday, June 15th, a company of volunteer
soldiers, belonging to the regiment of Colonel Kallman, was marching by,
when somebody, from a window of the story just above the court-room,
fired a revolver into the ranks of these armed volunteers. They were raw
and undisciplined. Being Germans, they were bitterly hated by the
secessionists. They had become sensitive and vindictive under the
stinging taunts which had been wantonly hurled at them by their hostile
neighbors. So now, when unexpectedly fired upon, exasperated, and
evidently without a moment’s thought, they turned and fired into the
building, from which they had been assailed. They did not stop to think
from which story the hostile shot had come, and emptied their muskets
into the room occupied by the innocent recorder. He and three other
guiltless citizens were instantly killed, while two others were mortally
wounded and another sadly injured.[42] Such not unprovoked, but
inconsiderate, action on the part of these Union soldiers for the time
being materially damaged the cause of the loyal in our city and put
weapons into the hands of the secessionists. Nevertheless, all
conservative citizens on either side were grateful that an event so
ill-starred did not lead, as it naturally might have done, to general
bloody conflict in our streets.
The whole affair was investigated; not very thoroughly, many of us
thought. Those who attempted it, found it difficult to get at the bottom
facts. Their investigation at last came to a rather inglorious end,
leaving the community in doubt as to whether any one fired upon the
soldiers. Several in the neighborhood testified that they saw no one
shoot from the building; but one man declared that he saw the shot from
the second-story window, and described the position of the man’s arm
when he discharged his revolver into the ranks of the unoffending
soldiers; but there was no other witness, aside from the soldiers
themselves, to confirm this testimony, and as only in the mouth of two
or three witnesses so grave a matter could be satisfactorily
established, the investigators returned the Scotch verdict, “Not
proven.” This, however, was quite unsatisfactory to thinking men. Very
few believed that these soldiers, without provocation, fired into the
room of a civil magistrate with whom they were unacquainted, and against
whom they could have had no ill will. Still, the lamentable event was
part and parcel of the mad effort to dismember the Republic, and hardly
surprising in a city where earnest, passionate men on both sides of the
great national conflict daily looked each other in the eye. But as it
has often happened, so in this sad case, the innocent suffered, while
the undetected guilty went free. However, in the onrushing tide of
events, the deplorable incident was soon lost sight of and forgotten.
CHAPTER XIV
FREMONT AND FIASCO
On the 3d of July, the States and territories west of the Mississippi
River and east of the Rocky Mountains, including New Mexico, were
constituted the Western Department, under the command of Major-General
John Charles Fremont.[43] On the 26th he arrived in our city and took up
the vastly important work confided to his hands. All the loyal wished
him well. Many of them received him with exultation. He came with
prestige. He was a renowned path finder to the Pacific. He had been the
standard-bearer of the Republican party in 1856, and though defeated had
polled a heavy vote in the most intelligent and progressive States of
the Union. No one ever assumed military command under more favorable
auspices.
[Illustration:
GENERAL FREMONT’S HEADQUARTERS, EIGHTH STREET AND CHOUTEAU AVENUE, ST.
LOUIS.
[_Page 206_
]
He at once appointed Colonel McNeil commandant of St. Louis,[44] that he
himself, measurably free from local demands, might expend his energies
in directing the larger affairs of his department. The best volunteers
of the West rapidly and enthusiastically gathered around him. He gave
himself without reserve to his great and difficult task. But from the
start he appeared to be vainglorious. His headquarters were luxurious.
Immediately around him he gathered a body-guard of about three hundred
men, some of whom were foreigners with jaw-breaking names. It was later
shown that most of them were enlisted not to serve the United States,
but simply the general.[45] He and they, in full uniform, on horseback,
often went thundering along our streets, kicking up a cloud of dust, or
else making the mud fly. At Fremont’s headquarters were stationed so
many sentinels that it was exceedingly difficult to find access to his
person. Eminent citizens of St. Louis early began to complain that he
ignored both them and the important questions on which they needed his
counsel.
Moreover, there was a marked lack of system in all that he undertook to
do. He evidently had little talent for details; so everything in the
encampments of his volunteer soldiers was in confusion. All this was
inauspicious and disheartening. We had expected so much and were getting
so little.
The general soon reported to the authorities at Washington that his
department was in a critical condition;[46] that troops of the Southern
Confederacy in large numbers were moving northward to aid the disloyal
of Missouri; that General Pillow threatened to invade the State from the
southeast, General Hardee from the south, and General McCulloch from the
southwest; and that while the volunteers gathering at St. Louis to meet
the invaders were numerous, many of them were unarmed.
In the meantime, Lyon at Springfield, with a clear view of the whole
situation, seeing that by far the most formidable rebel force, under
McCulloch and Price, was moving upon him from the southwest, pleaded in
vain with Fremont to re-enforce his altogether inadequate army by at
least one or two regiments and to pay and clothe his soldiers.[47]
Fremont’s assistant adjutant-general, J. C. Kelton, wrote him at Cairo,
August 2d: “General Lyon wants soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. So says
Colonel Hammer, who has just arrived from Springfield.”[48] The same day
Fremont wrote General Scott: “Force large in front of General Lyon.” But
all was without avail. The Confederates, by a feint at New Madrid, in
the southeastern corner of the State, had deceived him. Pillow was
reported as being there with eleven thousand men.[49] He was led to
believe that the main invasion of our commonwealth was to be at that
point.
So the general called into his service eight river steamboats, loaded
them with an abundance of provisions, camp equipage, ammunition and
arms, and put on board about five thousand soldiers, infantry and
artillery. The Stars and Stripes waved proudly over each boat, while
over the “City of Alton,” “the flag steamer,” on which were the general
and his staff, waved also the Union Jack and a broad pennon. On August
1st this warlike fleet, to us an unusual and imposing sight, began to
move down the Mississippi.[50] The crowds on the levee cheered, waved
handkerchiefs, and threw up hats. But not a few of the more thoughtful,
shaking their heads, said, “We believe that Lyon, whose urgent pleadings
have been unheeded, and to whom no re-enforcements have been sent, is
right in thinking that the main invading rebel force is not at New
Madrid, in the southeast, but comes from the southwest to attack him and
his brave little army at Springfield.” And “This ostentatious expedition
of Fremont,” they added, “is in utter contrast with the silent, swift,
effective movements of the neglected Lyon.” Moreover, some of the ablest
Union men of the city, half disheartened by the display on the river,
exclaimed, “Fuss and feathers!” Their criticism may have been somewhat
passionate, and perhaps uncalled for, but the event justified their main
contention. There was only a handful of the enemy at New Madrid. But
these Confederates had shrewdly played their game. They had diverted the
attention of the Union general from McCulloch and Price to themselves,
and made it difficult for him now to re-enforce Lyon before he must meet
the enemy. Enlightened by experience, Fremont ordered his fleet back to
St. Louis. Still, his expedition was not bootless. While he found but a
few hundred rebels at New Madrid, and these escaped him unscathed, he
laid, as he wisely intended to do, the foundation of a military
encampment across the river at Cairo, Illinois, from which later began
the great campaign under Grant down the east bank of the Mississippi.
Nevertheless the general’s ostentatious and ill-starred movements
disgusted many of the loyal of the city. Perhaps they did not fully
understand him, but they saw enough to evoke their heated opposition to
him; some indeed defended him, for he had true and warm friends, but
others sharply condemned him; while the overawed and silenced
secessionists, still by thousands among us, looked on with satisfaction.
In the meantime, the clear-sighted, intrepid Lyon at Springfield was
left to shift for himself. He concluded that retreat would be hazardous,
if not absolutely destructive, in the face of a hostile force nearly
three times as great as his own, and unhesitatingly decided to take the
initiative instead of simply standing on the defensive. His matured
purpose was quickly executed. The army of Price and McCulloch was at
Wilson’s Creek, about nine or ten miles south of Springfield. He
determined to move upon it in two columns, the first under himself, the
second under Colonel Siegel. The advance was to begin about sunset of
the 9th; the attack was to be made at daylight the next morning. Having
given his orders, he calmly wrote General Fremont the following
memorable letter. It was his last.
“I retired to this place, as I before informed you, reaching here on the
5th. The enemy followed to within ten miles of here. He has taken a
strong position and is recruiting his supply of horses, mules, and
provisions, by forays into the surrounding country: his large force of
mounted men enabling him to do this without much annoyance from me. I
find my position extremely embarrassing, and am at present unable to
determine whether I shall be able to maintain my ground, or be forced to
retire. I can resist any attack from the front, but, if the enemy were
to surround me, I must retire. I shall hold my ground as long as
possible, though I may, without knowing how far, endanger the safety of
my entire force, with its valuable material, being induced, by the
important considerations involved, to take this step. The enemy showed
himself in considerable force yesterday five miles from here, and has
doubtless a full purpose of attacking me.”[51]
It has remained for an officer of the Confederate army, Thomas L. Snead,
in his comment on this letter to utter perhaps the most eloquent eulogy
pronounced on General Lyon. “Not one word about the desperate battle
that he was to fight on the morrow; not one fault-finding utterance; not
a breath of complaint! But true to his convictions; true to his flag;
true to the Union men of Missouri who confided in and followed him; true
to himself; and true to duty, he went out to battle against a force
twice as great as his own, with a calmness that was as pathetic as his
courage was sublime.”[52]
The next morning before sunrise, the 10th of August, he vigorously
attacked the enemy, who were taken utterly by surprise. It is not within
the scope of my purpose to attempt any description of the fierce and
bloody battle that followed. It raged for fully six hours. According to
the most conservative estimates, Lyon lost of his small army of four or
five thousand men more than thirteen hundred in killed, wounded, and
missing. The Confederates lost still more. Lyon was twice wounded, and
afterwards, while leading a regiment of his troops in a desperate
charge, was shot through the heart and instantly killed; but even after
his death his plucky little army fought on for a time unflinchingly, and
with a large measure of success. Nor did they abandon the well-contested
field until the ammunition of a large part of their force was utterly
exhausted. Even then they retreated in good order. They had inflicted a
blow so terrible and unexpected that the Confederates were unwilling or
unable to pursue them. Having rested a few hours at Springfield, they
retreated unmolested to Rolla, with all their wagons, provisions, and
munitions of war; while McCulloch and Price sat down at Springfield and
wrote reports of their great victory at Wilson’s Creek. Some of their
subordinate officers in their reports declared with refreshing frankness
that Lyon, in his attack on their camp, had completely surprised them.
A few days later came the last act of this sad drama. The body of
General Lyon was brought back to us. It was borne through the city and
across the Mississippi to the railroad depot. It was escorted by
prominent citizens, city officials, regiments of soldiers, infantry,
cavalry and artillery, marching with arms reversed. Conspicuous in this
martial array was General Fremont, with his staff and body-guard. The
bands played plaintive dirges. The bells tolled. The national flags of
the city, encampments and Arsenal were draped and at half-mast. A great,
sad, silent throng, on either side of the street along which the funeral
cortège moved, stood with heads uncovered. The dust of one of the best
friends the loyal of St. Louis ever had thus passed on its way to burial
in Connecticut, the native State of the dauntless hero, who poured out
his heart’s blood at Wilson’s Creek to save our commonwealth and city
from secession. But strange as it may seem to the present generation, we
were then and there so utterly divided in judgment and feeling that
while many mourned, some rejoiced; tears stained some cheeks, smiles
rippled across some faces.
And during all this pageant of mourning our hearts bled afresh, as we
remembered that the ear of Fremont had been apparently deaf to Lyon when
he pleaded for at least one more regiment of troops, and was left
unaided to fight, against great odds, a forlorn and desperate battle in
which he laid down his life. We knew then, as we know now, that Fremont
could have granted the request of his subordinate; that General Pope had
in the northern part of the State an army of fully nine thousand men
that were not just then imperatively needed there; that Fremont called
for and put under his own immediate command a part of that force; that
he sent troops at that time into different parts of the State; that two
regiments were guarding Rolla, and that one of them, without
jeopardizing any important interest, could have been sent to Lyon; but
for some occult reason he refused to lift a finger in time to help his
capable subordinate, but abandoned him to defeat and death. To be sure,
on August 5th, he ordered a regiment of a thousand men at Fort
Leavenworth to re-enforce Lyon,[53] but that was too late. There was no
railroad connection. The order had to be sent by express. Before the
regiment had gotten half way to Springfield the fate of Lyon was sealed.
On the same date, August 5th, he ordered Colonel Stevenson, commanding
the Seventh Missouri Volunteers, to report to Lyon with despatch. When
the colonel reached Rolla, he found no transportation for his troops.
They could not reach their destination in time. The remembrance of this
on that funeral march rankled in every loyal heart.
But when our general reported to the War Department the battle of
Wilson’s Creek, in just and fitting words he eulogized the slain hero.
In a measure that dulled the edge of our resentment towards him, and
partially revived our wavering confidence in him. We were still further
reconciled to him, when, seeing the anarchy by which we were threatened,
and believing that certain inimical movements among us could not be
adequately and decisively dealt with by ordinary civil processes, on
August 14th, he declared martial law in St. Louis and St. Louis County.
At that time, according to the most conservative estimate, there were in
our city at least eight thousand pronounced and active secessionists,
and seven thousand of them were reported to be armed with weapons of
various kinds.[54] They were prepared, whenever their compatriots in
rebellion should attack the city from without, to join hands with them
by a vigorous movement from within. So while the necessity of martial
law was regretted by all, its proclamation came as a distinct relief and
assurance to all the loyal.
Major J. McKinstry of the United States army was appointed provost
marshal. He was an able, faithful officer and discharged his delicate
and weighty duties with fearlessness and thoughtful discrimination. He
at once issued a proclamation, declaring that he should not interfere
with the operation of the civil law, except in cases where that law was
found inadequate to the maintenance of the public peace and safety.[55]
He followed this considerate and reassuring manifesto with orders
forbidding under heavy penalties all persons not in the military service
of the United States, or in the regularly constituted police of the
city, carrying concealed weapons, and prohibiting the sale of all
firearms without a special permit from his office. This was striking at
the root of all the dangers that immediately threatened the loyal of the
city and county, and we retired that night with a deeper sense of
security than we had felt for several months.
[Illustration:
FACSIMILE OF A PASS ISSUED TO THE AUTHOR IN 1861.
[_Page 215_
]
[Illustration: Reverse]
On the following day, he suppressed _The War Bulletin_ and _The
Missourian_, papers that, to the detriment of the loyal, had maliciously
and shamefully misrepresented the movements of the Federal troops in the
State. But under a government like ours, where all enjoy such unbounded
freedom of speech, such acts, whether by the direction of civil or
military authority, are usually offensive, whatever public necessity may
be urged as a justification of them. And both the right and expediency
of suppressing even these virulent secession journals were doubted by
very many of the Unionists. But, at a later day, we felt that we could
approve, if not applaud, much of what the provost marshal wrote to the
editor of the _Christian Advocate_, who had inquired if the rumors were
true that the marshal intended to suppress his paper. The suggestive
reply was: “Permit me to say that in my judgment, in these times of
political excitement, and heated discussion, and civil war, it would be
more becoming, as well as more consistent, that a public newspaper,
belonging to, and advocating the doctrines and principles of the church
of Christ, should abstain from publishing articles of a political
character, calculated to inflame the passions of men, and evidently
hostile to the government of the country. Let your journal be a
religious paper, as it professes to be, and it will never come under the
discipline of this department.”
After the suppression of these papers, rigorous measures multiplied. The
provost marshal, by a general order, forbade any one to pass beyond the
limits of the city and county of St. Louis without a special permit from
his office. That those born since the war may know under what stringent
regulations all of us lived for many months, see the facsimile of both
sides of a pass issued to myself, in October of 1861.
These requirements made and strictly enforced by martial law greatly
annoyed many, even among the loyal of the city and county, especially
elderly men and women, who had spent most of their lives in unrestrained
liberty of movement. To be compelled to solicit in person a permit from
the provost marshal to leave or enter the city seemed to them an
arrogant and galling invasion of their freedom. And while they bowed to
this inexorable demand so necessary to guard the fealty of their city
and State to the Union, it was a yoke to which they unwillingly
submitted, and under which they chafed.
I well remember meeting at that time a large, venerable man, who by a
multitude of people was affectionately called Father Welsh. He was a
pioneer Baptist minister. He had long lived in St. Louis County, and had
preached not only in churches, schoolhouses, and private residences, but
in summer in groves under the canopy of leafy boughs. He was not only
generally respected, but sincerely loved by very many who had been
blessed through his faithful, sympathetic ministrations. He was loyal to
his country. His patriotism was unqualified and ardent, but to him
martial law was abhorrent. He complained bitterly that one as old and
well known as he was should be compelled to solicit a pass from a United
States officer, in order that, unmolested by military sentinels, he
might enter and leave the city and county where he had so long
proclaimed the gospel. And he evidently represented many of unsullied
patriotism, who deeply felt the infringement of their accustomed
liberties. But in a border city, we were all compelled to learn by
experience the difference between a state of war and a state of peace.
But if martial law was so distasteful even to some of the truly loyal,
what was it to the men and women among us, who were aiding and abetting
those in rebellion against the Federal government? They could not take
the stringent oath printed on the pass, without which it could not be
granted to them. If they should undertake to get out of the city or
county without a pass, in all probability they would be challenged and
arrested by the military sentinels, and, unable to take any oath of
allegiance, would be duly landed in durance vile. Rather than run such
risks, most of them, muttering their indignant protests, sat down in
their homes and sulkily waited for deliverance. But the kind of
deliverance that they ardently longed for happily never came.
On the same day that the provost marshal issued his order in reference
to passes, General Fremont put the whole State under martial law, and,
as many contended, unwarrantably assuming the functions of the general
government, proclaimed the freedom of all slaves belonging to those
guilty of disloyalty to the United States.[56] He made good his
extraordinary proclamation by explicit act. On September 12th,
notwithstanding the President had written him on the 2d, taking
exception to this manifesto, he manumitted two slaves, belonging to
Thomas L. Snead of St. Louis, and issued their manumission papers over
his signature as major-general.[57] Lincoln kindly called his attention
to the fact that he was transcending his authority, and gave him the
opportunity to modify his own policy, without any open declaration of
dissent on the part of the general government. But in reply, Fremont
preferred that the President himself should modify the obnoxious
proclamation;[58] so, reluctantly but firmly, Mr. Lincoln publicly set
aside so much of the general’s proclamation of August 30th as pertained
to the manumission of slaves belonging to rebels.[59]
The question on which the President and his general clashed was
confessedly delicate and manifestly perplexing to those in
administrative circles. At bottom, the duty of the President was clear.
Since slavery was a local institution he could not legally interfere
with it in any loyal State; and, as a State, Missouri had declared
against secession. Just what, however, might be rightly done, according
to the laws of war, with the slaves of the disloyal in loyal States was
as yet apparently not altogether clear to those in authority at
Washington. Still, on grounds of expediency, conservative action was
manifestly wisest, in order not unnecessarily to alienate the loyal
pro-slavery element of the border States. The problem in all its
bearings greatly agitated the Unionists of our city. Upon it they were
divided in both judgment and sentiment. Some said: “The enslavement of
the negro is the real cause of the war. By law he is declared to be
property; and if, as has been done before our eyes, a general may
confiscate buildings belonging to the disloyal, and appropriate them to
the use of the United States, why can he not treat the slave property of
rebels in the same way?” “But,” their opponents replied, “this is what
Fremont did not do with the slaves of Mr. Snead; he did not turn them
over to the United States to be used in promoting the interests of the
Federal government; he simply set them free. He is putting himself
forward as an emancipator.” So the ideas of staunch Unionists were in
conflict. Evidently the most intelligent and thoughtful unhesitatingly
sustained the President in his modification of the general’s manifesto.
And without expressing here any opinion as to whether or not their
judgment of Fremont was just, it is true that many of them began to feel
that in attempting to do what in itself as a matter of merely abstract
justice was right, he was quite too impulsive, effusive, and
spectacular, and that he had clearly exceeded his authority. In fact he
was attempting to do what the general government felt itself debarred
from doing by constitutional law and by a late specific act of Congress.
[Illustration:
THE AUTHOR, GALUSHA ANDERSON, IN 1861, WHEN THE PASS WAS GRANTED HIM.
[_Page 218_
]
But Fremont’s career, as commander of the Western Department, now drew
rapidly to its close. He had gathered an army of twenty-five thousand
men; but when the brave Mulligan at Lexington, on the Missouri River, in
the western part of the State, was besieged by a rebel force more than
four times greater than his own, and yet fought on pluckily for days,
Fremont failed to re-enforce him. To be sure, he made what seemed to us
a rather belated and languid effort so to do, but the troops ordered by
him to Lexington failed to reach their destination before Mulligan was
compelled to surrender.[60] This was a blow so disastrous to the Union
cause, that the loyal of our city were filled with disappointment and
discontent. Some of them murmured their disapprobation of the commanding
general, some openly and bitterly denounced him. _The Evening News_, a
Union journal, in a strong, manly editorial, entitled “The Fall of
Lexington,” sharply criticized his failure to re-enforce Mulligan, and
for this criticism, the proprietor, Charles G. Ramsay, was arrested by
order of the provost marshal, taken to headquarters and there examined
by the military authorities. He was sent to prison, and his paper was
suppressed. All the manuscript in his office was seized and the
building, where his paper was published, was put into the possession of
a provost-guard.[61] With very few dissenting voices, this invasion of
the freedom of the press was sharply condemned by Union men. The
occurrence added largely to the distrust of the capacity of the general
for a command so large and difficult.
The surrender of Mulligan’s small heroic army at Lexington stimulated
Fremont to more strenuous effort. He now contemplated marching against
the enemy that was so rapidly gaining strength in west and southwest
Missouri. But in that event St. Louis would be left quite uncovered; so
to provide for the defence of the city in the absence of his army, he
proceeded to surround it on the north, west and south with earthworks,
in which he placed great guns. These works he intended to man with a few
hundred soldiers, who, if any enemy should approach, could with those
big guns sweep with grape and canister all the roads that led to the
city. Many of us, little acquainted with military affairs, looked on
with curiosity mingled with wonder, grateful for the benign care
bestowed upon us by our patriotic commander; but I noticed that those
who evidently knew more of war viewed these earthworks with
ill-concealed contempt. And during many months they remained unmanned,
mute reminders of the wisdom or folly of the celebrated Fremont, under
whose immediate direction they had been constructed.
He seemed to have a mania for fortifications. He put Jefferson City, the
capital of the State, under the command of Brigadier-General Ulysses S.
Grant, then unknown to fame, and especially enjoined him to fortify it.
To this order Grant replied that he had neither sufficient men nor tools
to fortify the place, and added: “Drill and discipline are more
important than fortifications.” That pithy, pregnant sentence
foreshadowed the hero of Fort Donelson, Vicksburg and Appomattox.
At last, during the closing days of September, Fremont and his army,
attended, as it seemed to us, with inextricable confusion and
indescribable clatter, left St. Louis for Jefferson City. No armed host
ever went forth to battle made up of nobler men. The best blood of the
West ran in their veins. They were unusually intelligent and patriotic.
Price, apparently always unwilling to risk a doubtful conflict,
abandoning his project of destroying the railroads in the northern part
of the State, with an army of about twenty thousand men, retreated in
orderly fashion towards southwest Missouri. The loyal of our city now
took new heart and hope. Our general, unopposed, moved on towards
Springfield. On the 25th of October, Zagonyi, with a hundred and fifty
of Fremont’s body-guard, made a brilliant dash into that city,
dispersing the rebel soldiers stationed there to defend it. Over this we
were exultant. The first brush with the enemy had resulted in decisive
victory and had added glory to our arms. The people of Springfield, with
tumultuous joy, ran up the Stars and Stripes in every part of their
city. Fremont’s army was now rapidly concentrated there. The enemy was
steadily falling back toward northwestern Arkansas. Victory for our
whole army seemed hovering near, ready to perch on our banners. Even if
our general had made mistakes, he was about to atone for them all by
utterly defeating the enemy; so loyal St. Louis felt.
But while this apparently auspicious campaign was being prosecuted, not
a few leading men, headed by Colonel Frank P. Blair, were urging the
authorities at Washington to remove Fremont from his command. Mr. Blair
was evidently bent on securing this end. He preferred formal charges
against the general,[62] in which he accused him of conduct unbecoming
an officer and a gentleman, extravagance and waste of the public moneys,
despotic and tyrannical conduct, and disobedience of orders. These
charges he sustained by many specifications. While Mr. Blair’s onslaught
seemed not wholly destitute of heat and partisanship, it contained so
much of truth that the authorities at Washington felt that they could
not ignore it. It also greatly disturbed the loyal of our city and
divided them into opposing parties, some for, some against, the general.
The situation was so grave that the Secretary of War himself came to
make an investigation. He evidently found much that he did not approve.
He went out into the State to Tipton and had an interview with Fremont,
who was then on the march; and when, on October 14th, he was about to
return from St. Louis to Washington, he instructed Fremont to correct
certain irregularities in his disbursement of military funds, to
discontinue the erection of earthworks around our city, as wholly
unnecessary, and of barracks near his own headquarters.[63] He also
declared that no payments would be made to officers, other than those of
the volunteer forces, who had been commissioned by Fremont without the
President’s approval. Such deliverances from the head of the War
Department betokened reprehensible, even if it were thoughtless,
insubordination, and contained a pretty clear hint of incompetence.[64]
In fact the evidence of his incompetence was startling and cumulative.
When at Jefferson City, he ordered his army to march without sufficient
means of transportation. He did the same at Tipton. His ammunition was
wet; the Belgian rifles that he bought in Europe were nearly useless. In
the preceding September, Grant at Cairo, Illinois, learning that the
rebels at Columbus, Kentucky, had planned to seize Paducah at the mouth
of the Tennessee, saw that he must move without delay if he would thwart
their purpose. He at once telegraphed Fremont that he was taking steps
to anticipate the enemy in the occupation of that place. He received no
reply that day, September 5th. So he telegraphed that he should start
for Paducah that night unless he received further orders. Getting no
response, he occupied Paducah at daylight the next morning, anticipating
the enemy by six or eight hours. After he had garrisoned the town,
placed General Smith in command and returned to Cairo, he found a
despatch from Fremont authorizing him to take Paducah if he “felt strong
enough.”[65]
It soon leaked out that Fremont had appointed general and staff officers
without the authority of the general government; that those constituting
his body-guard had been commissioned primarily to serve him personally
rather than the United States;[66] and that often ignoring his
adjutant-general, he had sent in bills payable, approved simply by
himself.[67] At a later day, a committee appointed by the House of
Representatives, after thoroughly investigating these alleged
misdemeanors, in the main confirmed the conclusions reached by the
Secretary of War.
When the Secretary arrived at Washington and made his report, the
removal of Fremont from his command soon followed. He was apprised of it
on November 2d,[68] and immediately took leave of his army. To most of
us, this seemed at the moment a calamity. Not that we could justly find
fault with the decision reached by the government, but we keenly felt
that the time for promulgating this decision was most inopportune. The
general was apparently on the eve of a great battle; his army glowed
with enthusiasm; the prospect of complete victory was unusually bright;
he had in fact, with the smallest modicum of fighting, nearly driven the
rebel army from our State. The strong, instinctive feeling of the great
body of loyal men and women of our city was that he ought to have had
the chance to finish the campaign so auspiciously begun. But the
authorities at Washington had, with apparently abundant justification,
decreed otherwise. There was only one thing to be done; that was to
submit without murmuring.
By the removal of Fremont his patriotic army was greatly disheartened.
Some of them, in the first flush of disappointment, declared that they
would not serve under another leader; that when he left they would throw
down their arms and return to their homes. But in his farewell address
to his troops, Fremont rose above all personal resentment, and in a
tender patriotic appeal exhorted them to be as faithful to his successor
as they had been to him.[69] Their sober second thought responded to his
manly, unselfish words, and, in spite of their personal attachment to
him, sinking all individual preferences, they determined unswervingly to
fight on for the Union under any general that might be placed over them.
So, as we generally anticipated, the highest motive prevailed.
Fremont returned to St. Louis. The loyal Germans, to whom we and the
whole country owed so much, received him with unshaken confidence, and
with the warmest expressions of affection. At the time they were firmly
convinced that those who had so strenuously urged his removal had
treated him with marked injustice. These tokens of personal loyalty and
confidence touched his heart. In response to the assurances of his
steadfast friends, he complained of the unjust charges that, in his
absence, had been “rained on his defenceless head—defenceless because
his face was turned to the public enemy.” But, though smarting under
what he deemed grievous personal wrong, there was no note of recreancy
to his country.
Whatever were his faults, whatever were his mistakes,—and they seemed to
be many,—he was a patriot, and laid down the duties of his department
with honor. And I am sure that all true Unionists of St. Louis, even
those who did not join their German fellow-citizens either in their
expressions of confidence in the retiring commander, or in their
criticisms of those who thought the highest good of the Republic
demanded his retirement, were nevertheless glad that these spontaneous
and hearty demonstrations of the loyal Germans came to cheer the heart
of Fremont in what evidently was to him a dark and bitter day.
His command was turned over to General Hunter, the oldest officer in his
army. But Hunter, perhaps considering himself only a temporary bridge to
Fremont’s real successor, refused to continue the campaign, which had
been so suddenly arrested by the removal of his chief. In a leisurely
and orderly manner he soon began a retrograde movement, for which the
onlooking loyalists of our city could discover no reason. No foe
immediately confronted him, and if the rebels of that region with all
their forces had borne down upon him, he could have easily defeated
them. But from no cause patent to us, that splendid army, under his
command, was retracing its steps. We viewed the inglorious spectacle
with profound disgust.
Price and his army advanced as ours retreated. Before him, dreading his
approach, fled a great company of well-to-do Unionists, poor whites and
negroes. They were the heralds of his march, and the motley trail of our
retreating troops. In a few days the great army was once more encamped
at our gates, and the disheartened, footsore, hungry crowd that had
followed in its wake thronged our streets and taxed to the uttermost our
charities. Thus ended a campaign of brilliant promise. To the sorely
tried loyalists of our city it seemed to be such a fiasco that by it
they were reminded of the oft quoted words:
“The King of France went up the hill
With twenty thousand men;
The King of France came down the hill,
And ne’er went up again.”[70]
CHAPTER XV
EXTRAORDINARY ACTS
We should first of all carefully note the fact that although General
Lyon in desperate battle laid down his life, he had accomplished his
purpose. He had sustained by arms the decision of the Convention in
March against secession, and, in spite of all who were disloyally
striving to reverse that decision, had held Missouri true in her
allegiance to the Union. By his military movements he had put to flight
the secession Governor, Lieutenant-Governor and legislature, so that the
State had now no governing body except her sovereign Convention. That
had adjourned in March to meet in December, unless, on account of some
exigency, it should be called together earlier. That exigency was at
hand. If the processes of civil government were not to be wholly
abandoned, there must be some duly appointed officers of the State,
through whom its authority might find legitimate expression. So while
Lyon and his devoted soldiers kept the disloyal at bay in the
southwestern part of the State, the committee which had been previously
appointed by the Convention for that purpose, on the 6th of July,
summoned the members of that sovereign body to meet at the capital of
the State, on the 26th of that month.
In response to this call, it met at the appointed time and place. On the
30th of July, it declared vacant the offices of Governor,
Lieutenant-Governor and Secretary of State; also the seats of the
members of the General Assembly. Moreover, it provided for the
reorganization of the Supreme Court, giving to the Governor, whom they
should choose, authority to appoint four new justices in addition to the
three which then comprised the court.[71] The Convention also repealed
the radical and mischievous war measures enacted in May in secret
session, by the now scattered and defunct legislature. On the 31st, it
chose as provisional State officers, Judge Hamilton R. Gamble, Governor;
Willard P. Hall, Lieutenant-Governor; and Mordecai Oliver, Secretary of
State. These provisional officers were inaugurated on the next day,
August 1st, making short, sensible, patriotic addresses, in which they
showed their keen appreciation of the difficulties that attended them in
the anomalous position into which they had been thrust against their
will.[72]
But radical as these acts of the Convention were, it did not forget the
sacred rights of the people. It decreed that its measures should be
submitted to them for ratification or rejection, and that on the first
Monday in November they should elect by ballot State officers, although
on account of the stress and confusion of war, the date was subsequently
changed to November, 1862. It also in a carefully prepared paper
explained to the people of the State the imperative necessity that
called them together, and that justified their revolutionary action.
On August 3d, the new provisional Governor by proclamation set forth the
lawless, turbulent condition of the State, and appealed to all within
the commonwealth to put forth their utmost endeavor to secure, as
speedily as possible, a reign of law and order, and commanded all State
troops called out by his predecessor, Governor Jackson, to lay down
their arms and return to their homes, promising them protection.[73] But
a few days later[74] he found it necessary, in order to suppress
marauding and violence, to call for forty-two thousand volunteers,
infantry and cavalry. The Governor, while conservative in character, and
an ardent lover of peace, was forced for the public good to put down
anarchy by the strong hand of the armed militia of the State.
But there was another series of interesting events running parallel with
the foregoing. During the month of July, our fleeing Governor and
Lieutenant-Governor were among their political friends in the Southern
Confederacy. They visited Richmond and took counsel with Jefferson
Davis. The Lieutenant-Governor having returned to New Madrid, on the
31st of July, while the Convention in session at Jefferson City was
choosing provisional State officers, issued a proclamation as “acting
Governor of Missouri, in the temporary absence of Governor Jackson,”
eulogizing the President of the Southern Confederacy, welcoming to the
State the Confederate General Pillow with his rebel army, declaring that
in view of the rebellion in St. Louis against Missouri, and the war of
the United States upon her, “she is, and of right ought to be, a
sovereign, free, and independent State.” He also called upon
Brigadier-General Thompson, commanding the Missouri State Guards of the
district that included New Madrid, to join hands with General Pillow in
his beneficent work of protecting “the lives and property of the
citizens.” That he referred only to citizens in full sympathy with
secession was made clear by Thompson’s proclamation on the following
day. This proclamation, which, in bombast, stands without a peer among
all written manifestoes of military commanders, was issued on the same
day of the inauguration at the State capital of the provisional Governor
and Lieutenant-Governor, and of Fremont’s river campaign to Cairo and
New Madrid. Thus strange and stirring events overlapped each other.
Antagonistic proclamations from men of diametrically opposite views met
and clashed. To those uncertain of their ground the din was bewildering.
But amid the confusion of these discordant appeals, Thompson’s turgid
screed greatly amused all in whom there was even the smallest grain of
humor. I remember how companies of men in our city, irrespective of
their political sympathies, casually thrown together, read it to each
other amid peals of laughter. A single extract from it cannot fail to
amuse those of this generation and justify our comment upon it.
“Come now, strike while the iron is hot! Our enemies are whipped in
Virginia. They have been whipped in Missouri. General Hardee advances in
the centre, General Pillow on the right, and General McCulloch on the
left, with twenty thousand brave Southern hearts to our aid. So leave
your plows in the furrow, and your oxen in the yoke, and rush like a
tornado upon our invaders and foes, to sweep them from the face of the
earth, or force them from the soil of our State! Brave sons of the Ninth
District, come and join us! We have plenty of ammunition and the cattle
on ten thousand hills are ours. We have forty thousand Belgian muskets
coming; but bring your guns and muskets with you, if you have them; if
not come without them. We will strike our foes like a Southern
thunderbolt, and soon our camp-fires will illuminate the Meramec and
Missouri. Come, turn out![75]
“JEFF. THOMPSON,
“_Brigadier-General Commanding_.”
But the itinerant Governor, whose office had been declared vacant by our
sovereign Convention while he was engaged in earnest consultation with
the rebel authorities at Richmond, soon after returned, and, on August
5th, inflicted upon a distracted commonwealth another proclamation, in
which he supplemented and confirmed that issued by the defunct
Lieutenant-Governor on the 31st of July. He declared Missouri
independent of the government of the United States, and that all
relations hitherto existing between the two governments were
dissolved.[76] He did this of course without a shred of authority. He
was no longer Governor; but even if there had been a reasonable doubt
that the Convention had the power to declare his office vacant, as
Governor he had no constitutional power to dissolve the relations
existing between the Federal government and the State over which he was
called to preside; especially since the sovereign Convention, which he
and his legislature called into existence, had voted down all
propositions for the secession of Missouri; and even his subservient
legislature, whose seats, in July, had been declared vacant by the same
Convention, did not adopt an ordinance of secession until November 2d,
almost three months after the peripatetic Governor had proclaimed at New
Madrid that the secession of the State was an accomplished fact. And
this belated ordinance of secession was passed at Neosho, a small mining
town in the extreme southwestern part of the State, near the border of
Arkansas, where the defunct legislature, that assumed such extraordinary
powers, found itself without a quorum, and secured one only by
arbitrarily padding out its number by proxies. So in August, Missouri
was declared by an officeless Governor to be out of the Union; then as
late as November an unseated legislature, without a quorum, voted the
secession of the State from the Union. What was already out, according
to the defunct Governor, was solemnly voted out by his defunct
legislature. The secession State government manifestly died hard. Even
its expiring spasms were comical. Its proclamations and legislative acts
were wild and futile. Rather than to have committed such folly it would
have been better “to be a dog, and bay the moon.” And all the loyal of
Missouri looked on and laughed.
But the action of our officeless Governor flowed out of his agreement
with the Confederate authorities at Richmond. Three days after Jackson
declared the sovereign independence of Missouri, the Confederate
Congress authorized Jefferson Davis to raise troops in Missouri for the
Southern army, and to establish recruiting stations to facilitate this
work; and on the 19th of August voted to admit Missouri into the
Southern Confederacy, when, by her legally constituted authority,—the
authority being the overturned State government,—she shall have ratified
the constitution of the Confederate States.[77] This act of the
Confederate Congress was duly approved by President Davis.[78]
This hostile legislation at Richmond was followed by a proclamation of
General Price at Springfield, on the 21st, declaring all Missouri Home
Guards enemies of the Southern Confederacy, and that they would be
treated as such. What the general proclaimed was unquestionably true,
what he threatened was expected. However, all that transpired at
Richmond we did not at that time know fully. We got some inkling of it;
just enough to stimulate our imaginations, and to spur us to greater
vigilance and to unremitting effort to keep Missouri true to the general
government. We well knew that the seceded States would do their utmost
to secure her for the Confederacy; that St. Louis was the key of the
situation; that it was the objective point of every movement of the
State Guards,[79] and of every invading army from the South, and that
our position would not be secure until the battle for the Union had been
fought to a finish. Hence all military movements within our borders, all
armed conflicts great and small, all secret plottings of the disloyal,
all acts of the Convention or of the defunct legislature, all
proclamations, hostile or friendly, demanded and received our
unremitting, earnest attention. By midsummer of 1861, all loyal citizens
of St. Louis had fully made up their minds that adhesion to the Union,
and security in it, were to be purchased only by the price of eternal
vigilance.
CHAPTER XVI
HALLECK AND HIS MANIFESTOES
Major-General Halleck, Fremont’s successor, appeared among us on
November 18th, 1861.[80] He was already famous as the author of
“Elements of Military Art and Science.” He was forty-six years old, in
the prime of life, in perfect health, and full of vigor. As he peered at
us out of his large black eyes underneath dark heavy eyebrows, and a
high, massive forehead, he looked wondrous wise. His soldierly bearing,
without ostentation, gave us confidence in him as a safe and able
leader; nor did he as an administrator disappoint our expectations.
He seemed intuitively and clearly to grasp the situation. He took right
hold of his work and did it with a will. He soon brought order out of
chaos. To lighten his burden and to secure greater thoroughness in
administration, together with promptness and effectiveness in military
movements, Kansas was separated from his department and put under the
command of Major-General Hunter.
First of all, without neglecting for a moment the movements of the army
of Price in the State, he began to disentangle the military snarl in and
about St. Louis. One after another, the different divisions of Fremont’s
army were returning from their bootless campaign. There was great
confusion. All seemed to be at cross-purposes. Each subordinate
commander, uncertain as to his duty, was anxiously awaiting orders. But
General Halleck, amid the din of conflicting interests from various
quarters demanding his immediate attention, never for a moment lost his
head. With a masterful hand he reduced to system what, at first blush,
seemed an inextricable mass of antagonistic interests. In a
comparatively short time every imperative call upon him had been fully
met, every subordinate officer had found his place, learned his duties
and was efficiently doing them. The internal affairs of his department
were at last running as smoothly as the most critical could reasonably
expect.
As soon as General Halleck had put things to rights in his military
household, he broke up the different secret rendezvous in St. Louis,
where the secessionists met to plot against the government, where they
stowed their war material, and clandestinely drilled that they might be
prepared for open conflict, which they still hoped would soon be
precipitated. He did this important work with such downright
thoroughness, that so far as could be seen he put an end to these secret
rebel gatherings.
He also determined to sustain with all the power at his command the
enactments of the sovereign Convention, now the only legislative body of
the State. During the preceding month the Convention had once more
reassembled in St. Louis and enacted weighty laws to safeguard loyal
Missouri. Among other important measures, it prescribed an oath of
allegiance to the United States to be taken by all municipal and State
officers under pain of deposition.
The general did not permit this requirement to go unheeded. He insisted
that all who were amenable to this law should obey it. So from time to
time peremptory orders were sent out from his headquarters, commanding
all who had been remiss in subscribing to the oath to take it at once or
vacate their places. He expressly enjoined the mayor of St. Louis to
compel all city officers to take the prescribed oath, and the
provost-marshal general to arrest all State officers who had from any
cause failed to subscribe to it.[81] As late as January 26th, 1862, he
ordered all officers of the St. Louis Mercantile Library Association,
and of the St. Louis Chambers of Commerce to take the oath before the
provost marshal within ten days, or quit their posts. On February 4th,
he issued a similar order, which was a drag-net, in which he tried to
catch every disloyal official in Missouri, of whatever grade. He
decisively commanded all officials of the University of Missouri, all
presidents and directors of railroads, all quartermasters, clerks and
agents in the service of the United States to subscribe to the oath or
immediately to resign their offices.[82] And at last he evidently
considered even this to be inadequate, since, a month later, he ordered
all licensed attorneys, counsellors-at-law and proctors, and all jurors
to take the oath or at once cease to exercise their public
functions;[83] and to make the work complete in every detail, to unearth
all rebels in hiding, he ordered every voter in Missouri to take the
oath of allegiance to the United States on pain of disfranchisement.[84]
Thus did this Union general, with his numerous drastic orders, endeavor
to uncover every disloyal man in our commonwealth. Was it wise? He
thought it was, else he would not have done it.
But we have not enumerated a tithe of his swarming manifestoes. We soon
concluded that his distinguishing characteristic was orders. Orders,
orders came in volleys from his headquarters. He was evidently earnestly
endeavoring to find out who, in his military department, were for the
Union and who were against it. His orders were trumpet-calls to every
man to take his stand openly and show his colors. He wished to ascertain
who were the enemies of the Union that he might justly deal with them.
When, therefore, by the testimony of reliable witnesses, and by his own
daily observation, he had gotten a clear view of the state of things
that confronted him, the disloyal began to feel the grip of his iron
hand. He ordered the arrest of occupants of carriages carrying rebel
flags, and the confiscation of the carriages.[85] Rebel flags from all
such vehicles disappeared as by magic. Their owners of course had not
met with any change of heart, but in order to save their personal
property concluded to conduct themselves with outward decency and
civility in a loyal city.
The general directed another manifesto against the fair sex, who, having
the courage of their convictions, and relying on the courtesy and
gallantry universally shown in our country to women, had vauntingly
carried the Confederate flag on their persons, and at times had waved it
to their rebel friends, who were confined in the Gratiot Street prison.
He ordered their arrest. Some of them were apprehended and imprisoned.
One, who had been a prominent worker in my own church and congregation,
having been found guilty of conveying important information to the
enemy, was banished from the city and State. Having acted the part of a
spy, her punishment was exceedingly mild. If a man had committed the
same crime he would have been shot or hung. In fact General Halleck had
already ordered that all persons found within the Federal lines, giving
aid to the rebels, be treated as spies, arrested and shot. But previous
good character and deference to sex saved the guilty woman from a fate
so dire.
Other women of high social position, whose homes were outside the city
in the State, had fled from the disorder and violence of their
neighborhoods to St. Louis for safety. Generously protected within our
gates and by our army, some of them hatched and executed schemes to aid
the Southern Confederacy, to overturn the very government under whose
sheltering wings they were abiding in security. While the disloyal deeds
of many of them remained undiscovered, and they continued during the
whole period of the war to dwell unmolested under the flag that they
hated and clandestinely plotted to destroy, others, betrayed by their
over-bold acts of disloyalty, were by our general remorselessly banished
from our city. He sent them back to their homes in the State, around
which the swirling tides of war still swept. Some prominent loyal men
pleaded for them, but pleaded in vain. The general unflinchingly did his
duty as he saw it.
Nor did the disloyal press elude his eye, or escape his retributive
hand. By his direction the provost-marshal general ordered all
newspapers throughout the State to furnish him a copy of each issue. The
penalty for any failure to obey this drastic mandate was suppression or
confiscation.
Moreover, every important military movement within the bounds of his
department received his thoughtful critical attention. At this time,
General Price had returned to the State and was leading his army
northward. He wished to destroy the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad,
and so cut off communication between that part of the State and St.
Louis. He also desired to secure recruits for his depleted ranks from
the northern counties, especially notorious for their disloyalty. Many
of the people of that region hailed his approach and flocked to his
standard. But aside from those who enlisted in his army there were
various companies of secessionists, that enthusiastically entered into
the work of destroying the railroad. At several different points they
tore up the tracks, bent the rails, burned depots and bridges, and
demolished telegraph-poles. This was a serious blow to us, and men in
our city were anxiously asking to what this would lead. But General
Halleck was equal to the situation. He regarded such irresponsible bands
of rebels, engaged in the wanton destruction of public property, as mere
outlaws, having no claim to the immunities accorded to regularly
enlisted soldiers. To meet the exigency he ordered that these lawless
bridge-burners be forthwith arrested and shot. Scores of them were
apprehended; the ringleaders were court-martialed, condemned to be shot,
and were long kept in prison awaiting the execution of the sentence,
which was afterwards commuted to a period of hard labor.
He also followed up the first manifesto by a second, in which he ordered
that, where railroad property had been destroyed, the commanding officer
nearest to the scene of devastation should impress the slaves of all
secessionists in that neighborhood, and, if need be, also the owners of
them, and compel them to do all the menial work required in repairing
the damage that had been done. This order was faithfully carried out,
and it put an end to the destruction of railroad property in that part
of the State. It was a great comfort to us in St. Louis to see that the
orders of our general were not mere fulminations, but the immediate
precursors of deeds; that they hit hard the things aimed at.
But while he put a stop to the destruction of railroad property, he also
organized an effective military campaign before which the ever cautious
Price retreated, with his re-enforced army, into the southwest part of
the State and finally into Arkansas.
But such a statement of the grand result of this campaign gives no
adequate idea of the general condition of the State at that time. There
was great confusion throughout all our borders. Confederate troops,
coming up from Arkansas, invaded at different points our sacred,
sovereign soil. They came to strengthen the hands of the disloyal.
Federal soldiers, in detached bands, were endeavoring to defend the
loyal. There was a skirmish here, a conflict there. State Guards and
Home Guards were in frequent collision. Guerrillas, riding swiftly,
suddenly struck unsuspecting neighborhoods and left behind them dying
men and flaming dwellings. Bushwhackers, hiding in thickets or behind
stone walls, coolly shot down many of the best men of our State. Small
towns often changed hands, one week controlled by Confederates, the next
by Federals. Halleck, as well as he could, kept all his subordinate
officers, in these harried and disordered districts, under his eye. His
orders addressed to them flew thick and fast.
These military movements, that we have briefly noted, were of vast
importance to us. Our destiny hung upon the turn that they took. Hence
they gave us much anxious thought. But while they were transpiring, we
were stirred up by startling and significant events within our gates.
Foremost among the suggestive incidents that agitated our city was the
hand that Halleck took in the negro question. But unlike his predecessor
in command, he kept, in what he did, strictly within the limits of his
authority as a military officer.
Sixteen fugitive slaves had been thrown into the county jail. They were
shut up there, not because they had committed crime, but because that
prison was a convenient place to keep securely such lively
property,—property that did some thinking, had some ardent desires for
freedom, and was blessed with legs. In the latter part of December,
1861, these slaves were advertised for sale, under State laws. The
general, satisfied that they were the property of rebels, ordered the
provost marshal to take them from jail, turn them over to the chief
quartermaster, who was instructed to put them to work for the Federal
government.[86] The general, however, declared that by his order he did
not contravene any civil enactment, by which they might be legally
turned over to their masters. Nevertheless, to their great joy, his move
on their behalf made them virtually free. They became the servants of
Uncle Sam, a kind and gracious master that fully recognized their
manhood. This unexpected act of our general set wagging the tongues of
both secessionists and Unionists, the former sharply condemning, the
latter warmly applauding. There was very bitter war, waged by tongues on
the streets, in the marts of trade and in the parlor, as well as with
Minie balls, solid shot and shell in the field.
But without respect to its chronological position among the manifestoes
of our general, we have reserved one for more extended comment. It was
called forth by events intensely interesting and profoundly significant.
We noted in a preceding chapter, that when the army of Fremont, after
his removal from its command, fell back from Springfield upon St. Louis,
there followed in its train a motley multitude of refugees that, as best
they could, found shelter and care within our city. But their number
became so great that their wants could not be adequately met by private
charity. To keep them from starvation, General Halleck supplied many of
them with army rations. Still, such continued use of government stores
was of doubtful propriety. In determining his duty in a matter so grave,
he could not but reflect that the fruitful cause of all the misery of
this unhoused and hungry throng was the rebellion against the government
of the United States, and that many of the wealthiest citizens of St.
Louis were clandestinely doing what they could to aid this revolt
against Federal authority. To his mind they were chiefly responsible for
the inflocking of these forlorn and ragged crowds. He therefore decided
that they must be compelled to do their part in relieving the
wretchedness which they had helped, and were still helping to produce.
He wished in carrying out his purpose to avoid if possible all
injustice. So he sought for trustworthy information concerning
well-to-do secession households. When he had secured it and felt that
the way was clear for intelligent action, perhaps falling back for
precedent on the searches and seizures of his predecessor, he issued an
order assessing the rich secessionists of the city ten thousand dollars
for the support of the refugees that had fled for safety to us from the
south and west.[87]
No act of any commander, stationed at St. Louis during the war, created
more excitement than this. At first both the loyal and disloyal were
amazed. Then vengeful resentment and bitterness took possession of the
assessed. The order fell chiefly on the “first families,” the _bon ton_
of Southern society, in our city; and was doubly offensive since it both
galled their pride and struck at their devotion to the Southern
Confederacy. Nevertheless they hardly ventured to protest above their
breath, lest their words might justify the general’s order. Most of them
having the saving grace of common sense, and regarding discretion as the
better part of valor, with compressed and dumb lips quietly paid their
assessments. If any hot denunciation clamored for utterance, it was
temporarily suppressed and kept for secret fulmination under their own
rooftrees. When, however, any one, resenting the exaction, refused to
pay his assessment, a sufficient amount of his property to meet this
extraordinary military tax was promptly confiscated, and a penalty of
twenty-five per cent. was added to the original levy. Mr. Engler, whose
tax had been collected in this manner, undertook to recover his
confiscated goods through the civil court by a writ of replevin, and was
at once apprehended and sent beyond the lines of the Union army,[88]
where he had leisure to reflect on the folly of deliberately butting
against martial law.
Whatever may now be thought of General Halleck’s procedure in forcing
men to alleviate the misery that they had helped to produce, at the time
by far the larger part of the Unionists of our city heartily sustained
it, and it did much toward solving the problem of feeding the multitude
of refugees among us; for, by army rations, spontaneous private charity,
and enforced assessments, all refugees that were poor, and hungry, and
shelterless, were fairly well provided for.
But we were constantly agitated by events outside our gates as well as
within. During 1861 and the first three months of 1862, there were fully
seventy armed conflicts in Missouri. We called them battles then,
although only four or five of them really attained to that dignity. And
we all knew that St. Louis was the object for which hostile forces were
fighting. Although we held the city, the enemy was bending all his
energies to snatch it from us. Who at last should permanently hold the
prize none could yet determine.
But our volunteer army grew apace. Early in 1862 an aggressive campaign
was planned against the enemy in the southwest. A force of over ten
thousand well-armed men under the immediate command of General Samuel
Ryan Curtis, swept Price and his army from our State; and at Pea Ridge,
Arkansas, met and defeated the combined forces of Van Dorn, Price,
McCulloch and Pike, the last commanding a brigade of Indians.
But to the south of us lay a greater peril than that in northwestern
Arkansas. The Confederates had seized, and were tenaciously holding, the
Tennessee, Cumberland and Mississippi Rivers, the main arteries of our
southern trade. So long as these highways of commerce were obstructed,
the business of our city languished. Moreover, if the forces of the
enemy were permitted to gather unmolested on these water-courses, they
would soon be able to march against us in battle array. To meet this
impending danger, to make such an invasion impracticable, if not
impossible, by the order of General Halleck an army was rapidly gathered
on the Mississippi above Columbus, Kentucky. General Grant had been
fortunately ordered to organize, drill, and lead these troops. To join
his command many soldiers were sent by Halleck from the encampments in
and around St. Louis. I saw one morning a regiment of stalwart men from
Indiana, marching with elastic step down Pine Street to the levee, their
every movement instinct with exuberant life, and singing, in clear
strong tones,
“John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave;
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave;
John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave;
His soul is marching on!
Glory, halle-hallelujah! Glory, halle-hallelujah!
Glory, halle-hallelujah!
His soul is marching on.”
That was about the middle of January, 1862. That famous war song may
have been sung before in our city, but this was the first time that I
had heard it. It thrilled me through and through. That to me was an
ecstatic moment. So it evidently was to the crowd that lined the street.
They looked on as if entranced. Tears started in many eyes, and when the
song, so prophetic of triumph, ended, the throng burst out into
rapturous, ringing cheers. And the patriots who sang those inspiring
words were on their way to swell the ranks of Grant’s army. Into the
souls of all that heard them on that day came the assurance of victory.
The last of January, General Grant led his army southward. He was
supported by a fleet of gunboats under the command of Commodore Foote.
The movement was without ado, unexpected by the enemy, and effective. On
February 6th, Fort Henry on the Tennessee River was captured by the
gunboats. On the 12th, the general led his army across the country and,
with considerable fighting during the afternoon, invested Fort Donelson
on the Cumberland River. On the next day, while waiting for the arrival
of the gunboats, there was no general attack, but constant skirmishing.
On the 14th, the enemy repulsed the gunboats and attacked the investing
army. A furious battle ensued, lasting several hours. The right wing of
Grant’s army was at first driven back. The report reached us that our
troops were repulsed, and we thought that the campaign so brilliantly
begun had failed. We did not then know that at last a general had
appeared who regarded war as a serious business, which at all hazards
must be relentlessly prosecuted to a successful issue; who if he did not
conquer on the first day, fought the next, and if he did not succeed on
the second day, only waited for the dawn of the third that he might
renew the conflict. That third day came at Fort Donelson. Grant and his
troops, in spite of sleet and hail and snow that all night had
pitilessly beat upon their tentless heads, were ready for the fray. But
the enemy, though sheltered behind breastworks, felt that they could no
longer withstand the onslaughts of that aggressive host, whom neither
storms of ice nor showers of bullets could daunt. Some in the
beleaguered fort, led by their faint-hearted commanders, had slipped
away under the cover of night, and by flight reached places of safety.
At dawn General Buckner, to whom had been left the responsibility of
surrendering, proposed that commissioners be appointed to agree upon
terms of capitulation of the forces under his command, and received from
Grant the famous reply, now familiar to every schoolboy, “No terms,
except unconditional and immediate surrender, can be accepted. I propose
to move immediately on your works.” When the telegraph flashed to us
those immortal words every loyal heart in our city overflowed with
delight. One said to another: “We have at last an able general who means
business.”
On the following day, February 17th, the news of the surrender came.
More than fourteen thousand prisoners, with forty pieces of artillery,
thousands of small arms and large quantities of commissary stores had
been taken, and the Union troops occupied the fort. In spontaneous
celebration of these glad tidings from all the encampments around our
city came the roar of cannon; brass bands played “The Star-Spangled
Banner” and “Yankee Doodle;” the Union Merchants Exchange laid aside all
business and sang patriotic songs; large companies of Unionists, drawn
together by some irresistible impulse, in the stores, in the market, on
the streets, congratulated each other, laughed, clapped their hands and
stamped their feet in glee. It was an hour of triumph; and the _Missouri
Democrat_ issued in hot haste an extra, heading its column with “_Te
Deum_.” It thus caught and expressed the sentiment then dominant in all
loyal hearts, that of thanksgiving and praise to God, who presides over
and directs the affairs of nations and in wisdom withholds or grants
victories to armies. But our secession neighbors were mute. What gave us
joy, gave them pain. At such times we always felt it to be sad that we
were so divided. Both of us could not be right. That which separated us
was being decided by the dread arbitrament of battle, and the thought
began to penetrate the minds of the more considerate of the disloyal
that after all the Federal government might be able to _subdue_ the
rebellion; a notion which, at the beginning of the war, they rejected
with ineffable contempt.
The following Saturday was Washington’s birthday. All the Unionists of
the city were in fit mood for its celebration. The victories both in the
southwest and south filled them with unbounded satisfaction. One of the
morning papers accurately reflected their state of mind by declaring
that “the last vestige of military insurrection had been swept away.”
So, at all events, it seemed just then. The curtain of the future for
the moment graciously hid from view the perils that still awaited us. So
on that 22d of February our political horizon was bright. Clouds were
soon to arise; but on that glad day we saw none of them. Our patriotism
was at white heat. Nothing could repress it; it flamed out. Early in the
day it found devout expression. At nine o’clock in the morning, the
Unionists flocked into the First Presbyterian Church, and filled it to
overflowing. The ablest Protestant pastors of the city were there. We
sang patriotic hymns. We read the Scriptures together. We prayed for
wisdom and strength that we might do our delicate and difficult duties
wisely and courageously. A brother read to us significant portions of
Washington’s farewell address. We then stimulated each other by earnest
speeches to strive on for the maintenance of the Union. So at the
beginning of our festivities we were made strong by entering into
fellowship with God.
Before noon a mammoth procession was formed. Many rode in carriages, a
great company on horseback, four abreast, and a host marched on foot.
Every vehicle, every horse, and every person was decorated with, or
carried, the Stars and Stripes. There were many bands of music.
Regiments of soldiers were in the procession, marching to patriotic
music, discoursed not only by brass bands, but also by fife and drum. It
took two and a half hours for the procession to pass any given point.
And as we marched, from different directions came the boom of cannon,
and the houses all along our route were decked with flags and with red,
white and blue bunting intertwined, while crowds of the loyal on either
side the street shouted for the Union and sang war songs. Again and
again we were greeted with,
“The Union forever, hurrah! boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of Freedom.”
While this procession was a hearty, spontaneous outburst of patriotism,
those who planned it intended to make as profound an impression as
possible on the disloyal of the city. They wished to show them that no
party among us adverse to the Federal government could hereafter have
any reasonable hope of withstanding this mighty tide of Unionism, which
was daily rising higher and had already become resistless. In this I was
in full tide of sympathy with my fellow Unionists. Accompanied by a
neighboring pastor, I rode a horse over the whole route of that famous
procession, with a star-spangled banner on my horse’s head, another on
the lapel of my coat, and a third in my hand. Nor was I singular in
this; very many others did the same. As we rode the Christian pastor at
my side said: “Is not this glorious? Why, you can see the shell crack
and the light stream in.”
Sunday evening, April 6th, I was greatly surprised and delighted to see
my old mathematical teacher, Major-General Quinby, come into church. It
was a joy once more to look into his genial face and to feel the warm
grasp of his hand. He seemed to me to have appeared just in the nick of
time. For many days I had been very anxious to enlist in the army, and
here, thought I, is my chance to talk the whole matter over with one
that knows me well, and can appreciate my aspirations. When I made known
to him my desire, he said at once that I could have a place on his
staff, but thought that I ought not to quit my post at St. Louis. He
felt quite sure that I could do the country more good by remaining there
than by becoming a soldier in the field. Others urged upon me the same
view of the case; and I reluctantly abandoned my purpose of enlisting,
although I had had for many weeks a burning desire to be in the fight at
the front.
On the 9th of April I met General Quinby at the levee, as he was taking
a steamer to go down the Mississippi. He was with General Halleck, with
whom I conversed, and with whom I was most favorably impressed. While
few fully approved of all his measures, he had been a godsend to the
Unionists of the city. He had done his duty faithfully and fearlessly.
He had held an extremely difficult position. He had been compelled at
times to listen to many diverse opinions, yet had never been confused as
to what he deemed wise and just. His decisions had been clear. He had
carried them out promptly and thoroughly. He had, to be sure,
unwittingly sown dragon’s teeth whose harvest tormented some of his
successors in command; but if he had shown as much wisdom in the field
as he did in our city and State, he would have made himself immortal.
But when he went down the river to take personal command of the army, he
apparently left his wisdom behind him.
CHAPTER XVII
REFUGEES
In the preceding chapter we pointed out the manner in which General
Halleck, by forced assessments, compelled the more wealthy of the
disloyal of St. Louis to assist in caring for the refugees among us.
This suggests our varied experiences in dealing with these unfortunates
that, during the whole period of the war, came flocking in upon us, not
only from Missouri, but also from regions farther south. When General
Grant, by his masterful campaign, had swept all obstructions from the
Mississippi River, and opened up western Kentucky, western Tennessee,
Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, and northern Texas, poor whites and
negroes, freed by the onward march of our victorious army, fled, in
ever-increasing numbers, from all that conquered territory, to our city.
They came on government transports, came by boat-loads, sent by Union
generals because they had become a serious impediment to military
movements; they came also in wagons and carts of wonderful make, and in
large numbers on foot. St. Louis was for them a city of refuge.
But to set forth clearly the problem that was thrust upon us by their
coming, we must separate the heterogeneous multitude that appealed to us
for charity into homogeneous classes. We certainly cannot justly affirm
the same things of them all. Here, as elsewhere in society, we found
different and interesting types.
First of all there were some loyal white refugees. While most of these
were from the western and interior counties of our own State, a few came
from States farther south. They fled from their homes, which had been
made unsafe by rebel guerrillas and bushwhackers. So far as possible
they had converted their property into money, which they brought with
them. They came to stay. Some of them purchased residences in St. Louis.
Many of them, by the stern logic of war, had become emancipationists,
while they retained some of their old prejudices. The notion that
everything vile lurked under the harmless word, abolitionist, had been
woven into the very tissue of their being. They persistently believed
that there were at least three devils in the North and East: an
editorial devil, Horace Greeley; a clerical devil, Henry Ward Beecher;
and a lecturing devil, Wendell Phillips. But war by its victories and
defeats gradually illuminated their minds. The horns and hoofs of these
imaginary devils slowly faded from their vision. And a few years after
the surrender at Appomattox, many of these very men by tongue and ballot
endeavored to make the editorial devil President of the United States.
But there was a still larger number of rebel refugees. They were usually
found in knots at boarding-houses kept by Southern sympathizers. They
were always hilarious when the rebel army was victorious, and
crestfallen when it suffered defeat. Most of them had sufficient means,
snatched from the ravages of war, to sustain them in comfort. A few of
them were rich. For the most part they were permitted to live in peace
among us, securely shielded by the government that they sought to
overthrow. Occasionally, they were found aiding those in arms against
the United States, and a few of them, as we have already noted, were
arrested and sent beyond the lines of the Federal army.
But by far the most numerous class of refugees were poor and wretched
beyond description. They entered St. Louis in rags, often hatless and
shoeless, sallow, lean, half-starved, unkempt. Very many of them were
women and children in pitiable plight, half naked, shivering, penniless,
dispirited. Most of them professed to be loyal. Their husbands and
fathers had been killed because they were Union men. Some of them were
the wives and children of Union volunteer soldiers from Arkansas; on
that account the rebels drove them from their homes. Moreover, the
Confederates, to a considerable extent, recruited their armies from the
poor whites, whose families they left to find their way into the Union
lines. But many that came were dazed. They hardly knew why the war was
being waged. Whether they were loyal or disloyal it would have puzzled
the most astute to find out. Pinching want had driven them from their
comfortless dwellings in the South. Their main quest was bread.
But while in tatters and gaunt with hunger, most of them were utterly
unwilling to work. They regarded manual labor as a disgrace. They had
been taught in the school of slavery that honest toil was servile and
ignoble. The notion quite generally prevailed among them that since they
had fled from rebeldom, the government was under obligation to feed and
clothe them, while they sat down in idleness and glumly received its
gifts. What charity added to government supplies they thoughtlessly
consumed, and then stretched out empty, thriftless hands for more.
An incident or two will present in concrete form their aristocratic
notions concerning labor. James E. Yeatman, President of the Western
Sanitary Commission, became deeply interested in a girl of sixteen,
belonging to a refugee family from Arkansas. With considerable personal
effort he secured for her the position of nurse-girl in a household
where her highest good, in every way, would have been sought. Rejoicing
in doing a benevolent deed, though a very busy man, with great
responsibilities weighing on mind and heart, he drove more than two
miles to apprise her mother of his success. The family were living on
government rations, and every article of their dress showed their
extreme poverty; but the mother met this offer of a place for her
half-starved child by exclaiming: “W’at, my darter a sarvant and work
like a niggah! no, sah! she’ll rot fust!” “Very well, madam,” with
righteous indignation replied Mr. Yeatman, “let her rot;” and jumping
into his buggy, drove hurriedly back to his office in the city.
I visited a family of this class at the Virginia Hotel, an old hostelry,
which was used as an asylum for freedmen and white refugees. The room
adjoining one occupied by a family of refugees had been assigned to a
negro. These refugees were clothed in rags and were barefooted. The
unkempt hair of the wife and mother was a mass of matted tangles. In
their cheerless apartment there was neither stove nor bed. They slept on
straw and ate from the hand of charity. While I was taking in the
situation and speaking an encouraging word, a benevolent lady stepped in
to relieve their pressing wants, but, strange to tell, found their pride
sorely mortified, not by their personal appearance nor by the litter and
filth in which they were living, but because there was a negro in the
next room. The mother voiced the complaint of that poverty-stricken
household, by saying, in a peculiar drawl: “I say now, we’uns doan think
that ah sooperintend ort to put that niggah in thah; we’uns doan like
that ah purty wal.”
I stepped into the adjoining apartment that I might see what had so
offended these aristocratic paupers, and found that the negro, a
contraband or fugitive from bondage, had entered his room at the same
time that the white refugees had entered theirs. But he had found an old
broom and had swept his room, an old stove and had put it up; had
gathered some soft coal to burn in it; had gotten somewhere a rickety
bedstead and set it up and had put on it a tick filled with straw. He
had procured a wash-basin, a cracked looking-glass, and something to
eat. While his room was bare and poor enough, he had made it look in
some measure homelike. At all events he greatly distanced his squalid
white neighbors, who felt degraded by his presence.
Most of the white refugees were illiterates. Their ignorance was so
dense that we are in no danger of exaggerating it. I once sat down by
the side of a sick boy of this class, who lay on a dirty blanket spread
on the floor. His mother, also ill, lay near him. She was afraid that he
would die. They had fled from Batesville, Arkansas, and exposure to cold
and rain, while on their journey, had brought on fever. She could not
read and knew very little of the world outside of the neighborhood
where, up to that time, she had spent her life. Her sick son was fifteen
years old. She wished me to talk with him, which I was glad to do. I
told him of Christ, who came into the world to save sinners, and was
ready to save him. He listened eagerly, but soon said: “If you mean by
sin _cussin_, I never done that.” When I told him of Jesus he looked
intently into my face, and said: “I never heard of him before.” I felt
myself to be a real missionary, sent to tell one poor, sick boy, a
stranger in a strange city, of the Saviour, who then and there was ready
to receive him as his child. But these cases were not rare among poor
whites. The few that could read formed the exceptional class.
Moreover, a large part of them were discouraged, downhearted, often
utterly hopeless. Very many of them also were ill. For a considerable
period about fifty per cent. of the poor white refugees, when they
reached our city, were sent to hospitals. It was extremely difficult to
care for them. Unaccustomed to the ordinary comforts of intelligent and
thrifty communities, they had little or no appreciation of the things
offered to them by the benevolent to alleviate their sufferings. The
delicacies usually so highly prized by the sick were manifestly
repulsive to many of them. Some Christian women, anxious to do what they
could to help and cheer them, carried to the hospital preserved fruits
and jellies. Rejoicing in doing good to those in distress, they
personally offered them these tempting delicacies, prepared by their own
hands. But the wretched sufferers, having never seen nor tasted such
food, said to the angels of mercy that urged them to partake, “We’uns
don’t want that ah; bring us clabber and cawn cakes, that’s what we’uns
like.”
A few days after I visited the same hospital and talked with the surgeon
in charge of it. He told me that the sick refugees seemed to be utterly
destitute of heart and hope, and that it was quite impossible to get
such dejected men upon their feet again. While he spoke the clock struck
twelve. “Before nine o’clock,” he said, “I visited every man in the
hospital and carefully noted his condition. I did not find one
desperately ill, nor did I see any evidence of approaching death. But
since that time three of them have died.” “And how,” I asked, “do you
account for their deaths?” He replied, “They die simply because they
have not enough ambition to breathe.”
But of course they were not all alike. Their differences were
interesting and suggestive. A gentleman told me that a Baptist woman
from Mississippi wished to see me. I found her on Third Street, in the
second story of a tumble-down brick house. She was not an object of
charity. She had brought along with her enough money and household stuff
to meet all of her bodily wants. But the things in her room seemed to be
in inextricable confusion. She apparently had a genius for disorder. Her
apartment was grimy, filthy, malodorous; like the king’s “offence” in
“Hamlet,” it was rank and smelled to heaven. She was of medium height,
fat, had brown, frowzy hair, and dull, leaden eyes, under dust-colored
eyebrows. Her cheeks were sallow and flabby. Around her obesity hung a
faded, dirty, calico gown, that did not quite reach her ankles. Her bare
feet were conspicuous, thrust into a pair of coarse slippers, with
worn-down, run-over heels. Hanging to her belt by her side was a cow’s
horn, in which was a stick, frayed at one end, making a rude brush. She
offered me a chair, and having seated herself by a rusty, rickety
cooking-stove, our conversation began. “Ah ye,” she said, “the Babtis’
minister?” I told her who I was. She now took the stick from the horn at
her side, put the brush end of it into her mouth and sucked it for a
moment, and then thrusting it once more into the horn, returned it,
laden with snuff, to her mouth again. I had heard of snuff-dippers, but
this was the first one that I had ever seen. Apparently refreshed by her
dip, she said that she was a member of a “Babtis’” church down in
“Mississipp,” and wished to “jine” a “Babtis’” church here in St. Louis.
What could I say to such a proposal? I saw at a glance that unless she
was thoroughly converted from her present habits and mode of life my
church would not be congenial to her; so I fell back upon a stratagem,
by which I might satisfy her without denying her request, which request,
in itself, was of course altogether creditable to her. I fled for refuge
to the deep prejudice of the poor whites against negroes. I commended
her, I could not do otherwise, for her determination to identify herself
with her own denomination in our city, but told her that a negro
belonged to my church, and that I had never heard any one in the church
object to it, and that she might not on that account feel at home there.
I did not tell her that he was the sexton, and had, before his
manumission, belonged to one of my deacons. But the fact that I did lay
before her was sufficient for my purpose. Her prejudice was aroused;
even her dull eyes for a moment shot fire, as she declared that she
would never “jine” a church that had a “niggah” in it. Thus ended my
call.
But I found in my varied labors on their behalf, that most women among
them were free from the disgusting habit of snuff-dipping, and that some
of them were not violently prejudiced against negroes. If in a measure
all entertained such prejudice, some at least held it in reasonable
abeyance. A woman of this sort became a member of my church. She was
ordinarily neat in appearance, but could neither read nor write. She had
lived in a back country place in Tennessee, where most of those with
whom she daily associated were illiterates. At the breaking out of the
war her husband became a volunteer Union soldier. On that account she
was harassed and tormented by the people of her neighborhood so that she
fled to St. Louis for asylum, where soon after her husband’s regiment
was encamped. Being an earnest Christian, she at once united with the
church; but her husband was soon sent South to engage in active service
in the field. He knew how to write, and she often received letters from
him, which she could not read. She was deeply mortified in being
compelled to ask others to read to her her husband’s letters and to
write hers in reply. Spurred by her sense of shame, she resolved to
overcome her defect. And such was her ability that in a few weeks she
could both read and answer her husband’s letters without any help from
others. I shall never forget the triumphant joy with which she told me
that in a letter just received, her husband assured her that he was able
to read every word that she had written him. Then she said to me, “Where
I lived in Tennessee hardly anybody could read and write, and I never
thought of learning; but up here, where everybody reads and writes, I
felt awfully ashamed that I couldn’t, so I said I must know how too.”
And with great glee, she added, “I do now.” During all the period of the
war she was a very efficient Christian worker in the encampments and
hospitals in and around our city. This was another species of the white
refugees; a class that had the will and native talent to overcome their
disabilities and rise to a higher rank in the social scale.
There were also many among them who were improvident and wasteful. Still
some of this class were teachable. I remember a widow with three little
daughters who came up from Arkansas. She had there some real estate, but
being a Unionist, she had been compelled by the violence of her
secession neighbors to leave in hot haste. Having had neither time nor
opportunity to convert her holdings into money, on her arrival in St.
Louis, she found herself in want, and was forced, for a time, to depend
on charity for the bare necessities of life. She could neither read nor
write, but was a sincere Christian, and anxious to do her best. She and
her children were decent in appearance. She united with my church and as
often as she could attended the public services. The good women of my
congregation took her under their care and generously provided for her.
Among other things they gave her a boiled ham, and were greatly
disheartened by finding, two or three days after, that when she and her
children had eaten a part of it, she had thrown the rest of it out of
the window. In the heat of the moment they declared that they would
never help her any more. But I pleaded for her. I told them that what
seemed to them inexcusable wastefulness was simply her habit of life,
and that they must talk kindly with her about it, and if possible, lead
her to live reasonably and economically. They did so. She received their
instructions with hearty thanks, declaring that she had done only what
she had been accustomed to do at her home in Arkansas, but that she
would now act according to their wishes and directions. Soon there was
manifest improvement in her humble home, and in the personal appearance
of herself and her little daughters. She sent them to the public school.
They soon learned to read. Great was her joy when they could read to her
their Sunday-school books and the New Testament. At the close of the war
she sold her property in Arkansas, and bought a place a few miles from
St. Louis in Illinois. The last time I saw her was at the depot, across
the river, whither she had gone with her children, to take the cars for
her new home. They were plainly but neatly dressed. They had been
transformed by the patient, kindly work of intelligent Christian women.
They had found a new life and were radiant with joy. So to me, the
curtain fell on that scene. With renewed confidence I went back to the
city and to my labors, feeling how richly it paid to work for poor white
refugees.
But the greatness of their number appalled us. During the war nearly
forty thousand entered our gates. To care adequately and
discriminatingly for such a multitude, many of whom, as we have already
seen, were densely ignorant and averse to honest toil, was a task too
vast for a city of not more than a hundred and fifty-two thousand
inhabitants. So in this, as in every great need engendered by the war,
the Federal government, through its military officers, lent a strong,
helping hand; while the Sanitary Commission, whose work we propose to
set forth in a subsequent chapter, took a leading part in this great and
urgent charity. Through this triune agency, among many projects
inaugurated to meet the wants of the refugees, a six-story building, the
precursor of several others of like character, was fitted up for their
accommodation. Into it a thousand of them were put. Here they were not
simply lodged and fed, but were taught to read and write. They were also
set at various kinds of manual labor, and while this to many of them was
the bitterest ingredient in their cup, it helped pay their way, and gave
them truer and higher ideas of work. And in all our manifold efforts on
their behalf, we endeavored not simply to feed and clothe them, but also
to meet their higher needs, to develop their minds and elevate their
morals.
But the presentation of our experiences with the refugees would not be
complete without at least a brief survey of the freedmen or fugitives
from bondage. After General Benjamin F. Butler, in 1861, had
felicitously decided that slaves captured by his troops, or fleeing into
his lines, were contraband of war, and so justly subject to
confiscation, throughout the North they were generally designated
contrabands, and they usually bore that name among us. While from first
to last a multitude of them of various shades of color fled to our city,
they were by no means as numerous as the white refugees; and while they
were all illiterate, having been inured to labor they were usually ready
to engage in any menial service. Those who had been trained in household
work were at once employed by the best families of the city; while many
field hands, that came to us in the winter, had to be cared for by the
government and by private charity, until spring, when most of them found
remunerative work in cleaning up yards, cultivating gardens, and on
farms outside the city. Only a small contingent remained to tax our
benevolence. Some of these were spiritless and thriftless; and some were
crippled or sick. However, since the contrabands, taken as a whole, were
ready to work, and were greatly delighted, for the first time in their
lives, to work for wages, the problem of caring for them was
comparatively an easy one.
Many suggestive incidents pertaining to them, some sad, some
mirth-provoking, came under my eye. The contrabands usually trudged into
the city in groups, bearing in their hands or on their shoulders
budgets, filled with old clothing or useless traps, their heads covered
with dilapidated hats or caps, or, in the case of the women, wrapped
about with red bandanas. Their garments were coarse, often tattered, and
usually quite insufficient to shield them against the cold of winter.
They wore shoes and boots of cowhide which in very many cases were
nearly worn out, so that often their black toes protruded. But one cold,
frosty, winter day a motley company of fugitives, men, women and
children, came marching in barefooted. We asked them how they came to be
in such a wretched plight? They said that as they were going “long de
road” out in the country, some “Confed sogers” seized them, set them on
a bank by the roadside, and pulled off their shoes, and then told them
just to run for their lives. Their unusual predicament, and the
unanimity and heartiness of their artless testimony, convinced all who
heard that they told the truth. It might have been horse-play on the
part of some company of the State Guards, but if so, it was a grim and
terrible joke to this knot of contrabands, compelling them to walk many
miles with bare feet along frozen, snowy roads, the feet of the little
children frost-bitten and bleeding.
An occurrence vastly more pathetic was woven into my pastoral
experience. A slaveholder of the cruel sort lived near Jefferson City.
There belonged to him a little girl eight years old, together with her
mother and aunt. The early winter of 1861 and 1862 was bitterly cold.
During one of the severest days of that trying season, the thermometer
hovering about zero, he compelled these two women to saw wood all day
out in the open air, and the mite of a girl to bring the sawed sticks
into his wood-shed. With hands stinging from the biting frost, they
besought him to let them warm themselves by the fire; and he answered
their petition with the lash. Before the day ended they nearly perished
and the fingers of the child were frozen. That night they determined to
run away. They knew that on account of the war many other slaves were
quitting their masters; why should not they flee from the cruelty of
theirs? In the darkness the following night they slipt away unobserved.
They headed for St. Louis. The little child, always feeble, was soon
exhausted. So the mother and aunt by turns carried her on their backs.
They hid in ravines and thickets, when they thought themselves in
danger. They ate the crackers and bread that they brought with them.
They slept by haystacks and in outhouses. They were frost-bitten. They
were full of fear lest the child should die. For seventy-five or eighty
miles they breasted wind and snow, when they met a squad of Union
soldiers, and asked them for protection and guidance. The soldiers as
best they could supplied their wants, and conducted them to St. Louis.
There the doors of a Christian home opened to them. No longer slaves,
they were happy. Those who employed them spoke to them kindly. The lash
was never again to lacerate their quivering flesh. They were justly paid
for their toil. They owned themselves. They had no words to express the
joy of it all.
But the bitter was mingled with the sweet. That perilous flight from
bondage with the chilling winds and snows beating upon them proved fatal
to the child that they so tenderly loved. From exposure during that long
winter journey on foot consumption fastened itself upon her. She was
happy, however, even in her extreme sickness. The children in the
household loved and petted her. Little children have no prejudice
against color. But she grew weaker day by day. She had some notion that
God loved her, and that Jesus would come and take her to heaven. And on
her cot, with her face turned upward, she sank as gently to her long
slumber as the infant falls asleep in its mother’s arms.
At this time, when ruthless war, without respect to slave laws, was
breaking the chains of bondmen, two contrabands became servants under my
own roof. One of them was a black man about twenty-five years old. He
said his name was Jim, and so we called him, though his full name was
James Jackson. He did the rougher work required by the household, split
the wood, brought in the coal, kept the yard in trim, ran errands, and
cared for the horse and carriage. He proved to be teachable and
trustworthy. According to his light, he was a good man. One day when he
was splitting wood, I said to him: “Jim, they say that if you negroes
are set free you will not be able to take care of yourselves, to earn
your own living. What do you say to that?” He left his axe sticking in
the log that he was splitting and fell into a brown study, but soon
replied: “I’se can’t see that. We’se took care of them and us too for a
long time, and can’t we’se take care of ourselves?” That seemed to be
good reasoning, and I felt sure that Jim could earn his own way.
He said that he would like to learn to read, and for a good many weeks I
tried to instruct him in the art. But being utterly unaccustomed to that
sort of mental effort, he made very slow progress. However, by degrees,
he mastered the names of the letters, and was able with painful effort
to read a few of the simplest words. He was a Christian and wanted to
read the Bible. So I bought him a New Testament of large, plain print
and, after a hard struggle, he was seemingly able to read the text:
“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest.” He was very happy over his acquisition, and so was I. He
would read that text over and over again. He had no doubt that he really
read it, nor had I. But wishing him to add something to his
acquisitions, I turned to another chapter in the Gospel of Matthew, and,
putting my finger on a verse, asked him to read it. He intently fixed
his eyes upon it and began: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I asked him to read another
verse, in another chapter, and running his finger along the words, he
read: “Come unto me, etc.” I afterwards found him at times reading his
New Testament, but I feel quite sure that he never found anything in it
except that gracious, tender invitation of his Saviour. He of course
read simply from his memory, but thought that he read from his book.
I afterwards united him in marriage to an excellent colored woman. They
set up housekeeping for themselves. They did well and were happy.
Whether Jim lives now or not, I do not know, but if he has passed away,
I am sure that in the hour of his death he heard his Lord say: “Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest.”
The other contraband servant was a middle-aged woman, who gave her name
as Harriet. She was large and muscular, and black as ink. She would pick
up, as though it were a trifle, a washtub full of water and carry it
across the room. Nothing seemed to weary her, She did cheerfully her
daily tasks. She was happy in her new-found freedom. To receive week by
week money for her labor made her cup of joy brim over. The dawning
consciousness that she belonged to herself and had a right to what she
earned filled her with unspeakable gladness.
She too had an abiding trust in Christ. She said she was “_Methdis_.”
She had an active mind. She was intellectually much brighter than Jim.
Her new condition and surroundings awakened within her mind many
inquiries. Busy with her new thoughts as she worked, one day she said:
“Dar ah some tings that I doan unerstan. Up in de State where I lived,
wen thar was ’vival meetin an dey wanted us to be good and ’jine’ de
chuch, den we had souls; but wen dey wants to sell us down souf, den we
has no souls. Can you tell me about dat? Seems mighty strange!”
This was an outburst from an honest, sturdy soul, that had been kept in
ignorance. It vividly revealed the antagonistic forces that often
battled for supremacy in the minds of Christian slaveholders. When they
sorely needed money they stifled their consciences with the figment that
their slaves were merely beasts, that might be sold with impunity; but
when their better selves were touched by heavenly influences, they felt
that their chattels had immortal souls that might be saved or lost. It
has been said that some men, like modern ships, are made up of distinct
compartments, which, in moral action, have no communication with each
other. So it seems to have been with some professedly Christian
slaveholders; at slave sales and whipping-posts the tyrant compartment
was in full and exclusive activity; while at revival meetings the
Christian compartment put forth its exclusive energy.
CHAPTER XVIII
DIFFICULT CURRENCY
When the Federal government, soon after the breaking out of the war,
began to issue paper money, all specie, both gold and silver, speedily
disappeared. For many years the five-cent piece had been the smallest
coin used in the stores and markets of St. Louis. It was silver, since
the day of the nickel had not yet come. The copper cent, then large and
cumbersome, was absolutely tabooed in our city; it was nowhere current
except at the post-office. This was always a surprise to newcomers, and
sometimes an embarrassment. A lady, who was a comparative stranger to
our customs, going to the market when cabbages were unusually abundant,
asked a vender the price of them, and was quite upset when he replied,
“Six for five cents, madam.” “But,” she gasped, “I don’t want so many.”
“Very well,” he said, “take them as you want them.”
But when all coins had disappeared both buyers and sellers were often at
their wits’ end, and only by patience and mutual forbearance could
ordinary business be transacted.
This want of coin for a time also seriously interfered with travel in
our city. Happy were those who had horses and carriages; but most of us
must either go afoot, or take the horse-cars. Nobody then had so much as
dreamed of either the grip-car or trolley. But the vexed question was,
how could we pay our fare? Neither we nor the conductor had any change
and none was to be had. But necessity is the mother of invention; and
necessity for a considerable period drove us to pay our horse-car fare
in postage-stamps. But in summer the weather in St. Louis is often very
warm, sometimes sissing hot. On such days we found the requisite stamps
glued to our pocketbooks, or, if folded in our vest pockets, melted into
a glutinous mass. How we then worked to separate the sticky things so as
not to destroy them! How dilapidated they were when finally disengaged
from their adhesive fellows! In getting them ready for service, some
lost patience and expressed themselves in words that would not pass
muster in polite society; while others differently made up broke out
into laughter at the comicality of the whole thing.
Soon the government came to our aid by issuing in March, 1862, “postage
currency.” Five, ten, twenty-five and fifty cent notes abounded. Postage
stamps as currency then disappeared from the marts of retail trade, and
no longer pestered street-car passengers and conductors. These tiny
notes of green paper were now doing the usual work of the silver coins
that had gone into hiding. And a year later, in March, 1863, the
government, still seeking to help the people in that time when metallic
currency was no longer in evidence, issued paper “fractional currency.”
For greater convenience notes of three and fifteen cents were issued in
addition to those of the “postage currency.”
These small notes were generally called shinplasters. How fine they
looked as they came crisp and clean from Washington; but in a dusty,
smoky city like ours, constantly passing from hand to hand, they soon
became worn, tattered, almost illegible, and unspeakably nasty. But few
seemed to care for this. These begrimed notes met our necessities in
barter; and as to any inconvenience or repulsiveness that was accounted
for and cheerfully endured as a part of the war.
The government, in order to raise money to meet its necessities, issued
seven per cent. bonds of fifty and one hundred dollars. I invested five
hundred dollars in these securities, and to my astonishment was reported
in the papers and personally congratulated on the street as having done
a patriotic act. I had not looked upon it in that light. But the
incident shows that very many in St. Louis then thought the stability of
our Republic so precarious that investing money in her bonds at seven
per cent. was regarded as an act of patriotic self-sacrifice. That is a
sort of self-sacrifice that hosts of men would be glad to indulge in
now.
CHAPTER XIX
NOT PEACE BUT THE SWORD
On the 19th of May, 1862, Edward Everett came to us and delivered his
famous oration on Washington. Very few in our city had ever before seen
him. A large audience of the most intelligent and cultured among us
gathered to hear him. The style of his great speech was clear and
finished; his elocution, while a little stately, was nearly faultless;
his voice was agreeable and reaching; his gestures graceful and fitting,
but he lacked magnetism. His whole effort seemed somewhat studied and a
bit mechanical. When pronouncing a given phrase he stretched out his arm
and from the palm of his hand extended one finger; when uttering
another, he extended two fingers; when enunciating another, three
fingers; and now and then in making a full-arm gesture he opened the
whole hand. One could not help thinking that before appearing in public
he had carefully drilled himself before a looking-glass.
His audience listened intently, but was not much moved. He appealed to
the head far more strongly than to the heart. Still to sit at the feet
of so distinguished an orator was to us all a rare treat.
He was not only gathering funds to complete the Washington monument at
the national capital, but was still endeavoring, through the love borne
to Washington by the people both of the North and South, to unite a
divided and warring nation. Amid the clash of arms he was eloquently
pleading for peace. His purpose was noble, but his effort was futile.
The ears of contending hosts, seething with the passions of war, were
deaf to all appeals for peace. One might as well have undertaken to put
out the fires of a conflagration by a speech, as to stay the bloody
national conflict then raging by an oration on Washington.
Fiercer war soon followed this eloquent pleading for good will and
harmony. When, in April, General Halleck departed for Corinth,
Mississippi, he left General Schofield in command of the greater part of
our State, and on the 1st of June he put him in temporary command of the
entire Department of Missouri. General Schofield now sent all the
soldiers that could possibly be spared from St. Louis and Missouri to
swell the ranks of the army in Mississippi. The ever watchful enemy
learned from spies among us that we were largely denuded of national
troops, and determined to put forth one more vigorous effort to secure
the secession of Missouri.
Their hostile campaign had been manifestly skilfully planned. Their open
and aggressive movement began in the latter part of June. All at once
guerrillas swarmed in every part of the State. It is estimated that
there were full ten thousand of them.[89] They were first in northeast,
then in central and western, Missouri; now here, now there, they looted
and burned the houses of Union men; plundered farms and villages; tore
up railroad tracks; destroyed bridges; attacked different detachments of
militia; were by turns victorious and defeated; but on August 13th,
having massed their forces, they won a signal victory over the Union
troops at Independence, and two days later ambushed eight hundred of
them in Jackson County. No one now cares for the rebel Colonels Porter,
Quantrell, Cobb, Poindexter, Coffee, McBride and Hughes; but they were
then the chief figures in these scenes of desolation. But when they were
at the height of their success, the scale turned. General Blunt from
Kansas appeared with a small but well-appointed army and drove them with
their ill-gotten plunder into Arkansas.
But as flies when brushed away at once return again, so they appeared
again in September, in northeast Missouri, and so effective were their
movements that for the time being they took possession of that part of
the State, except posts adequately garrisoned by United States troops.
But during this period of turmoil General Schofield was wide awake. On
June 22d, very soon after these devastating raids began, he issued an
order in which he held “rebels and rebel-sympathizers responsible in
their property, and, if need be, in their persons, for damages
thereafter committed by guerrillas or marauding parties.” And while this
had no immediate effect the order was not in vain. It was the precursor
of energetic action. On the 22d of July, Governor Gamble authorized the
general to organize the entire militia of the State, and to order so
much of it into active service, as he should deem necessary to put down
all marauders, and to defend the peaceable citizens of the commonwealth.
On the same day, Schofield commanded the immediate organization of the
militia “for the purpose of exterminating the guerrillas infesting the
State.” This difficult work was pushed with great rapidity and was soon
effected.
In September, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas were made a single military
district, and over it was put in command General Curtis, with
headquarters at St. Louis. General Schofield now took the field. It is
important that each army have a name, and the one that he led, made up
largely of State militia, was quite appropriately called the “Army of
the Frontier.” He moved his forces wisely, and with great energy. He
vanquished his enemies in battle, and by October 10th had cleared
southwest Missouri of them, and driven them into Arkansas, which was a
refuge for rebels worsted in our State. By the close of the month, two
able Union colonels had driven all rebel guerrillas from southeast
Missouri into the same haven. So ended that memorable guerrilla
uprising, and for a season our State was quite generally free from the
turmoil of war.
Now we in St. Louis were bound up, as in one bundle, with all that
transpired in the State. We learned by manifold experiences that there
was a depth of meaning in the phrase, “body politic.” The sensation from
a stinging blow on toe or finger is no more certainly conveyed to the
brain, than were the distresses in the State quickly felt in our city.
When any part of our commonwealth suffered, we suffered. So we realized
with ever-increasing clearness that our destiny was one with that of the
State at large. Whatever our differences might be, together we should
stay in the Union, or together go out of it. So when in June came the
unexpected guerrilla uprising, that seemed simultaneously to burst out
of the earth in all parts of the commonwealth, it put all St. Louis in
an attitude of defence. Most of the army that had been our protection
were in the field far to the south. For many months we had had an
organization of Home Guards, and now with fresh zeal they gave
themselves to military drill. Many hitherto supine joined them. One
regiment was made up of old men. To see them in uniform and under arms
was an inspiration. Their ranks were full. They marched along the
streets with firm, determined tread, their gray hair and white beards
speaking eloquently of their devotion and patriotism.
New regiments were formed. I joined one of them. We were drilled on the
ground floor of a defunct brewery. There we marched and countermarched
and went through with the manual of arms, so that if the city should be
attacked we might defend it with some degree of efficiency.
But stirring us up to make more complete preparation for the defence of
the city was not the sole outcome of the guerrilla uprising; the
devastation wrought by it in the State sent flying to us for succor
another swarm of refugees. Fortunately, many of them could care for
themselves, still a large contingent were dependent on the government
and on private charity for the necessaries of life.
But the saddest result of the ruthless guerrilla campaign was the
shutting up for many months of the common schools in nearly every county
of the State. Such a calamity was measureless. And while our city
schools were undisturbed, we keenly sympathized with our fellow-citizens
in the State, and learned anew that, in what was of highest worth, we
were kin.
CHAPTER XX
CHARCOALS AND CLAYBANKS
In our hot fight for Missouri and the Union we unhappily split up into
factions. We not only contended against secession but against each
other. And the warring factions were significantly named Charcoals and
Claybanks. The Charcoals taken as a whole were uncompromising radicals,
while the Claybanks were the conservatives. Many of the Claybanks had
been born and educated in the North, while some of the blackest of the
Charcoals had been reared in the midst of slavery. They were recent
converts to Unionism and gloried in their new-found faith.
What gave birth to these party names no one can certainly tell.
Apparently, like Topsy, they “just growed.” The clay of Missouri is of a
decidedly neutral tint. Perhaps an extremist, indignant at a
conservative for his colorless views, called him a claybank; and since
the name was descriptive, fitting, and easily understood by Missourians,
it stuck. The conservative, stung by the epithet, may have warmly
retorted, “You are a charcoal.” And that name, equally descriptive and
fitting, also stuck. At all events each faction named the other, and
each adopted the name hostilely given and gloried in it. And for many
months these names bandied by the opposing factions played an important
part in the heated controversies of our State.
Both Charcoals and Claybanks were loyal to the Federal government. Upon
the main issue, the preservation of the Union, they agreed; but they
were at swords’ points upon the statement of the problem in hand and the
method of its solution. The Claybanks contended that the foremost
question was the maintenance of the Union. They were ready to preserve
it either with or without slavery. So their cry was: “Let us first save
the Union, and afterwards adjust the matter of slavery.”
On the other hand, the avowed object of the Charcoals was to save the
Union without slavery; and perhaps they were unduly impatient with those
who would save the Union with slavery, or even with those who would save
the Union with or without slavery. But they were always ready to give a
reason for the faith that was in them. They said: “Slavery is
unquestionably the cause of secession and of this bloody war. If we
preserve the Union and with it the cause of its present disruption,
then, at no distant day, the same cause will rend it again, and our soil
will be drenched with the blood of our children. We believe the doctrine
of our great President, that the nation cannot continue half slave and
half free. We therefore give ourselves to the extermination of the
fruitful cause of all our present distress. We fight and pray for the
restoration of the Union, but of the Union purged of human bondage.”
These opposing factions also radically disagreed as to the method of
dealing with the disloyal, or those suspected of disloyalty. The
Claybanks contended that in dealing with rebels or rebel-sympathizers
their previous surroundings and education should be taken into account,
and large allowance should be made for their inevitable prejudices; that
many slaveholders were Unionists and ought not to be driven into
hostility to the general government by needlessly severe measures; that
every day that they remained in our ranks their Unionism would grow
stronger; and that since they were with us on the main question of
Unionism, all other questions should be permitted to sink from sight.
But the shibboleth of the Charcoals was: “No quarter to slavery or
secession.” They maintained that since the war had been begun by
secessionists, in a mixed community like Missouri it was of the utmost
importance to find out who were really for the Union and who were
against it; and that the shortest road to such knowledge was through
uncompromising and drastic measures; and that in the long run such a
course of action, rigidly adhered to, would be productive of the least
suffering, and consequently most humane. So they urged that all aiders
and abetters of rebellion should be imprisoned or sent beyond the lines
of the Federal army, and their property confiscated.
But all Charcoals were not alike; some were much more extreme in their
views than others. At times they strenuously opposed one another, and
the more moderate among them held the more radical in check. A like
diversity of views was seen among Claybanks. But notwithstanding the
variety of views held by each of these factional parties, each, as we
have seen, unitedly and bitterly opposed the other, both in reference to
the aim of the war and the manner of conducting it.
[Illustration:
MAJ.-GEN. JOHN C. FREMONT MAJ.-GEN. HENRY W. HALLECK
MAJ.-GEN. JOHN MCA. SCHOFIELD MAJ.-GEN. WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS
HON. FRANK P. BLAIR, JR.
]
When our military commanders came to us one after another, they were
beset, not to say besieged, by the Charcoals and Claybanks in reference
to the conduct of the war in Missouri. Each faction tried to forestall
the other by getting the ear of the new general first, and telling him
just what he ought to do in order to achieve success. Each was
absolutely sure that only its way was right. Any other course than the
one suggested would lead to utter disaster. Each party was so dead in
earnest that when its views were discarded it cursed the idiot that had
not heeded them. To do his duty intelligently and fearlessly amid this
din of clashing opinions, a commander of the Department of Missouri
needed great clearness of thought, coolness of disposition, and firmness
of purpose. He did not lie on a bed of roses, but on bumblebees’ nests.
General Fremont, whose career among us I have already briefly
delineated, gave himself too much into the hands of the radicals. He did
this partly because he himself was naturally radical, and partly from
the influence of his environment. Our German fellow-citizens, whose
views were extreme, at the start got the ear of the general and held it
to the last. Mr. Blair, the leader of the Union men of St. Louis,
although at first very radical, soon drew away from the extremists, and
became a conservative. It was through his great personal influence that
Fremont had been put over the Department of the West, and by that same
influence he had been removed from his command. Among other reasons
urged as making his removal necessary was his radicalism, that had
offensively manifested itself when he exceeded his authority in
manumitting slaves.
His successor in command was quite as radical as he; but Halleck courted
information. He listened attentively to both Charcoals and Claybanks.
Having gotten the views of both factions, he discreetly kept his own
counsels. He was independent and fearless. His measures were often
startlingly radical; but his blows, which fell hard and fast, were
mainly directed against rebels, rebel-sympathizers, bushwhackers,
bridge-burners and spies. He did, to be sure, as we have seen, deliver a
batch of slaves from durance vile and put them on the road to freedom;
but in doing it he was very careful to keep strictly within the limits
of his authority. While he did not fully please any faction, his
administration taken as a whole was far more satisfactory to the
Charcoals than to the Claybanks.
General Samuel R. Curtis, Halleck’s successor, leaned decidedly to the
Charcoals; in fact he was a Charcoal himself. He and they evidently were
one in thought and sentiment. He carried out so far as he was able their
extreme views. Without possessing Halleck’s discretion, he continued the
policy of assessing wealthy secessionists. But this policy had gradually
taken on new features. What began in assessments had unfolded into
confiscation. During the last month of his administration, General
Curtis sent to the South, beyond the lines of the Union army, not a few
persons of means. Those having families were permitted to take with them
a thousand dollars; those without families two hundred dollars each. The
rest of their property was confiscated and used to meet the necessities
of sick and wounded soldiers.
While in some cases this mode of procedure was unquestionably
justifiable, still it was a policy specially liable to abuse. It was
deprecated by many of the staunchest Union men. They maintained that in
a heterogeneous community like ours, where there was every kind and
shade of political opinion, it could hardly fail to subject some good
men to the rankest injustice; that those who did not openly participate
in rebellion, whatever might be their political views or sympathies,
should be let alone. There were among us many good men who were born and
educated in the South, and while opposed to the folly of secession, they
nevertheless naturally sympathized with their kith and kin; and the
drastic policy of the extreme radicals and of their Charcoal general
greatly disturbed and disheartened them.
Take this as a representative case. There was in St. Louis a prominent
Presbyterian minister of Southern sympathies. He had been born and bred
in the midst of slavery. He hardly knew where he stood politically. He
swung uncertainly between Unionism and secessionism. Like all such
irresolute, hesitating mortals, he got into difficulty. The staunch
Union men of his church secured his removal from his pulpit by
ecclesiastical authority; and he now stood in fear lest the hand of
military power might be laid upon him. So he determined to leave the
State. One of his familiar acquaintances found him one morning boxing up
his household goods, on the sidewalk before his door, and in surprise
exclaimed: “Doctor, what’s up now?” He replied: “I am going to get out
of this State of Misery;[90] I can endure it no longer.” “Where are you
going?” asked his friend. He answered, “I am going to Kentucky.” “Why,”
said his neighbor, “that is a worse State than this.” “Then,” said the
doctor, “it must be a State of Despair.”
The extreme policy of General Curtis soon brought him into collision
with our conservative, provisional Governor. The sparks flew. The
Charcoals and Claybanks put on fresh war-paint. The one upheld the
general and his radical policy; the other the Governor and his more
moderate policy. While both parties were for the Union, they denounced
each other in the hottest terms. If we had believed what both factions
declared, we should have been forced to conclude that there was scarcely
a decent man among all the Unionists in the State. Each party again and
again appealed to the President for his support, but of course he could
not side with either. At last, worn out by this incessant strife, in
May, 1863, he removed General Curtis from his command and put General
Schofield in his place.
On May 24th, the new commander began his work. He was not a stranger to
us. Before the war he had been for several months professor of physics
in Washington University, which adorned our city, and was highly
esteemed by all who knew him. Nor was he unfamiliar with this military
department, having been put in command of it for a time by General
Halleck. During his brief administration at that time he did such
thorough and heroic work that we all expected of him wise, liberal,
patriotic service, and were not disappointed.
Three days after he had relieved General Curtis, the President wrote him
a letter, which is so quaint and so packed with good sense that we feel
impelled to reproduce it. It tersely portrays the difficult task that
confronted him.
“EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,
“May 27, 1863.
“GENERAL J. M. SCHOFIELD:
“MY DEAR SIR:—Having relieved General Curtis and assigned you to the
command of the Department of Missouri, I think it may be of some
advantage for me to state to you why I did it. I did not relieve General
Curtis because of any full conviction that he had done wrong by
commission or omission. I did it because of a conviction in my mind that
the Union men of Missouri, constituting, when united, a vast majority of
the whole people, have entered into a pestilent factional quarrel among
themselves—General Curtis, perhaps not from choice, being the head of
one faction, and Governor Gamble that of the other. After months of
labor to reconcile the difficulty, it seemed to grow worse and worse,
until I felt it my duty to break it up somehow; and as I could not
remove Governor Gamble, I had to remove General Curtis. Now that you are
in the position, I wish you to undo nothing merely because General
Curtis or Governor Gamble did it, but to exercise your own judgment and
_do right_ for the public interest.
Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invader and
keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass and
persecute the people. It is a difficult rôle, and so much greater will
be the honor if you perform it well. If both factions, or neither, shall
abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by
one and praised by the other.
“Yours truly,
“A. LINCOLN.”
So the general was to begin his duties with a clean slate. But no sooner
had he taken firmly hold of his work than the extreme Charcoals began to
oppose him and Governor Gamble. Happily he and the Governor agreed in
policy and were united in action.
An act of the Governor first elicited the wrath of the extremists. The
policy of assessing well-to-do disunionists, begun in St. Louis, had
spread itself over the whole State. The dragons’ teeth sown by Halleck
were producing an abundant harvest. Just at this time the
Provost-marshal general was engaged in gathering assessments in
different parts of our commonwealth. Opposed as the Governor was to this
arbitrary method of dealing with supposed disloyalty, he commanded the
enrolled militia, that was under his immediate control, not to aid the
Marshal in collecting the assessments that he had made. For this, the
Charcoals poured the vials of their wrath upon his head.
But the Federal commander did not long escape their vituperation. That
border ruffian, Quantrell, and his lawless gang, made a raid into
Kansas, looted Lawrence and murdered many of its inhabitants. For this
dastardly outrage the extreme radicals unreasonably blamed General
Schofield. And when General Lane of Kansas and the men following his
lead wished to invade Missouri in order to make reprisals, Schofield, in
the interest of peace and good order, would not permit it. For this the
extreme Charcoals bitterly denounced him, and even called in question
his loyalty. They determined to down him. In their newspapers they
sharply criticized him and his methods. In return he fulminated an order
against the immoderate and lawless press, threatening to throttle it.
This was an unwise act on his part. It encouraged them in their
opposition. They had not toiled in vain. At least they had made the lion
roar. They went to reprehensible extremes. The general believed that
they tampered with some of the enrolled militia, that had been put by
the Governor under his command. He sent a regiment of militia to New
Madrid to relieve the 25th Missouri, and while on board the steamboat,
going down the Mississippi, they mutinied, landed, and went to their
homes. So if the general’s information was not at fault, faction began
to blossom into treason.
As late as October (1863) the radicals sent a communication to the War
Department complaining that General Schofield had enrolled rebels in the
militia of northwest Missouri, and disarmed Unionists. The general,
replying to this charge, declared that he had enrolled “twice as many
former rebels” as were named by his accusers, “amounting to from five to
ten per cent. of the whole” militia organization of that part of the
State, and that he was glad to make a repentant rebel of “more service
to the government than a man who never had any political sins to repent
of.” He also felt great satisfaction in putting men of that class to
“guard the property of their more loyal neighbors.”[91] So that the act
of which his enemies complained was evidently both wise and patriotic.
At last the extremists sent a large delegation to Washington to lay the
situation in Missouri, as they apprehended it, before the President, and
to urge him to remove General Schofield and appoint in his place General
Butler. Mr. Lincoln heard them patiently, and on the following day
replied to them in a strong, lucid paper. With marvellous insight he
analyzed the parties in our State, and pointed out their attitude
towards each other, and towards both the State and national government.
He also heartily sustained General Schofield. The members of the
delegation were of course disappointed, but returned wiser than when
they went. They had surveyed at a distance the factional strife of their
State. The perspective gave them a juster notion of its relative
importance. They had listened to the luminous analysis of it all by the
clear-headed President. They saw new light. From that day factional
strife began to subside. It lingered, but it was less virulent. Little
by little reason resumed its sway, and a larger charity found place in
the minds of those holding divergent views.
But the view of these radicals which General Schofield presents in
Chapter V of his “Forty-Six Years in the Army,” seems to me to be
somewhat misleading. Admitting, as he claims, that some of them plotted
to overthrow the provisional State government, and to change the policy
of the national administration, and instigated to open mutiny a regiment
of enrolled militia, his declaration that “they are loyal only to their
radical theories, and so radical that they cannot possibly be loyal to
the government,” certainly was not true of the great mass of them. While
some of them, in their zeal for the extinction of slavery and secession,
were led into the advocacy of condemnable policies, the loyalty of most
of them was spotless. Many who clamored for the general’s removal did so
patriotically, believing that the highest interests of Missouri demanded
it. I believed then, as I do now, that they were in error, but they were
true as steel both to their honest convictions and, as they saw it, to
their country. And with the unswerving conviction that in the conflict
then raging slavery would perish, they fought right on. Never were men
more intensely in earnest. They won at last, as we shall see. Not the
Claybank, but the Charcoal triumphed, and in that triumph both were
equally blessed. And both contributed to the victory; the intensity of
the Charcoal made it possible; the conservatism of the Claybank made it
reasonable and most largely beneficent. But General Schofield came near
to achieving the position between the factions that the President craved
for him. While on the whole he was more satisfactory to the Claybanks
than to the Charcoals, he was not wholly satisfactory to either. Some of
the Claybanks were bitterly opposed to his policy of enlisting negro
troops. And when some loyal slaveholders found their chattels wearing
the uniform of United States soldiers, and claimed their property, they
were both amazed and wrathful when informed by the general that,
notwithstanding their loyalty, their slaves by their act of enlistment
had been made free. So it came to pass that some Claybanks and some
Charcoals approved him, some Claybanks and some Charcoals, for totally
different reasons, sharply condemned him. In a most delicate and
difficult position, he tactfully did what he believed to be right, and
won the approval of the best elements in both of the warring factions.
CHAPTER XXI
HOMES AND HOSPITALS[92]
When, in 1861, the war broke out in Missouri, and the battles of
Boonville, Carthage, Dug Spring and Wilson’s Creek were fought, and
collisions and skirmishes multiplied throughout the State, the demand
for greater hospital accommodations at St. Louis became imperative. The
New House of Refuge Hospital, two miles south of the city, proved to be
altogether inadequate; and when all the wards of the St. Louis Hospital,
kept by the Sisters of Charity, and of the City Hospital had been
filled, still more room was at once required.
To meet this urgent necessity something must be done immediately. In our
straits we appealed to General Fremont, who promptly came to our
aid,[93] and, on September 5th, issued an order, authorizing the Western
Sanitary Commission, under the medical director of the army, to select,
fit up, and furnish suitable buildings for “Army and Brigade Hospitals;”
to choose and appoint, under the authority of Miss Dorothea L. Dix,
general superintendent of the nurses of military hospitals in the United
States, female nurses; to cooperate with the surgeons of the army in
providing male nurses; to visit the various military camps, consult with
the commanding officers in reference to the sanitary condition of the
troops, and aid them in providing the best means for preventing
sickness, such as proper drainage, warm clothing and wholesome food.
Moreover the Commission was enjoined to use every available means for
the promotion of the social and moral welfare of the soldiers. To
satisfy the varied wants of those in camps and hospitals, the Commission
was directed to procure from the people at large such supplies as they
would freely contribute to supplement those furnished by the government.
But all this must be done in full and hearty cooperation with the
regular medical staff of the army, some members of which were jealous of
their honors and at times foolishly sensitive to innovations.
Finally, the general’s order declared that “This Sanitary Commission
will, for the present, consist of James E. Yeatman, Esq.; C. S. Greely,
Esq.; J. B. Johnson, M. D.; George Partridge, Esq.; and Rev. William G.
Eliot, D. D.” Two of these were broadminded, enterprising merchants; one
was a physician of high standing; while Mr. Yeatman was a retired
Tennessee planter. He had been a slaveholder; but, called to go down the
Mississippi River on business, he received from what he saw during his
trip such an impression of the enormity of slavery, that, when he
returned, he manumitted his slaves, sold his plantation, and thereafter
made St. Louis his home. He was a rare man. He was eminently just. He
saw clearly the fundamental elements of every problem presented to the
Commission for solution. He had large administrative ability, a sharp
eye for details, and, to crown all, a great heart. Few men in the nation
did more than he to bring the war to a successful issue.
Dr. Eliot, whose name stands last on this roll of honor, was the pastor
of the only Unitarian church in our city. By long and efficient
ministerial service he had endeared himself to all the people. His name
in St. Louis was a household word. But he was as noted for his skill and
efficiency in inaugurating and successfully conducting large public
enterprises, as for his wise and multifarious pastoral labors. He was
the founder of Washington University and of Mary Institute, and it was
through his personal efforts that these institutions, an ornament to our
city, were built up. In fact every beneficent enterprise in St. Louis
felt the stimulating touch of his hand and was indebted to him for his
thoughtful guidance. Among the ablest pastors of our city, he was
unquestionably best equipped for membership in this all-important
Sanitary Commission.
The Commission, thus organized and launched, at once began its labors.
It rented a five-story building at the corner of Fifth and Chestnut
Streets, and speedily fitted it up for hospital service. It was named
the “City General Hospital.” On September 10th, it was thrown open for
the reception of patients. A throng of sick and wounded men, who had
been anxiously waiting for accommodation and succor, quickly filled all
its rooms.
In this building the Sanitary Commission made its headquarters. Mr.
Yeatman was chosen president and gave his whole time to his duties,
while the other members of the Commission met with him every day, except
Sunday, for consultation. For this incessant, exacting toil no one of
them received any moneyed compensation. Without a thought of personal
gain they worked unremittingly and cheerfully for their country. The
only motive that impelled them was a glowing, self-sacrificing
patriotism. For a time, they employed only one man, and he acted as
storekeeper, porter and clerk for thirty dollars a month. And this
gratuitous, arduous service, beset at times with swarms of perplexities,
was continued to the close of the war.
The sick and wounded of the army multiplied so rapidly, and the demand
for medical aid became so insistent, that within two months after the
opening of the first hospital, the Commission, with almost incredible
energy, had added five more and all were filled to overflowing.
On April 6–7, 1862, the battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, was
fought. On that field of carnage, one thousand seven hundred and
thirty-five Union soldiers were killed outright, and seven thousand
eight hundred and eighty-two were wounded. The latter were sent up to
St. Louis by boat-loads. They were carried on stretchers up through our
streets to the hospitals. The business men, merchants, clerks,
manufacturers, bankers and artisans of various crafts helped bear along
these ghastly burdens. Young men, the flower of the northwestern States,
had been maimed, crippled, shot to pieces in defence of the Union. We
were horror-stricken, and with a depth of emotion which we had not
before felt, pledged to the defence of our government “our lives, our
fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
We now found that we had not sufficient room for these suffering heroes.
Two large halls were immediately secured, transformed into hospitals,
filled with the wounded, and furnished with sanitary stores, nurses and
physicians. At last we had fifteen well-appointed hospitals in and
around our city, with accommodation for six thousand patients. The
largest was at Jefferson Barracks, which, within two years, received and
treated more than eleven thousand sick and wounded soldiers. So out of
necessity grew with ever accelerated pace this great work of
beneficence.
But the exigencies of the times called into being hospitals not only for
sick and wounded soldiers, but also for refugees; in fact, for any, who,
on account of the war, were rendered helpless. And in order by
association of ideas to give the greatest possible cheer to those
congregated in them, they were called Homes. This name was full of
tender suggestion, especially to all of English or Scandinavian blood.
The first Home established was for soldiers. It was on Walnut Street. It
was opened in March, 1862. It was designated as a temporary rest for
troops that had been discharged or furloughed. Since many of them had
little or no money they were here gratuitously furnished with food and
lodging. Those who were weak from sickness or wounds received the
ministrations of skilful physicians and experienced nurses. They were
also protected against sharpers, who, under the guise of friendship,
would collect what little money might be due these war-worn heroes, and
put it in their own pockets. Moreover, their intellectual, moral and
spiritual wants were met in the Home. A reading-room was put into it.
Many daily papers and religious journals came regularly to its table,
while hundreds of volumes of good books placed upon its shelves allured
the weary or convalescing soldiers to read.
No one can measure the good done through the manifold appliances of that
Home. During the war over seventy thousand soldiers enjoyed its
hospitality. There they were helped over rough places; their
difficulties that seemed to them like mountains vanished; they were
nursed into strength and took on new heart and hope; became in fact new
men, and very many of them went back into the ranks, courageously to
fight to the finish the battle for the preservation of the Union.
Early in 1862 the Sanitary Commission also opened a Home on Elm Street,
for refugees, of which we have already spoken in a previous chapter; and
still another in 1863. These Homes were conducted on the same general
principles as the Home for soldiers. A man of great excellence of
character, Mr. Cavender, out of his deep sympathy for the forlorn
refugees, voluntarily gave his entire time to the care of them. Thus the
demand for loving, self-sacrificing toil for others always seemed to be
met by some unselfish soul like his.
But the care of the needy among us was not for a moment left to chance
volunteers. Not long after the Commission began its work, the Ladies
Union Aid Society was formed. It was made up of the best and most
efficient women of the city. Social distinctions were for the time being
obliterated. The hearts of the rich and the poor were united by the
common danger and by a common love of country. Any one who could do some
useful service to suffering soldiers was welcomed by all. This society
enlisted women, in different parts of the city, who met regularly in
groups to prepare such comforts as were needed by our brave boys both in
camp and hospital. It had its ramifications in all the loyal churches.
Without a thought of denominational distinctions, patriotic women of all
creeds or of no creed met to work for the armed defenders of the Union.
They freely donated the material that they prepared for use. They
scraped lint, knit socks, made under-garments, furnished beds for the
sick in hospitals, and secured aid and employment for the wives of
soldiers.
Out from the ranks of these women came many of our most efficient
hospital nurses. Miss Dix, by whom, or by some deputy of hers, all
nurses must be approved, had appointed as her agent in St. Louis, Mr.
Yeatman, president of the Sanitary Commission. On account of his
position he had unusual opportunities for observing among volunteer
helpers those best qualified for stated and official service, and his
selections were eminently wise.
No one could be a candidate for this honor unless she was between
twenty-five and fifty years old, had good health, and was cheerful in
disposition, without frivolity. And her official entrance upon the work
of nursing hardly robbed her of the blessing of gratuitous patriotic
service, since the compensation was twelve dollars a month and her keep.
How does that strike a professional nurse of to-day?
But the spirit of helpfulness was not confined to special organizations;
it seemed quite universal. Separate households planned and carried out
benevolent enterprises to aid soldiers in the camps around the city.
These soldiers were generally intelligent; many of them were from our
academies and colleges. They were always glad to get good papers and
magazines. In many households all such reading matter was carefully
saved for them. At times when regiments of soldiers marched by our doors
it was handed to them. They received it with avidity and often answered
the attention bestowed upon them with hearty cheers.
But the distinctive classes of the needy gave rise to specialization on
their behalf. Some expended their energies in helping white refugees,
others in caring for the freedmen; the efforts of the latter resulted in
the organization of the Freedmen’s Relief Society, in 1863. But all
lines of special effort were generously aided by the Sanitary
Commission. It was the central, controlling energy, and directed by it,
the multiplied benevolent agencies worked in perfect harmony. They
simply divided the labor that it might be more thoroughly done. The work
was one, and behind all its multifarious details there was one spirit
and one purpose.
But, however tempting the subject may be, I must not undertake to write
even an outline history of the Western Sanitary Commission. This would
require a volume, and it would embrace much that does not distinctively
belong to our city. And yet we all bore some humble part in its
magnificent work, and that work was all wrought before our eyes. But the
country at large contributed to it, and the Federal government supported
it with a liberal hand. In illustration of this take a single example.
In opening the Home for the Refugees, the Commission expended three
thousand dollars, the general government two thousand dollars. This is a
fair specimen of the whole. All the generals of the Western Department
heartily sustained it. So did the Secretary of War, and also Grant and
Sherman.
I cannot refrain from giving a hint of the source, nature, and extent of
the contributions, which the people poured out to help the Commission in
its benevolent and patriotic work. Donations came from all the Northern
States, especially, as might have been anticipated, from Michigan and
the Northwest; but Philadelphia, New York, Providence and Boston were
specially lavish in their gifts. They contributed much money, but also
sent in boxes vast quantities of blankets, and bed-linen, of underwear
and all sorts of comforts for camps and hospitals. By January, 1864,
more than two hundred thousand dollars in cash had been received, of
which St. Louis and Missouri had donated more than half; while the
distant States of California and Massachusetts had each contributed
fifty thousand dollars. But one million five hundred thousand dollars
worth of sanitary supplies and hospital comforts had come to hand. From
first to last the Commission received and distributed three million five
hundred thousand dollars worth of useful articles, and almost a million
of money, gladly given by the people. Among the cities of the Republic,
the largest givers were Boston and St. Louis.
But if possible, let us get a bird’s-eye view of the manner in which
these liberal donations were used. We have already seen how they made
possible the founding and equipment of the various hospitals and Homes
at St. Louis. But great as the work was there, it was still greater in
the regions beyond. As early as October, 1861, the Sanitary Commission,
under an order from General Fremont, fitted up two hospital cars, on the
Pacific Railroad, with berths, nurses and all necessary arrangements for
cooking. So far as I can discover, these were the first hospital cars in
the United States, and they proved to be exceedingly useful.
After the battle of Fort Donelson, in February, 1862, the Commission,
striking hands with the medical staff of the army, did all that they
could to succor the wounded, and to save the many who were ill from
exposure in the open field to a driving storm of snow and sleet. One of
the Commission, taking with him a large quantity of sanitary stores,
went down to Cairo and Paducah, accompanied by a delegation of
physicians, nurses and members of the Ladies’ Union Aid Society. At
Paducah, whither many of the sick and wounded had been sent, the
volunteer helpers from St. Louis were courteously received by Medical
Director Simmonds. He put at their disposal the steamboat, “Ben
Franklin,” and filled it with wounded soldiers to be carried to St.
Louis. On their way thither these suffering soldiers were tenderly
nursed. The steamer became a hospital. Out of this experience naturally
emerged a most practical and beneficent institution, the Floating
Hospital. The Western Sanitary Commission took up this new idea. They at
once purchased and fitted up the “City of Louisiana,” at a cost of three
thousand dollars. A year later the government purchased her, put into
her five hundred beds, and, in honor of the Assistant Surgeon General of
the United States Army, named her, the “R. C. Wood.” From time to time,
as new exigencies arose, the commission added other steamers to their
medical flotilla, until they had on the Mississippi four floating
hospitals. As our armies and gunboats moved down the river, these
floating asylums for the sick and wounded were always close at hand,
ready to receive and aid with all their resources those disabled by
disease or by shot and shell.
The Commission also devised the flying hospital, or hospital on wheels.
It was furnished with cots and medical stores. It could accompany an
army on the march and be always close at hand promptly to meet urgent
needs whenever any unlooked-for disaster might come. This hospital did
considerable service in Missouri, and was warmly commended by Assistant
Surgeon General Wood.
Nor must we fail to note the fact that the Commission not only planted
hospitals and homes in St. Louis, but, acting in concert with the
regular medical staff of the army, in all the principal cities captured
by our armies on or near the Mississippi River. They struck hands with
the United States Sanitary Commission in founding and equipping at
Memphis ten hospitals. They sent sanitary supplies as far as Little
Rock, the Red River, Nashville, Jackson, Miss., Chattanooga, Tenn., and
Texas. Wherever there was any pressing need, workers from St. Louis,
both men and women, were found.
Mr. Yeatman himself often went down the river to superintend in person
this ever-expanding work of benevolence. On one of his expeditions, he
took to Grant’s army, then engaged in the siege of Vicksburg, two
hundred and fifty tons of sanitary supplies. And during all that
protracted siege, the floating hospitals fitted out by the Commission
were just at hand.
But the Commission did not confine itself wholly to the West. During the
Peninsular Campaign by McClellan, they sent sanitary stores to
Washington; and from May 1st to November 1st, 1864, forwarded to
Sherman’s army, operating in Georgia, supplies “amounting to hundreds of
tons.” Nor did they forget the starving prisoners at Andersonville, but
sent them through General Sherman such stores as were imperatively
needed to alleviate their appalling miseries, although these gifts of
mercy never reached their destination. When, however, at a later day, a
goodly number of these prisoners were exchanged at Vicksburg, the same
supplies were then distributed among them, and when they saw on the
boxes the name of General Sherman, their joy was unbounded.
But in this meagre sketch of the magnificent work of the Sanitary
Commission, we wish in a few lines to give at least a hint of its
efforts to meet in some measure the necessities of the freedmen outside
of St. Louis. Between Cairo, Ill., and Natchez, Miss., at least forty
thousand of them were found that greatly needed help. That whole region
had been for months a battle-ground. Landowners had fled. Plantations
were broken up. Slaves, happy in their new-found freedom, had followed
our armies, looking upon them as their deliverers; yet bewildered as to
what they were to do. Some Union generals, impeded by them, and lacking
in humanity, treated them with cruelty. Especially was this true at
Helena and Memphis, where they compelled the freedmen to work hard
without compensation, while their families were left in extreme want.
This to Mr. Yeatman was like a trumpet blast. He took hold of this new
problem with marvellous energy. He appealed to the country for help.
There was benevolent response from almost every quarter. Massachusetts
especially sent in generous quantities both goods and money. Nor did St.
Louis lag behind in her gifts. The replenished Commission sent to the
hungry and ragged freedmen large supplies of both food and clothing;
established hospitals for them in different places; provided them with
physicians, nurses and medicines; put a stop to the tyranny of
inconsiderate or hard-hearted military officers; and established schools
for them in which they were taught to read, and write, to add and
substract, and to do properly the ordinary work of the kitchen and
field. Mr. Yeatman went over all the territory where the men and women,
sent out by the Commission, were working for the freedmen, and gave to
them such suggestions and directions as in his judgment would render
their work most beneficent and fruitful. He himself established for the
freedmen a system of work on plantations around Vicksburg, which, before
the close of the war, yielded the best results. On behalf of his project
he appealed to the public through the press; laid it personally before
the President and found for it an open ear and thus enlisted the
government on its behalf. He had the qualities needed for dealing with
an ignorant people just freed from bondage: sense, justice, and love.
Still our cursory survey of the work of the Commission would be quite
incomplete without casting a glance at what they did for the white
refugees in all that great region south of Missouri on both sides of the
Mississippi River. Great as the number of these refugees was in St.
Louis, it was far greater in that vast territory. There the Commission,
as exigencies arose, selected, one after another, ten central points,
each of which was made headquarters for all the region contiguous to it.
At these centres they founded temporary hospitals, and opened schools
for the refugees. They fed, clothed, taught and nursed them, and, so far
as practicable, put them to work. It takes but a moment to write this,
but these words are a symbol representing a prodigious amount of
patient, self-sacrificing toil.
Moreover, the Soldiers’ Home had proved itself to be so great a blessing
in St. Louis, that the Commission established five others in the States
to the south conquered by our armies. And up to December, 1865, all
these Homes, including the one in our city, had entertained without
charge four hundred and twenty-one thousand six hundred and sixteen
soldiers; furnished them nine hundred and eighty-two thousand five
hundred and ninety-two meals, and four hundred and ten thousand two
hundred and fifty-two lodgings.
In all this beneficent work the loyal inhabitants of St. Louis had a
large share. We liberally contributed to it goods, money and service.
But the demands upon us within our own gates were onerous and well nigh
exhausting. The time, strength and material resources of every one were
laid under tribute; tribute which, for the most part, was gladly paid.
All Christian pastors and priests worked much in camps and hospitals.
They conducted many public services, often preached, and incessantly
ministered to the sick and dying.
When volunteers began to gather in large numbers at St. Louis, in
connection with other pastors of the city, I preached, as I had time and
opportunity, in the camps. I was greeted by attentive, intelligent
audiences. Many regiments were made up largely of Christian men who,
while encamped, regularly maintained prayer meetings. There was one
regiment from Illinois, having in its ranks above a thousand young men,
more than half of whom read their Greek Testaments.
But we met them for religious services not only in camp, but also in
buildings in the city specially provided for that purpose.
In an empty store on Fourth Street, on the ground floor, there were long
tables. For many days, at the noon hour, soldiers passing through the
city or temporarily stopping there, marched in and sat down at those
tables for their midday meal. I was asked by Drs. Eliot and Post to take
my turn with them in preaching to these soldiers as they ate. To this I
consented, but found it a difficult task. I stood at the head of the
table and delivered my message, while the militant audience consumed
their rations of hardtack, bacon and coffee. They had tin plates, cups
and spoons, and cheap iron knives; and though they were always
respectful, and declared that they wanted and enjoyed the preaching, the
clatter of their metal dishes was so loud and incessant, that it
disturbed not a little my course of thought. But I did my best.
When the hospitals were opened I found in them the largest opportunities
to labor on behalf of the soldiers. For a time I worked a part of almost
every day in the Sisters’ Hospital. For years it had been cared for by
the Sisters of Charity; but for the time being it was thrown open for
the use of the government. Here I often found sick and wounded men from
both of the contending armies; Federal and Confederate soldiers, the
blue and the gray, here lay peacefully side by side. For the time at
least their animosity was gone. Suffering had made them kin. The heart
of the man in gray was touched, when he saw that he was as carefully
nursed as the man in blue.
In my ministrations to suffering Southerners, I carefully avoided all
allusion to the war, and our political differences. But, apparently
astonished at the kindness shown them, many of them would broach some
question concerning the national conflict, and when they did so, I
always answered their queries as best I could. On one point most of them
were set, and that was that the North began the war. I assured them that
in this they were altogether in error, and rehearsed to them the
historical facts. They said that they could hardly believe my statement,
since they had been often told the exact contrary.
I met in that hospital a Confederate soldier from one of the western
counties of Arkansas. His name was Anderson. He had small, shining black
eyes, peeping out from under black eyebrows; long, heavy, black
whiskers, unkempt and begrimed, needing the cleansing power of soap and
water; thick, shocky black hair that hung down to his shoulders, and was
as coarse as the hair on a horse’s tail. When I first saw him I had a
strong desire to have a talk with a man so peculiar and who bore my
surname. While he could neither read nor write, I found him intelligent
on all matters pertaining to his county, but about things outside of his
own immediate neighborhood, he knew next to nothing. He never had been
away from home before. Having been taken prisoner, he was compelled to
travel. Contrary to his will he had begun to see more of the world. But
he was absolutely sure that the “Yanks” had begun the “wicked war.” He
informed me, that the North first fired on the South. Nor could I
convince him of his error. He was ignorant, and a hot Southerner. His
under jaw was square and each ropy hair springing out of his tawny scalp
looked as though it were clinched on the inside of his skull. A face so
strange and strong, I can never forget.
A few days later, in the same hospital, I was urgently asked by a man
about thirty-five years of age to help him solve a question of
conscience. He was a Quaker by birth and conviction. He had imbibed with
his mother’s milk the notion that war was prohibited by the commandment,
“Thou shalt not kill.” By education it had been interwoven with all his
thinking. But having at the same time a great abhorrence of human
bondage, when, in his neighborhood, scores of men were enlisting to
fight a Confederacy, the corner-stone of which had been boastfully
declared to be African slavery, the doctrine that war was murder sank so
completely into the background that, for a time, he became quite
unconscious of it. Aflame with patriotism, along with his neighbors, he
volunteered to fight the enemies of the Union. Then came the long,
toilsome days of military drill, and the march southward to meet the foe
in battle. He had much time for thought. As he reflected, the conviction
that no war is justifiable, which, for a season, had been submerged,
came up out of the depths of his subconsciousness and reasserted itself.
He began to feel utterly out of place. He had taken a solemn oath to do
what his conscience utterly forbade. He was in deep distress. There was
no one to whom he could unbosom himself. He was among thousands of his
countrymen, but felt absolutely alone. His regiment was ordered into
battle. For hours with his comrades in arms he loaded and fired; but he
could not shoot at his fellow men, so he shot into the air above their
heads. But this was a violation of his oath. And after the battle was
over and he had been sent to this hospital, what he had done tortured
him. Conscience pierced him for having broken his oath as a soldier,
although that same conscience had driven him to break it. In his agony
of spirit he pitifully appealed to me. “What shall I do? What can I do?”
I dealt with him honestly. I told him that he had no moral right to
violate his conscience. But since his conscience had put him between two
fires, it was his duty to tell his story to the military authorities,
and ask to be discharged from the army. I assured him that they had no
wish to compel men to fight, who could not do so with a good conscience.
Still he seemed to be greatly distressed to think that, contrary to his
oath, he had shot into the air, during that battle. But he did as I
advised him to do, and a few days afterwards I heard that, on the ground
of his conscientious scruples, he had been honorably dismissed from his
regiment.
About this time, March, 1862, I was asked to take the oversight of the
religious work in the Fifth Street Hospital. It became my duty to supply
the sick and wounded there with religious papers and books. These were
freely contributed by loyal Christian families. A book from my own
library, “The Signet Ring,” was very popular among the soldiers. It is a
good book still, but scarcely known to the present generation. It was
also incumbent on me to provide for religious services in the hospital.
These were held in the different wards, but especially in those wards
where were gathered the convalescents, and those suffering from the
milder forms of disease. The services were very simple and brief. A few
words of Scripture were read, some joyful hymn was sung, and a prayer
was poured out from the heart. Then a short sermon followed, presenting
some truth that comforted and helped those that were in trouble. These
services were conducted sometimes by chaplains of regiments, often by
the different pastors of the city, and were frequently marked by unusual
fervor. The eagerness with which the sick and wounded men listened was
wonderful. They were reminded of their churches at home, of loved ones
with whom they had often met; their hearts were full and the
irrepressible tears started. At times during those moments of service
heaven and earth seemed to meet and blend.
There were in this hospital, as in all the rest, some professional women
nurses, and they were very efficient. They did their work not only with
technical skill, but they had that prime quality that must ever
characterize nurses of the highest order, heartfelt sympathy with those
whose sufferings they strove to alleviate. But in addition to these,
there were many volunteer nurses, women, who, by regular appointment,
were there at all hours of the day and night. They were ready to do any
service within their power. They worked under the direction of the
physicians and in harmony with the professional nurses. They often
brought with them, from their own household stores, such appetizing
foods as reminded the sick soldiers of the tender nursing that in homes
far away they had sometimes received from mother or sister. A little
gruel or soup, or fruit, or jelly, how grateful to the palate, and
cheering to the spirit! The very thought of it started many a sick
soldier boy on the road to health and further service in the field.
The tender sympathy which these women lavished on the suffering was
often more healing than medicine. And when, sitting by the bedside of
languishing heroes, sick it may be even unto death, they wrote letters
for them to the loved ones at home, these missives throbbed with a
mother’s love and were often wet with a mother’s tears.
An incident of that kind comes vividly to mind as I write. A young man
from Indiana lay on his death-bed. He was about twenty-two years old and
fully six feet in height. He was muscular and strong. But pneumonia had
seized upon him and had baffled the best skill of the surgeon. He had
been told that he could not live more than five or six hours longer. But
he was a Christian and had hope of a glorious immortality. In the final
arrangement of his affairs he was as calm in spirit as if he were going
out on dress parade. By his cot sat a young mother. He asked her to
write to his family and tell them what to do with his things. She wrote
as he suggested, her heart almost bursting with emotion. He gave one
thing to this sister, another to that brother, and last of all he said,
“I give Jeff. C. Davis to my youngest brother.” “But what is Jeff. C.
Davis?” asked the one who was writing for him his last letter, and there
were tears in her voice. He replied, a smile playing around his lips,
“It is my colt. I named him for General Davis, who is an Indianian and
very popular in our State.”
It was no formal letter which she penned in that sad hour. Into its
words and sentences went the glowing sympathy of a mother’s heart. But
it is only an example of thousands of others. When the letter was
finished, the face of the young man betokened the most perfect
satisfaction. His work was done. He was ready to depart. I prayed with
him. I left him with a smile on his face. He was so cheerful that I
began to think that the surgeon had made a mistake; but when I returned
a few hours afterwards, “he was not, for God took him.”
In addition to the above it is with no little pleasure that I give one
incident among many that vividly reveal the patriotic devotion of the
rank and file of our army. Near the beginning of the war, I was called
one night to marry a volunteer cavalry soldier. Immediately after, he
rode away under the command of Zagonyi, to Springfield, Missouri. In
entering that city a charge was made between two lines of Confederate
soldiers, and my friend was shot. For several hours he lay on the frosty
ground, slowly bleeding; and then, faint and exhausted, he was put into
an army wagon which went jolting over rough roads to Rolla, and from
there he was sent by the cars to St. Louis. I found him in the hospital,
so changed that I did not at once recognize him. But when all doubt as
to his identity was brushed away, he pathetically told me the story of
his suffering. He had been shot through the shoulder; the bone had been
shattered; pieces of it had protruded from the wound and had been
removed. He had preserved them. They were more precious to him than
diamonds. He kept them neatly wrapped in a paper under his pillow. With
his trembling, emaciated hand he took them out slowly and carefully
unwrapped them and showed them to me. Then wrapping them up again, he
put them back under his pillow, and looking up, his eye began to gleam
as he said: “The doctors say that I cannot recover. I think that they
are mistaken. I shall get well. You see that it is the left shoulder
that is wounded. When it heals it will be stiff, but I can still hold
the reins of my horse in my left hand; and then, sir,” with great
emphasis for an apparently dying man, he added, “I have one more
shoulder for my country.” He did live to fight many a hard battle
thereafter. But I could never forget those brave, burning words, words
instinct with self-sacrifice: “Then, sir, I have one more shoulder for
my country.”
In closing this inadequate sketch of our hospitals, I wish gratefully to
call attention to the fact that they were an immeasurable blessing to
St. Louis. They marvellously developed the benevolence of the city. By
them scores of men and women were lifted up out of their selfishness. In
ministering to those in need they forgot themselves. In spite of all the
evils of the war, it led more people in our city to live in some measure
the life of Christ than any other influence had ever before done. The
best exhibition of Christianity ever witnessed within our gates was that
band of devoted workers seen every day and night in the camps and
hospitals. Hundreds of women whose Christian activities had never before
gone beyond the family or the individual church, now like their divine
Lord went about doing good. Like the good Samaritan, they had compassion
upon all that they found in distress, irrespective of nationality or
creed.
CHAPTER XXII
THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY SANITARY FAIR
As the war went on, the demands on the Western Sanitary Commission
became enormous. At the close of 1863 and the beginning of 1864 the
Commission found its treasury well nigh empty. Something must be done to
replenish it. After careful deliberation, the Commission decided to hold
a fair, believing that thereby it could secure the funds required for
its vastly important work. So on February 1st, 1864, it inaugurated this
popular movement.
General William Starke Rosecrans, who, in January, had succeeded General
Schofield in command of the Department of Missouri, was made president
of the Fair. From the start the project was popular. In St. Louis the
people took hold of it with marked enthusiasm. They were ready to work
and give to make it a success. That thoroughness might characterize all
that was done they carefully organized their forces. They divided among
themselves the multifarious tasks to be performed. They appointed
committees to look after every important detail, and to report to the
central authority. So amid the multiplicity of things there was unity
and order. It was exhilarating to see a great community so stirred up in
the doing of a patriotic and benevolent work, that, for a time, all
conventionalities of society and distinctions of race or creed were
forgotten. Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, Europeans and
Americans, whites and blacks met, and elbowed, and emulated each other
in working for the soldiers of the Union.
But a work so great could not be done by our city alone, however willing
and diligent we might be; so, the Commission appealed for help to the
people of other cities and States. The response was prompt and
exceedingly generous. Money and large consignments of useful articles to
be sold at the Fair came from Boston, Salem, Worcester, Providence, New
Bedford, New Haven, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Nevada (then a
remote mining territory), England and Germany. Other givers also in
justice should be mentioned, but we name these merely to show how
cosmopolitan the donations to the Fair were. Helping hands were
stretched across the sea to us. Wars on behalf of the oppressed are wars
of progress, and make kin the lovers of righteousness in all the
nations.
But among the givers St. Louis herself ranked with the first. Her
business men contributed large amounts of goods; her families, vast
numbers of salable articles made in their homes; her artists and lovers
of art, valuable paintings, etchings, and engravings; and some liberally
gave money.
When the Fair opened on May 17th, there was in its treasury two hundred
thousand dollars in cash, which had been contributed by men in St. Louis
and in different parts of the Union.
The building for the Fair was on Twelfth Street. It was five hundred
feet long and extended from St. Charles to Olive Street. It had wings on
Locust Street, each one hundred feet by fifty-four. In the centre of the
building was an octagon seventy-five feet in diameter and fifty feet
high. This octagon was lavishly decorated with mottoes, national
banners, battle trophies, such as flags and weapons captured from the
enemy, and arbors of evergreens and flowers.
The building was divided into various departments. One department was
devoted to the refugees. Since they were a special object of charity and
so much was needed adequately to meet their wants, and the sympathies of
so many were specially drawn out to them, it seemed quite necessary to
devote a generous space in the building to their particular benefit. The
same was true of the freedmen, and a department was assigned to those
who were especially interested in meeting their wants and promoting
their general welfare.
The Germans, being so large a part of our population, and so ardently
devoted to the maintenance of the Union, were given a large space in the
building, where they patriotically sold lager beer, and a host of people
patriotically drank it. Very many connected with the Fair strongly
objected to this, but being in the minority were unable to prevent it.
During the days of preparation for the Fair a committee was appointed to
meet a delegation from our German fellow-citizens and if possible
persuade them to give up the project of selling beer at the Fair. I was
chairman, and presented as well as I could the earnest desire of the
temperance people. The German, who was the spokesman of his delegation,
understood English quite perfectly, but could not speak it very well. He
had not been at all persuaded by the considerations that I had
presented, and among other things that he vehemently urged in reply was
this: “Zhentelmen,” said he, “lager peer vill not make men trunk; it
vill not, _it vill not_. Zhentelmen, and ef any one gets trunk, we have
already, zhentelmen, engaged the police to take him to de calaboose.” So
this, and every effort that we put forth to rid the Fair of lager beer,
proved abortive; and it was sold, innumerable kegs of it, to alleviate
the sufferings of our soldiers. But in justice it ought to be added that
no one became so intoxicated that it was necessary to take him to the
calaboose.
But we can only name the multiplied departments and varied attractions
of this famous Fair. It had its curiosity shop, and skating park; its
floral park and gallery of fine arts; its counters on which all kinds of
merchandise were offered for sale; its separate rooms for war trophies,
agricultural implements, sewing machines, for the sale of works of art,
and for the exhibition of gold and silver bars from Nevada. There were
also refreshment saloons or restaurants, the New England, and the
Holland kitchen, where patriotic women cooked and washed dishes for the
Union and where the hungry ate for the same lofty purpose. And then
there were confectioners’ counters, a café, and an improvised theatre,
where were presented various dramas and other public amusements.
Patriotism, the underlying motive of it, lifted up and glorified all the
drudgery and all the innocent pastimes connected with it.
The evenings at the Fair were made specially attractive. Then the men
that had been absorbed in business during the day came with their
families. The great building was lighted as brilliantly as it could be
with gas. Electric lights had not yet appeared. In the gallery trained
bands skilfully discoursed patriotic music. Often the commanding general
with his staff, in their brightest uniform, was present. It is wonderful
how the crowd is charmed by military clothes! The names of the Union
generals together with the names of the battles that they had fought
were blazoned on the walls, and the Stars and Stripes hung out
everywhere, while women from the first families of the city were busy
selling all sorts of useful articles. No one who shared in those
festivities, who saw and heard and drank in the spirit of that patriotic
throng can ever forget it.
One feature was specially novel. The colored soldiers, enlisted and
drilled under the direction of General Schofield, during the Fair
constantly did guard duty. They also distinguished themselves, and
greatly commended themselves to all right-minded people, by liberally
contributing from their meagre wages to aid the refugees and freedmen.
Colored people also freely visited the Fair and made purchases. It
looked like a revolution when we saw, in a slave State, white women of
high social standing, without complaint or a murmur, sell articles to
colored purchasers. Once or twice indeed some whites took offence at
this radical and apparently abrupt change from the old order of things,
but on the whole the sentiment toward the colored people was humane,
reasonable, and liberal.
The Fair proved a great financial success. Its net proceeds were five
hundred and fifty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars, at
least three dollars and fifty cents for each inhabitant of our city; but
the result was largely due to contributors beyond our borders;
nevertheless it can be said of St. Louis that she did the work which
made this great success possible, and at the same time liberally gave to
the Fair both merchandise and money. The large amount of money realized,
together with other donations, enabled the Sanitary Commission to
complete its great work. In addition to the sums of money that it
directly disbursed to aid our armies, it appropriated to the Ladies’
Union Aid Society fifty thousand dollars for hospital work and the
assistance of soldiers’ families. It also devoted one thousand dollars
per month to the aid of the freedmen, and established at Webster, ten
miles west of the city, a Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, at a cost from first
to last of over forty thousand dollars. The Home accommodated one
hundred and fifty fatherless children.
But the Fair was a blessing not only to refugees and freedmen, to the
sick and wounded in hospitals, to the widows and orphans of our slain
heroes, but it was also a measureless boon to St. Louis. It was one more
mighty agency for curing us of our selfishness. For a time at least it
broke in upon our commercialism, and led us to think of others and to do
something for their welfare.
CHAPTER XXIII
A DARK PLOT THWARTED
When Major-General Rosecrans, on January 30th, 1864, assumed command of
the Department of Missouri, he delivered to his predecessor, General
Schofield, a complimentary farewell address. He warmly commended him for
what he had done in our State, and congratulated him that he was about
to take part in great campaigns. It was no flattery, but a candid,
sincere utterance of which the recipient was altogether worthy. It was
an honor both to him who uttered it and to him on whom it was bestowed.
General Rosecrans himself came to us from active campaigning, where he
had rendered the most patriotic and arduous service, but had failed in
attaining the highest success. At the eleventh hour he had lost the
great and hotly contested battle of Chickamauga by giving a blundering
order to one of his subordinate generals.[94] His intimate friends
thought that ever after he carried in his face the sadness of that
defeat. But his spirit was not soured. He was still ready to serve his
country in any way that he could, and in any position to which he might
be called. So he could heartily congratulate one, then subordinate in
rank, upon entering the service that he had been compelled to abandon,
while he himself cheerfully took up the military administration of the
most distracted region in the Union.
We have already seen him filling the office of president of the
Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, and doing all that he could to promote
its interests by being present evenings with his staff. To those who did
not, or could not, look below the surface, the battle in Missouri for
the Union seemed to have been fought out. So, I am sure, most of the
loyal in St. Louis at that time regarded it. But the general, and a few
of the inner circle, already had an inkling of a deep-laid plot to
promote the rebellion of the Southern States and if possible to make it
successful. They were persuaded that the surface of things was
deceptive; that beneath the dead ashes there were smouldering fires that
might suddenly burst out into flame; that there never had been a more
urgent demand for diligence than at that hour of superficial quiet.
Having found a clue to the furtive foe, the general, through wisely
chosen and trusted lieutenants, followed it up. He discreetly kept his
own counsels. He was sleeplessly persistent. His adroit agents or spies
wormed themselves into the confidence of the clandestine enemies of the
Republic, joined their secret organization and learned all their plots;
at the same time they kept constantly in touch with their chief, by whom
they were directed. They reported to him each startling fact that they
unearthed. One discovery quickly led to another. To be sure the
existence of a hostile secret organization had been hazily known for
many months, but through the efforts of General Rosecrans its extensive
ramifications were traced out, and its treasonable designs were laid
bare. It proved to be the most formidable secret political organization
that probably ever existed in America; it was conceived in treason; its
avowed object was the dismemberment of the Union, the overthrow of the
government of the United States. Its members were bound by oath to
effect this nefarious purpose. They were to hesitate at no crime in
order to reach their end. Rather than fail in it, they swore that they
would commit perjury, arson, pillage, assassination. The penalty for
disobedience of any command, even one that demanded the committing of
these diabolical crimes, was death.
The organization, while one brotherhood, bore in different localities
different names: the most notorious of which were: “The Knights of the
Golden Circle,” “The Order of American Knights,” “The Order of the
Star,” and “The Sons of Liberty.”[95]
Its ramifications were found both north and south of Mason and Dixon’s
line. It claimed in Missouri twenty-five thousand members; in Illinois
one hundred and forty thousand; in Indiana one hundred thousand; in Ohio
eighty thousand; in Kentucky seventy thousand; and some in New York,
Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Vallandigham of Ohio was supreme
commander of the northern wing of this secret organization, while
General Sterling Price was the supreme commander of the southern wing.
The northern wing for many months had done what it could to supply the
rebels with provisions and war material; it had also done for them the
work of spying, keeping them informed as to what was transpiring in the
North. It was still committing these treasonable acts, and even a few
officers in our army were suspected of lending a hand to help on this
villainous work. And, in that summer of 1864, the northern part of this
oath-bound society had planned to put forth a united and desperate
effort to aid the rebels in invading and revolutionizing the northern
States of the Middle West[96].
Now all this our general had quietly ferreted out. The knowledge
acquired by his skilful manipulation was of vast importance not only to
our city and State, but also to the general government. All the evidence
pertaining to this secret organization was carefully written out and
transmitted to President Lincoln. It covered one thousand pages of
foolscap.
But at first only a very few of the loyal of St. Louis, and, in fact, of
the nation, had any definite knowledge of the existence of this secret,
insidious foe. The great mass of our fellow-citizens stood in blissful
ignorance over a destructive mine, that might at any moment be exploded.
But thanks to our general, the President and his counsellors knew it
more perfectly than heretofore. He made known what he had recently
discovered to a few in our city in whom he reposed special confidence.
He also revealed it to his most trusted lieutenants. And what was
all-important to us, he knew the facts of the whole case probably more
thoroughly than any loyal man in the nation. And this knowledge shaped
every order that he issued and inspired his most weighty acts.
It was still necessary to garrison all parts of the State. Those in
command of the garrisons were instructed to keep the sharpest possible
watch of all whose loyalty was suspected; to break up all rendezvous of
such men wherever found; to permit no illicit gatherings of
secessionists, and to deprive of arms all who expressed sympathy with
the rebellion. Thus the general laid a strong, repressive hand upon “The
Knights of the Golden Circle” in our State. And before our story ends we
shall see how wise such action was.
Evidently with his eye on this secret fraternity of the disloyal, that a
little later he so fully unearthed, on March 1st, he forbade any one to
take negroes from the State, but demanded that by every legitimate
method they should be encouraged to enlist as soldiers. He declared that
in all such enlistments the property rights of the master would be
guarded; the government would compensate him for his chattels, but the
slaves by their enlistment would become freemen. The general felt that
he should soon need, to circumvent any threatened disloyal uprising, as
many soldiers as he could secure, whether they were white or black.
To diminish as far as possible the incitement of the secretly disloyal
to open rebellion, on the 26th of March, he prohibited the circulation,
in the Department of Missouri, of the _Metropolitan Record_. This was a
bitter rebel sheet published in New York. It professed to be a Catholic
family newspaper. On that account it was specially offensive to the
general, who was a devout Catholic. He felt that by it not only was his
country betrayed, but also his church was greatly misrepresented and
traduced. He declared it to be “without ecclesiastical sanction,” and so
“traitorous” that it could not be tolerated even by the most liberal
interpretation of the freedom of the press.[97] Nor did he relish the
fact that such a journal found so many eager readers in St. Louis and in
the State at large. It was an alarming symptom of what was going on
hidden from the public view.
He also wisely and firmly corrected all illegal assumption of power on
the part of his subordinates. Some district commanders had assumed the
right of forming sub-provost-marshal districts, and of appointing
assistant provost marshals. They were true, patriotic men.
Unquestionably they meant to do exactly right. But unwittingly they had
transcended their powers. So by an order issued April 9th, the general
called their attention to this unwarrantable usurpation of authority,
and put a stop to it.[98] He knew that he was called to cope with a foe
burrowing in every part of the State, and so far as possible must know
every subordinate officer, and must hold firmly in his own hand all the
lines of authority. He felt that such unification of power alone could
preserve the State from the grasp of a secret, ubiquitous foe.
While the great mass of our fellow-citizens were not acquainted with the
facts that were already in possession of our commander, rumors of a
secret organization of the disloyal began to get abroad. This was just
enough to fire the popular imagination, and to keep the people standing
on tiptoe and craning their necks for news. And while filled with
apprehension, they were not a little disturbed by seeing the troops that
had been faithfully guarding our city sent elsewhere. The masterful
campaign of Grant in Virginia had begun. The general-in-chief and his
great lieutenants, Sherman and Canby, were all clamorous for soldiers,
and each in turn urgently pressed General Rosecrans to send them
regiments from our State and city. He generously responded to these
calls, until he had sent them nearly all of the troops in and around St.
Louis.[99] When still further pressed for recruits by the generals in
the field, knowing, as they did not, the powerful hostile secret
organization intrenched in every part of our State, he pathetically
pleaded that he could not safely spare any more; that he must not
abandon, but must protect, the loyal citizens in the various counties of
our commonwealth, who remained unflinchingly true to the Union while
confronted with manifold perils. Grant, underestimating our dangers and
needs, and intent on his great work, accused Rosecrans of acting in
violation of orders; but later he softened his accusation by merely
declaring that in his judgment Rosecrans might have granted what he
asked without so much correspondence.[100] One marked fault of our
general was his great proneness to irritating disputation. Nevertheless
both of these patriotic generals were doing their level best. But we
must bear in mind this denuding our city of troops, if we would justly
appreciate the administration of General Rosecrans, and fully understand
the events that soon followed.
As early as March ugly rumors were flying about the city that small
roving bands of guerrillas and bushwhackers had begun to appear in
various parts of the State. Information concerning this daily became
more definite. On the 3d of April, a lieutenant-colonel of the 61st
enrolled Missouri militia reported from Columbia that rebel officers and
guerrillas had been coming into that region from the South and that they
were re-enforced from Illinois. That patriotic Illinois was taking a
hand in this clandestine, hostile invasion seemed to the uninitiated
incredible. But the announcement was unequivocal, and the invaders were
reported as operating in small squads, robbing and pillaging in all
directions. The disloyal in that part of the State, stirred to wrath on
account of the enlistment of negroes in the army and the prospect of a
draft, were receiving these desperadoes hospitably. And along with these
specific reports of devastation there was a persistent rumor that Price
was coming with a large army.[101]
In the latter part of April it was declared that the rebels had planned
to send into northern Missouri two brigades of cavalry and two of
mounted infantry; and into the region about Rolla in the southern part
of the State a column of guerrillas, together with the Confederate
Seventh Missouri Regiment, to act in conjunction with some conspirators’
organization[102] of whose existence and character the public at large
had received only an inkling. At the same time it was reported that
three Confederate colonels, with over a hundred armed men, were on their
way to northern Missouri and that most of these men were recruiting
officers of the rebel army.[103] We began to apprehend that the quietude
that we had felt and in which we had prematurely rejoiced was only the
stillness that precedes the fierce tornado. On the last day of April it
was announced that rebel raids from the South into the central part of
the State had begun, and that many of the citizens of Boonville, alarmed
by these reports, were fleeing from their homes. Four days after,
companies of Confederate cavalry, numbering from one to three hundred,
were reported as advancing towards our State from the southwest, and,
what was still more astounding and bewildering, it was rumored that
there were rebel organizations in Illinois, and that Quantrell, with
eight hundred men, was below Quincy between the Illinois and Mississippi
Rivers. Of the truth of this, Rosecrans was convinced, because he
declared that he hoped to bring “these conspirators and raiders to
grief.”[104] On the 4th of May from eight to twelve hundred rebels were
seen on Grand River, west of Neosho.[105] Rumors multiplied. Marmaduke
with eleven hundred men was observed going toward Missouri.[106]
Officers of the army on watch in the interior were persuaded that the
State would be soon invaded by a powerful force.[107] Before the middle
of June this became clear to all. Reports of guerrillas drifting in from
the South came from all parts of the State,[108] coupled with the rumor
that Price and his veteran host would soon be upon us.
And what in the meantime were these invaders doing? They were
endeavoring with but scant success to secure recruits for the
Confederate army. Their campaign had been shrewdly planned. They were in
all parts of the commonwealth. They made their appeal to every one in
sympathy with the rebellion. Every able-bodied man disloyal at heart had
a chance now to show his colors, to come out into the open and enlist in
the Confederate army.
But at this supreme moment most of them thought it imprudent so to do.
The Federal officers had never been so alert as now. Every concerted
rebel movement in their respective districts was unerringly detected by
them and at once checkmated. Every nest of secessionists was broken up.
In every place the disloyal seemed to be in the grasp of an iron hand.
They did not know that Rosecrans had in his possession all the facts in
reference to their secret conspiracy, and that through his able and
efficient subordinates, he was succeeding even beyond his expectations
in holding it in check.
Still, his success was not complete; for while most of the disloyal of
the State refused to enroll themselves as Confederate soldiers, they
struck hands with their friends from the South in gathering commissary
stores for the rebel army and especially for that part of it which was
expected soon to appear within our borders. They regarded the property
of Union men as legitimate plunder; so they gave themselves to pillage.
Since these marauders were scattered in small bands all over the State
beyond the immediate vicinity of St. Louis, it was impossible for our
soldiers, however vigilant and alert, to defend against them the
property of all Unionists. So they robbed here and plundered there,[109]
and in each case were quickly gone, no one knew where. Many of them, to
be sure, came to grief. Some were taken prisoners; some were shot or
hung; but most of them escaped to rob the defenceless, and to make night
lurid with burning farmhouses and barns.
If the depredators had confined themselves to plunder and arson, this
orgy of lawlessness would happily have lacked its darkest colors. But
they were joined by bushwhackers. These by birth or adoption were
Missourians. They knew every Union man in their respective
neighborhoods. They piloted the invaders to the homes of the loyal, that
they might seize upon what they considered their rightful prey. Many of
them wore the uniform of United States soldiers,[110] that they might
deceive the Unionists. They had many grudges that they determined to
feed fat. So to robbery was often added murder, cold-blooded, dastardly
murder. All over Missouri, wherever these assassins, clothed in the
loyal blue, dared to go, they shot down Union men. Many of these
atrocities were unspeakably revolting. A bushwhacker rode up to the door
of a peaceable old man, and asked for a drink of water. Whether the man
regarded the thirsty traveller as a friend or enemy was never known; at
all events, he brought him a cup of cold water, which he drank and then,
handing back the cup, shot his benefactor dead. Not because he had
previously injured him or any one else, but solely because amid many
perils he had been a true Union man.
The leader of a band of guerrillas, by the name of Anderson, ordered his
gang to shoot into, and stop, a train of cars on the North Missouri
Railroad. In one of the coaches he found twenty-two unarmed United
States soldiers that, on account of sickness, had been furloughed. They
were on their way to their homes and loved ones. He ordered them all out
of the car, robbed them, stood them in a row and shot them. Some of the
bodies he scalped, others he put across the track and ran the engine
over them. He afterwards attacked a hundred and twenty men of the 39th
Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and having stampeded their horses, shot
every one of them in cold blood. A few days later he was recognized by
General Price as a Confederate captain, and with the gentle admonition
that he must behave himself, was sent out to destroy railroads.[111]
But this carnage went on. It was the culmination of horrors in Missouri.
All the barbarism that had gone before was now eclipsed. No other State
of the South was so harried by lawless, irresponsible armed men. They
did not wage war, and were entitled to none of the amenities of war as
conducted by civilized nations.
In St. Louis we were as yet safe. But we breakfasted and supped on
horrors. Our hearts bled for our suffering brethren in the State. We did
what we could to help them; but we were able to effect very little. The
persistent rumors that a large army of invaders would soon sweep into
our State from the South made us apprehensive that there might at no
distant day be fighting at our own gates.
At last these rumors of invasion were followed by the ingress of a
veteran rebel force under the command of General Price. They came up
from Arkansas. On the 24th of September, General Shelby, one of Price’s
division commanders, with five thousand men and several pieces of
artillery, was reported as just south of Pilot Knob, about eighty-five
miles from St. Louis. It was the vanguard of an army of at least fifteen
thousand men.
Excitement ran high among us. We had no force at all adequate to our
protection. As we have already seen, most of the soldiers in and around
St. Louis had been sent to the front. Of this state of things, the rebel
general had undoubtedly been informed. He expected to capture our city,
and, comparatively defenceless as we were, we thought that his
expectation would probably be realized; at all events, we could not see
why it should not be. Still we all deeply felt that we must do our
utmost to save that for which we had so successfully contended for more
than three years.
Days before, when rumors of this invasion filled the air, and evidences
multiplied that rumor would soon be transmuted into reality, at the
earnest solicitation of our general, the military authorities at
Washington had halted at Cairo, General A. J. Smith, with about four
thousand five hundred infantry, when on his way to join General Sherman,
and ordered him to turn back and assist Rosecrans in defending Missouri
against the hostile forces of Price. To our great relief he came up to
St. Louis, knowing full well that our city was the coveted prize and the
objective point of the invading army. He wisely determined to stand,
with his brave soldiers, between our comparatively defenceless city and
the invaders when they should appear on our soil.
But he was not our only defence. When the invading rebels were reported
as being in the southern part of the State all the Home Guards of St.
Louis were called out. Their whole strength was from four to five
thousand men, none of whom had ever been under fire. Under the best
officers that could be secured they were daily drilled. Moreover, some
one hundred days’ volunteers, then in Illinois, who had more than served
out their time, with great alacrity and generosity came to our support,
but refused under the circumstances to go beyond the city. They were
willing to fight there on the defensive, but were unwilling to join in
an offensive campaign, which might require long and perhaps forced
marches. We could not blame them, and were glad that they stood ready
with us to defend our city if it should be attacked.
Now, with such force as was at hand the defensive campaign began.
General Ewing was sent with about fifteen hundred men, half of whom were
raw recruits, to Pilot Knob. He was ordered to hold that position until
he found out as nearly as possible the number of the invading army. He
was an able, gallant soldier, and we knew that he would do his utmost to
carry out the command of his chief.
At the same time, General Smith marched with his division of infantry in
the direction of Pilot Knob. His movement was noted by Price, who,
wishing to prevent him from uniting his force with that of General
Ewing, sent General Shelby to oppose him and if possible check his
advance. General Smith, having discovered that the enemy was moving west
and north, was ordered to keep between the rebel force and St. Louis; so
he retired behind the Meramec, a little river a few miles south of our
city.
In the meantime, full of anxiety, we at St. Louis waited for tidings
from General Ewing. Hours seemed to be days, and days weeks. At last the
thrilling news came. Ewing, after using part of his troops to guard a
portion of the Iron Mountain Railroad, with a thousand men took his
stand at Fort Davidson, a small field work in a valley surrounded by
hills. It commanded the opening between the mountains through which
Price had determined to pass. Throughout the whole of September 27th, he
was terrifically assaulted by the invaders. While half of his thousand
troops were undisciplined volunteers, he pluckily held his ground,
repulsing the attacking army and killing and wounding fifteen hundred of
them; while his own loss in killed, wounded and missing was only two
hundred and fifty. A part of this number in the desperate fighting of
the day had been taken prisoners and soon after were paroled. The
general had triumphantly accomplished his object. He had developed the
fact that the whole of Price’s army was in the State, and for a whole
day he had confronted and fought all of it except Shelby’s division.
The enemy, towards evening, had gained the slopes of the adjacent
mountains and were planting batteries there which would command the fort
that Ewing had so tenaciously and gallantly held. Fully eight thousand
five hundred men with ten pieces of artillery were prepared to attack
him in the morning. His position was no longer tenable. He therefore
spiked his big guns, blew up his magazine, destroyed as far as he was
able the supplies that he could not carry away, and with his field
battery and what remained of his command retreated under the cover of
darkness toward the Meramec valley. When his absence was discovered, the
enemy pursued and greatly harassed him and his small intrepid army. The
only wonder is that his whole command was not captured or destroyed; but
he got upon a ridge of land between two creeks, and so was able, as he
marched rapidly on, to repulse again and again the pursuing forces. He
reached at last Harrison Station, a little more than a day’s march from
our city. Here he hastily occupied and extended some earthworks that had
been thrown up by a regiment of militia, and with his raw troops, now
become a Spartan band, withstood the assaulting army for thirty-six
hours, when he was re-enforced by a detachment of cavalry. The enemy now
withdrew. Ewing and his brave men escaped to Rolla.
We were soon in possession of all the facts. A great burden was lifted
from our hearts. The well-earned fame of Ewing and his dauntless little
army floated on the lips of the multitude. But why Price did not take
St. Louis was to us all an inscrutable mystery. He could have done so.
He came for that very purpose, and yet passed by us to the west and
north. He was a cautious general; as we have before observed, he never
wished to attack unless he felt quite sure of victory. And like most
overcautious commanders, he overestimated the strength of his enemy. We
know now, what we did not then, that he sent a spy to our city, one in
whose judgment he placed the utmost confidence, who reported to him that
we had for our defence two soldiers to his one. How that spy could have
been so deceived is still an unsolved riddle. Price had almost two
soldiers to our one. His soldiers were veterans; ours to a great extent
were raw and undisciplined. With a little resolute, hard fighting he
could have seized the prize which he and his troops so intensely
coveted. But the God of nations and battles, who holds in his hand the
hearts of kings and generals, had graciously decreed otherwise.
It would be aside from my object to present in detail the events which
belong to this invasion of our State. When we saw that the rebel general
had evidently abandoned the purpose of attacking St. Louis, its loyal
inhabitants felt the intensest satisfaction. We now saw with increasing
delight that the distance between the invaders and our city was daily
growing greater; that General Price, overestimating the number of Union
troops at Jefferson City, just as he had at St. Louis, passed on to the
west and north, leaving the State capital unharmed. Soon the scattered
detachments of Federal troops began to concentrate in his rear, and he
hastened his march. Near the western border of the State, Union troops
from Kansas joined in the pursuit. Now in every battle the rebel forces
met with defeat, and were soon driven from southwest Missouri into
Arkansas, never more to return. This was the last invasion of our State.
But in this invasion the rebel general was in some ways largely
successful. He killed and wounded very many of our troops. During this
campaign, though it lasted only a few days, there were more than forty
skirmishes and about fifteen battles, some of them of considerable
dimensions. Many places, either utterly without defence, or inadequately
defended, were temporarily occupied, and plundered. Houses of Union men
were burned. Railroad tracks were torn up, and the rails twisted and
destroyed. Bridges, depots and warehouses were reduced to ashes. Horses,
mules and wagons in large numbers were carried away. Vast quantities of
commissary stores were ruthlessly gathered for the Confederate army.
Price, in his report of this campaign, claims that he destroyed full ten
million dollars worth of property. Perhaps that is an exaggeration; but
he marched by a circuitous route from one end of our State to the other,
devastating a strip of territory about twenty miles wide.
He, to be sure, lost heavily. Ten pieces of his artillery, two stand of
colors, large numbers of wagons, mules and small arms, and nearly two
thousand prisoners were captured by the Federals. Many of his men were
slain in battle. He had also been compelled in his flight to burn very
many of the wagons that he had confiscated, and to destroy much of his
ill-gotten plunder.
Moreover, he had utterly failed, politically. He anticipated the
uprising of the “Order of American Knights,” fully twenty-five thousand
in number, and that most of them would join his army; he also expected
to take St. Louis and swing our State into the Southern Confederacy;
march into Illinois, where, re-enforced by the one hundred fifty
thousand Knights of that State, and greeted by the Knights from Indiana
and Ohio, with Vallandigham at their head, he hoped to establish a
Northwestern Confederacy and put a stop to the war, which was being
waged for the maintenance of the Union. But divine Providence had
decreed that this audacious scheme of rebels and copperheads should
never be realized. The effort to make the airy fabric of that dream a
reality had been attended with devastation, misery and blood, and had
ended in inglorious defeat.
But one sad outcome of the devastating march of Price’s army was patent
to every eye. Before it Union men with their families fled for their
lives. Many of them hastily left their homes at night, lighted on their
way by their flaming houses. Avoiding their pillaging foes, they made
their way to St. Louis. They came in great numbers, and like the
refugees that preceded them, were kindly received and abundantly cared
for.[112]
CHAPTER XXIV
NEGRO SCHOOLS
Before the last invasion of our State by Price, a few of us became
deeply interested in the education of the colored children of our city.
No public school was open to them. Although the negroes of St. Louis
owned taxable property, assessed year by year at a valuation of hundreds
of thousands of dollars, and had long paid annually no inconsiderable
school tax, it had been used for the education of white children alone.
This rank injustice, one of the many shameful wrongs of chattel slavery,
led the colored people to establish in different parts of the city a few
private schools for the education of their own children. By the flocking
of contrabands into St. Louis the demand for colored schools had
steadily grown more imperative. But these schools, founded and conducted
by colored teachers, were of a very low grade. They were worthy of
hearty commendation, as earnest efforts on the part of those who, though
brought up in ignorance, desired better things for their children than
they themselves had known. This ignorance yearning for knowledge, this
stretching out of black hands toward the light, was an appeal too
eloquent to be resisted. A goodly company of us determined to do what we
could to lay the foundation for the future education of our colored
population. It was already pretty clear that they were to be
enfranchised citizens, and would need greater intelligence to enable
them to discharge creditably their obligations to the community and the
State.
We saw at a glance what they needed was better schools and more of them.
Larger and more cleanly rooms, more and better elementary books, and
above all more thoroughly trained teachers were absolutely necessary in
order to secure results even moderately satisfactory. To accomplish
this, two things were demanded, money and self-sacrificing workers. The
first could not be obtained from the public treasury. While the law
compelled thrifty blacks to pay a school tax, it forbade the use of a
cent of it in educating black children. We and they had to bow before
the majesty of the law. The only resort left us was private charity. But
this did not fail us. The negro property holders not only cheerfully
paid the school tax for the education of white children, but also
generously contributed from their limited incomes to sustain the private
schools for colored children. And loyal whites, who, from the beginning
of the war, had nobly responded to a multitude of appeals for charity,
by their bountiful gifts helped on this new educational enterprise,
while a company of men and women came forward with alacrity to do the
necessary work involved in this philanthropic project. They met with and
counselled the colored school board; solicited and collected money;
secured the donation of the necessary furnishings for the schoolrooms
and the books and simple apparatus required; encouraged pupils to attend
the schools and inspirited teachers when in their new and difficult work
their hearts began to fail them.
I was chosen to examine the colored applicants for positions as
teachers. In the months of September and October, I spent six half days
in the work of examination. It was a difficult task. These aspirants for
the responsible office of teacher knew accurately very little. The
superintendent of our city schools furnished me with the questions to be
asked. But these questions were framed for white teachers of larger
knowledge and greater discipline and were quite unfit for my purpose;
however, being required to use them, I did my best in Saul’s armor.
During the war the price of gold in New York was quoted in every daily
paper. It was one dollar and forty cents or one dollar and seventy-five
cents or two dollars and twenty-five cents, that is, it took so much in
paper currency to buy one dollar in gold. One of the questions
designated for these examinations was: “What is the leading industry of
New York?” referring of course to the State of New York. It was a rather
difficult question for any one to answer. I gave it to a bright-looking
colored girl, as a part of her examination. Her answer was, “Buying and
selling gold.”
Out of the fourteen that I examined, male and female, I found four that
showed that they were tolerably well-prepared for their duties as
primary teachers and they acquitted themselves very well in the
schoolroom.
Our schools flourished. Most of the pupils learned rapidly. The number
of them multiplied. Soon our room was insufficient. From time to time we
added other schools, and succeeded with small means in doing a great,
beneficent work.
We finally carried our case to the School Board of the city. We went
with faint hearts. In a community accustomed to slave laws, which public
opinion had heartily sustained, we were to ask the great boon of public
schools for those who by legislative enactment had been long kept in
ignorance. Moreover, the character of the men before whom we were to
plead the cause of the negro made us hesitate. Most of them were what
were then called Bourbon Democrats, who, it was declared, never learned
anything nor forgot anything, and a majority of the Board were Roman
Catholics. What could we expect men of that kind to do for the servile
and despised race among us? We were ushered into their presence. With
warm hearts we began to state our case. We criminated nobody. We spoke
earnestly and tenderly for the wronged and neglected. We were
wonderfully cheered when we saw that those whom we addressed were all
eye and all ear. They intently looked us in the face, they seemed
unwilling to lose a single word that fell from our lips. The injustice
that we pointed out was so rank that all their hearts were touched.
Without a dissenting voice they declared that the great wrong must be
righted; that the children of the men who paid a school tax must share
in its benefits.
But, just as we expected, they affirmed that they could do nothing for
the colored children under the existing law; but unsolicited they
pledged themselves to petition the next legislature for a law that would
enable them to provide school buildings, books, apparatus, and teachers
for the black children, and to support these schools, just as the
schools for white children are maintained, by the public school funds.
They were as good as their word. The legislature to which they appealed
was mainly made up of men of radical, progressive views, and what was
asked was enthusiastically granted. The school buildings for colored
children were put up and all that could make these schools most highly
efficient was liberally provided. The negro question for Missouri was
solved in this high-minded, philanthropic way, and the solution was
unstained by partisanship or demagogism; and in it we saw the grand
fruition of our toil on behalf of a few private negro schools.
CHAPTER XXV
AFTER DARKNESS LIGHT
In the beginning of the autumn of 1864 the Unionists of St. Louis were
sadly disheartened. They had not been so hopeless since the war began.
Men were unable to give any rational explanation of their
discouragement. It probably arose from a combination of untoward events.
Grant and Sherman had begun their great campaigns in Virginia and
Georgia. Some hard battles had been fought but no very decisive
victories had yet been gained. Mr. Lincoln had been renominated for the
Presidency, but without the triumph of our arms his election seemed to
us somewhat doubtful. For the opposing candidate the Democrats had
nominated General McClellan, who had many enthusiastic followers. In
their platform they had declared the war a failure. The existence of
“The Knights of the Golden Circle,” their great numbers in several
States of the Middle West and their ardent support of the Democratic
candidate had become quite generally known. Such an array of
antagonistic forces seemed to many of the loyal in our city, wearied
with the long and costly conflict for the Union, to betoken possible
defeat.
In this too general gloom I could not share. With other optimistic souls
I felt sure of ultimate victory. It was my duty, therefore, to impart so
far as possible my confidence to others; so I preached to a full house
from the text: “Think not that I came to send peace on the earth; I came
not to send peace, but a sword.” The press asked for my sermon and gave
it to a far greater number than those who heard it. Its closing passage
enshrines the spirit and stress of that day.
“There are those, however, who cry out for peace. Who does not desire
it? Have we not had enough of fratricidal strife? Yes, verily. Has not
enough blood been shed? Yes, a thousand fold more than ought to have
flowed. Have we not had enough of lamentation and tears? Let the Rachels
who weep for their children, and refuse to be comforted, answer. He has
a stone for a heart who, looking on the desolations of war, does not
sigh for peace. But peace at what price? At the price of truth? Shall we
for the sake of peace give up the principle that good government must be
obeyed? Shall we tamely abandon the truth that all men are equal in
God’s sight, and have a right to the product of their own labor? Shall
we timidly assent to the tyrannical doctrine that the normal condition
of a portion of our race is slavery? We cannot purchase peace at so
great cost. God giving us strength, we never will. Let our wives be
widows and our children orphans; let them beg their bread from door to
door; let them die without care in almshouses, and be buried uncoffined
in the potter’s field; yea, ‘let a general conflagration sweep over the
land, and let an earthquake sink it,’ before we yield one rood of our
territory to those who, without cause, lifted up the red hand of
rebellion against the government of our fathers in the interest of
slavery. And why all this? Because the truth for which we contend is
worth more than your life or mine—or more than the lives of a generation
of men. When peace shall be obtained which is based in righteousness,
which flows forth from justice established and exalted in the midst of
the nation, which grants to all classes of men their inalienable rights,
we will sing pæans of joy over it; but if we are to have a peace based
on a compromise with iniquity, which will be as deceptive as the apples
of Sodom, involving our children in disasters more dire than those which
have befallen us, every lover of truth, and justice, and good government
will hang his head in shame. O, God, save us in mercy, from such a
peace! Give us anything rather than it. Grant us an eighty years’ war
like that waged by the Netherlands, rather than pour into our cup such
an insidious curse.
“Brethren, be of good cheer. God now goes before us to battle, and
grants us victories. This is no time for fear and faltering. We must
quit ourselves like men, like Christian freemen. This conflict is not
anomalous. There have been many such. Christ, the Prince of Peace,
anticipated it, and His words coming across the centuries shall cheer us
till the last blow is struck, truth vindicated and righteousness
immovably established.”
As we approached November the tide of public opinion turned in favor of
the election of Mr. Lincoln for a second term. The invasion of Missouri
had failed of its object. St. Louis was no longer threatened by her
foes; she was now secure and serene. The great secret political
organization, which aspired to destroy the Union and defeat the second
election of the President, had become innocuous; the fangs of the
copperhead had been drawn; Grant with the hammer of Thor, over
grass-covered fortifications, was steadily pounding his way towards
Richmond. Sherman had achieved brilliant success in Georgia. All things
for the cause of the Union were propitious. Lincoln’s election was
triumphant. Great patient soul, he now knew that he was enthroned in the
hearts of the people to whom he was so ardently devoted.
In Missouri many were kept from voting because they could not take the
prescribed oath of allegiance. On that account the result of the
election was not the real expression of the judgment of the whole
people; but it gave the most intense satisfaction to all radical Union
men of our city and State. The President received over forty thousand
majority; the unconditional Union candidate for Governor, Thomas C.
Fletcher, received a still heavier vote. The people, by more than
thirty-seven thousand majority, declared themselves in favor of another
Convention and at the same time elected the members of it, more than
three fourths of whom were Charcoals. The entire radical ticket for
State officers was chosen, and the legislature was heavily radical in
both its branches. Eight of the nine candidates elected to Congress were
radicals. In eighty of the one hundred and fourteen counties of the
State the radical ticket prevailed. The loyal of our city celebrated
this triumph of unconditional Unionism with unbounded joy. They rang the
bells; kindled bonfires; marched with torches to martial music; sang
patriotic songs; and almost split their throats and the welkin with
their huzzas. Well they might do all this. Every plot against the Union
had been thwarted; they held at last firmly within their grasp the prize
for which they had so long and patiently struggled. The darkness had
fled; the light shone.
CHAPTER XXVI
RADICALS IN CONVENTION[113]
The radicals for many months had been deeply dissatisfied with the
conservatism of the old Convention. While recognizing its inestimable
service in keeping Missouri in the Union, they were strongly opposed to
its policy of gradual, compensated emancipation. They clamored for a new
Convention to which this, and other vitally important questions, should
be submitted. So many in the State adopted and advocated their views
that the legislature in February, 1864, passed an act creating and
calling a new Convention to meet in St. Louis on January 6th, 1865, “to
consider, first, such amendments to the Constitution of the State as may
be by them deemed necessary for the emancipation of slaves; second, such
amendments to the Constitution of the State as may be by them deemed
necessary to preserve in purity the elective franchise to loyal
citizens; and such other amendments as may be by them deemed essential
to the promotion of the public good.”
At the election in November, the people, as we have already noted, by a
decisive majority, declared for a new Convention and elected delegates
to it most of whom were radicals. The Charcoals were at last in the
saddle. The conservatives were dispirited; and even the more moderate
radicals held their breath in fear of measures too extreme and
impracticable. But, whatever drawbacks there were, on the whole the
radical triumph was a healthful onward movement.
On January 6th, 1865, the Convention met in the small Mercantile Library
Hall. There were sixty-nine delegates. More than half of them had been
born and bred in slave States. Twenty-three were natives of the free
States, while ten were immigrants from Europe, chiefly from Germany.
Some of those who were natives of the South had recently been converted
from their pro-slavery notions and were intent on magnifying their new
faith. They were uncompromising radicals.
Unlike the old Convention, there were in this more farmers than lawyers,
while the medical profession was as numerously represented as the legal;
almost one-fifth of the Convention were physicians. There were also
twelve merchants, mostly from small towns whose business had never been
large. Editors, clerks, a mechanic, a railroad agent, a law student, a
nurseryman, a surveyor, a schoolmaster, and a major of Missouri
volunteers made up the rest.
In the main the delegates were young. More than a third of them were
under forty, and more than two-thirds under fifty; none of them were
enfeebled by age. But a single glance at them convinced any intelligent
beholder that, taken as a whole, they were in capacity mediocre; and
most of them by their occupations had not been fitted to grapple with
questions that pertained to the fundamental law of the State. The people
who chose them had evidently not kept clearly in view the delicate and
difficult work that they would be called upon to perform. To a large
extent passion and prejudice born of the hour had controlled the voters
in their choice of delegates. In their anxiety to elect men who were
uncompromisingly in favor of immediate emancipation, they had not been
sufficiently careful in demanding that they should also be men qualified
to do their part intelligently in reconstructing the organic law of the
commonwealth.
Moreover, the Convention did not fairly represent the whole body of
loyal men in the State. Ruling out all downright rebels as justly
debarred from voting, the conservative anti-slavery element secured at
the best but a very small representation in this deliberative assembly.
The stringent oath of allegiance, framed by the old Convention and
rigidly required of every voter, kept many from making any attempt to
deposit their ballots; not because they were not, even under such a
severe test, legal voters, but because they shrank from the catechizing
to which they would be subjected at the polls by men who looked with
suspicion upon any one with conservative views.
Now when the Convention made up mainly of men holding ultra notions came
together and organized for work, choosing, at its second session, for
president, Arnold Krekel of St. Charles, a native of Prussia, an able
lawyer, but an extremist of the most pronounced type, all St. Louis was
agog. This first important act of the Convention unmistakably revealed
its radical drift, and showed how potent in it were the ultra political
notions of our German fellow-citizens. It proceeded at once to the
paramount business for which it had been created and called together,
the emancipation of the slaves of Missouri. On the fifth day after its
organization it passed, with only four votes in the negative, the
following ordinance:
“Be it ordained by the People of the State of Missouri, in Convention
assembled:
“That hereafter, in this State, there shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held to service or labor
as slaves are hereby declared free.”
The hall was packed with spectators; and when the almost unanimous vote
for this ordinance was announced by the president they broke out into
loud applause; they swung hats, waved handkerchiefs, stamped, clapped
their hands and cheered. The president cried, “Order, order,” pounded
with his gavel and called on the sergeant-at-arms to suppress the
exultant uproar; but every effort was futile; he might as well have
attempted to still a hurricane by pounding on a board with a gavel and
by threatening it with an attack by one man armed. And how foolish it
was to try. For many years men in that shouting crowd had longed for
that hour; they had often feared that they should die without the sight.
And now that it had come in such unexpected ways their joy must have
vent. And in spite of all efforts to quiet them they continued to cheer
until they were exhausted. No wonder. The event that excited them was
great and significant. More than a hundred thousand slaves were in a
moment made freemen and the greatest obstacle to the progress of
Missouri was swept out of the way.
When at last the glad cries of the onlooking throng died away, Dr. Eliot
was called upon to voice the gratitude of all present by returning
thanks to Almighty God. He came to the president’s desk and from a full
heart poured out in tremulous tones this fitting petition:
“Most merciful God, before whom we are all equal, we look up to thee who
hast declared thyself our Father and our helper and our strong defence,
to thank thee that thou art no respecter of persons, to thank thee that
thou didst send Jesus Christ into the world to redeem the world from
sin, and that he was the friend of the poor, that he came to break the
manacles of the slaves, ‘that the oppressed might go free.’ We thank
thee that this day the people of this State have had grace given them to
do as they would be done by. We pray that thy blessing may rest upon the
proceedings of this Convention, that no evil may come to this State from
the wrong position of those who do not agree with the action of to-day,
but that we, all of us, may be united to sustain this which is the law
of the land. We pray, O God! but our hearts are too full to express our
thanksgiving! Thanks be to God for this day that light has now come out
of darkness, that all things are now promising a future of peace and
quietness to our distracted State. Grant that this voice may go over the
whole land until the Ordinance of Emancipation is made perfect
throughout the States. We ask it through the name of our dear Lord and
Redeemer. Amen.”
This prayer was followed by some moments of reverent silence; the hearts
of all present had been deeply touched. Then the hush that had fallen
alike on delegates and spectators was reluctantly broken. In subdued
tones a motion was offered that the Ordinance of Emancipation be
engrossed on parchment, attested by the secretary and signed by the
members of the Convention. This was unanimously adopted.
Without a moment’s delay, it was moved and carried that a duly
authenticated copy of the Ordinance be sent by special messenger to the
Governor of the State, at Jefferson City, and that he be requested to
issue a proclamation to the people of the commonwealth, apprising them
that, “by the irrevocable action of the Convention, slavery is abolished
in the State of Missouri, now and forever.”
The Convention, being in no mood to take up other business, adjourned
till the next day. But the report of what they had done had already
spread through the whole city. It outran the newsboys who were soon
vociferously hawking on every street the extras that had been quickly
sent forth from the newspaper presses. All business for the rest of the
day was suspended. The joyful peal of bells from tower and steeple
struck every ear. Crowds spontaneously gathered on the streets. They
eagerly rehearsed and animatedly discussed what the Convention had done.
Most approved it; a few condemned it. Public buildings and most private
dwellings quickly hung out in profusion the national banner, and when
night came hundreds of buildings were illuminated. There was a carnival
of joy.
The negroes filled their churches, sang songs of deliverance, and poured
out their quaint thanksgiving to God that the day for which they had so
long sighed had come. As their leaders prayed, those in the pews,
swaying their bodies back and forth, cried: “Bress de Lawd, Amen, Glory,
Hal’luah, We’s free.” To them it was the day of days. Their year of
jubilee had come. They shouted, and sang their touching melodies till
long after midnight.
But our picture would be far from complete without a glance at the
capital of the State. Before the special messenger, bearing the
Ordinance of Emancipation, had reached Jefferson City, the telegraph had
anticipated both him and his message. The legislature was in session. On
receipt of the news, business was at once suspended and the members of
both houses, with rare exceptions, gave themselves up to rejoicing. By a
resolution enthusiastically adopted, Colonel Jameson of St. Louis, Mr.
Kützner of Hannibal, and Mr. Doan of Grundy were invited to sing “John
Brown.” Standing in front of the speaker’s desk they sang it amid hearty
applause, the members of the legislature joining in the chorus, “Glory,
glory Hallelujah.” When the legislature adjourned, there were several
spontaneous gatherings of the citizens of Jefferson City. These meetings
were addressed by the ablest speakers residing at the capital; also by
some members of the legislature, and by the Congressman of the district.
National banners were run up on all public buildings, and out from the
windows of most of the private houses; bells rang, bands played, and in
the evening tar barrels were burned in the streets, while every
window-pane of the Capitol seemed to be illuminated. The trees and the
neighboring hills caught up the light and seemed to rejoice with the
city; reminding many of the rapt words of the prophet; “The mountains
and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the
trees of the field shall clap their hands.”
On the same day, January 11th, as “requested” by the Convention,
Governor Fletcher, reciting the Ordinance of Emancipation, proclaimed to
all the inhabitants of the commonwealth “that henceforth and forever no
person within the jurisdiction of this State shall be subject to any
abridgement of liberty, except such as the law may prescribe for the
common good, or know any master but God.”
And so the curtain fell on the first and greatest act of the Convention.
If, after eliminating from the Constitution of the State all that
pertained to involuntary servitude, thus making it consonant with the
Ordinance of Emancipation, the Convention had adjourned _sine die_, it
would have covered itself with imperishable glory. But the act of the
legislature by which it was created gave to it almost unlimited powers.
It was especially called upon so to amend the Constitution that the
elective franchise should be preserved in its purity to all loyal
citizens, and to make such other amendments as it might think “essential
to the public good.” Under this last clause apparently there was nothing
that they might not legally do, and in their remaining work they went to
the full limit of their powers. Instead of simply revising the old
Constitution they in fact made a new one, and in spots it was admirable.
It contained the most progressive doctrines of popular government; but
in prescribing who should be legal voters their enactments were so
extreme that they appear to us now quite ludicrous. To justify this
statement we venture to give in full sections 3 and 6 of article II of
the Constitution, together with the prescribed oath, believing that any
intelligent reader who begins the perusal of them will proceed with
increasing interest to the last line.
“SEC. 3. At any election held by the people under this Constitution, or
in pursuance of any law of this State, or under any ordinance or by-law
of any municipal corporation, no person shall be deemed a qualified
voter, who has ever been in armed hostility to the United States, or to
the lawful authorities thereof, or to the Government of this State; or
has ever given aid, comfort, countenance, or support to persons engaged
in any such hostility; or has ever, in any manner, adhered to the
enemies, foreign or domestic, of the United States, either by
contributing to them, or by unlawfully sending within their lines,
money, goods, letters, or information; or has ever disloyally held
communication with such enemies; or has ever advised or aided any person
to enter the service of such enemies; or has ever, by act or word,
manifested his adherence to the cause of such enemies, or his desire for
their triumph over the arms of the United States, or his sympathy with
those engaged in exciting or carrying on rebellion against the United
States; or has ever, except under overpowering compulsion, submitted to
the authority, or been in the service, of the so-called ‘Confederate
States of America;’ or has left this State, and gone within the lines of
the armies of the so-called ‘Confederate States of America,’ with the
purpose of adhering to said States or armies; or has ever been a member
of, or connected with, any order, society, or organization, inimical to
the Government of the United States, or to the Government of this State;
or has ever been engaged in guerrilla warfare against loyal inhabitants
of the United States, or in that description of marauding commonly known
as ‘bushwhacking;’ or has ever knowingly and willingly harbored, aided,
or countenanced, any person so engaged; or has ever come into or left
this State for the purpose of avoiding enrollment for or draft into the
military service of the United States; or has ever, with a view to avoid
enrollment in the militia of this State, or to escape the performance of
duty therein, or for any other purpose, enrolled himself, or authorized
himself to be enrolled, by or before any officer, as disloyal, or as a
Southern sympathizer, or in any other terms indicating his disaffection
to the Government of the United States in its contest with rebellion, or
his sympathy with those engaged in such rebellion; or, having ever voted
at any election by the people in this State, or in any other of the
United States, or in any of their Territories, or held office in this
State, or in any other of the United States, or in any of their
Territories, or under the United States, shall thereafter have sought or
received, under claim of alienage, the protection of any foreign
government, through any consul or other officer thereof, in order to
secure exemption from military duty in the militia of this State, or in
the army of the United States; nor shall any such person be capable of
holding, in this State, any office of honor, trust, or profit, under its
authority; or of being an officer, councilman, director, trustee, or
other manager of any corporation, public or private, now existing or
hereafter established by its authority; or of acting as a professor or
teacher in any educational institution, or in any common or other
school; or of holding any real estate, or other property, in trust for
the use of any church, religious society, or congregation. But the
foregoing provisions in relation to acts done against the United States
shall not apply to any person not a citizen thereof, who shall have
committed such acts while in the service of some foreign country at war
with the United States, and who has, since such acts, been naturalized,
or may hereafter be naturalized, under the laws of the United States;
and the oath of loyalty hereinafter prescribed, when taken by such
person, shall be considered as taken in such sense.”
“SEC. 6. The oath to be taken as aforesaid shall be known as the Oath of
Loyalty, and shall be in the following terms:
“‘I, A. B., do solemnly swear, that I am well acquainted with the terms
of the third section of the second Article of the Constitution of the
State of Missouri, adopted in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-five,
and have carefully considered the same; that I have never, directly or
indirectly, done any of the acts in said section specified; that I have
always been truly and loyally on the side of the United States against
all enemies thereof, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith
and allegiance to the United States, and will support the Constitution
and laws thereof, as the supreme law of the land, any law or ordinance
of any State to the contrary notwithstanding; that I will, to the best
of my ability, protect and defend the Union of the United States, and
not allow the same to be broken up and dissolved, or the Government
thereof to be destroyed or overthrown, under any circumstances, if in my
power to prevent it; that I will support the Constitution of the State
of Missouri; and that I make this oath without any mental reservation or
evasion, and hold it to be binding on me.’”
We see from this how intensely in earnest were the delegates of this
Convention. But this oath was not wholly a creation of theirs. It had a
gradual growth. We have seen with what imperativeness General Halleck
demanded an oath of allegiance of all officers of the State, county and
city, without which they were not permitted to exercise their functions.
The generals of the department that came after him rigorously maintained
the same policy. The first sovereign Convention adopted it and
strenuously enforced it by the sword. This Convention, receiving it from
the first, with wonderful genius for probing the conscience, elaborated
it. Under its manipulation the oath became retrospective, introspective
and prospective. No man could take it without perjury, who by word or
act had been in the past, was in the present, or should be in the
future, disloyal to the government of the United States. It not only
prohibited one who could not subscribe to it from voting, but also from
holding any government office of whatever grade, teaching in any school
or preaching the gospel. And to make sure that the fountains of justice
should be freed from every suspicion of disloyalty, the Convention
vacated the offices of the judges of the Supreme Court, circuit and
county courts, and special courts of record throughout the State, and of
all clerks of courts, county recorders, and circuit attorneys and their
assistants, and “empowered and directed” the Governor of the State to
fill these offices so vacated by his appointment. Since most judges and
subordinate officers of the courts were unable to subscribe to the oath
of loyalty without perjury, the Convention was determined that court
officials should be appointed that could. And thinking it unsafe to wait
for the slow process of a popular election and probably fearing, if they
should, that the elections might not go according to their liking, they
took a short cut to clean the Augean stables. It looked like revolution.
At all events the Convention went to the full limit, if not beyond the
limit, of its powers. The judges of the Supreme Court resisted what they
regarded a gross usurpation of authority; but their resistance was vain.
They were arrested and tried before the City Recorder as disturbers of
the peace, and so sank from public view.
While the Convention designated the oath the “Oath of Loyalty;” the
people, seizing upon its exact intent, called it the Test Oath. Its
object was to test the loyalty of those who were required to take it.
But the oath was too indiscriminate. It did not sufficiently recognize
different degrees of guilt. Many in our city and State who were at first
swept by the excitement of the hour into the ranks of the secessionists,
soon saw their error and thereafter loyally supported the Federal
government. Others had at times expressed their sympathy with
secessionism, but in all their overt acts had been faithful to the
Union. It would naturally have been expected that ordinarily wise and
humane legislators would have provided for the full, unconditional
pardon of such men. But no; this oath of loyalty was pitiless. It made
not the slightest provision for the penitent. The majority of the
Convention seem to have proceeded on the assumption that men who had
been guilty of rebellion in any degree, if they had but expressed a
sympathetic emotion in its behalf, were unfit either to vote or teach or
preach.
And, for a decade, the most genuine and heartfelt repentance would be
altogether vain; since the Convention provided, in the 25th section of
the second article of the Constitution, that the General Assembly of the
State might repeal the provisions of the oath, so far as they affected
voters, after 1871, but so far as they pertained to lawyers, school
teachers and ministers not till after 1875. Therefore irrespective of
the degree of his guilt, to the attorney, the pedagogue or the preacher,
these astute constitution-makers, with a scent for disloyalty keener
than that of a hound, for ten long years, granted “no place of
repentance,” even though he should seek it “diligently with tears.”
It would, however, be unjust to overlook the fact that there was in the
Convention a conservative minority, who steadily and sturdily fought
this extreme legislation. They contended that it was unjust to many in
the State; that, especially since the end of the war must be near, the
true policy was that of forgiveness and reconciliation; that those who
in spite of their Southern birth and education had, through bitter
experiences, become loyal, should not have their new-born faith crushed
out of them by this merciless oath; that the oath was a political
blunder since it would give all the enemies of the new Constitution some
just ground for their opposition to it. The debate was long and sharp.
Dr. Linton, a physician of our city, who had been a member of the first
Convention, while loyal to the core, distinguished himself by his strong
opposition to the oath. He had a genius for cogent, laconic speech. And
since Charles D. Drake, a Southerner by birth, was the pre-eminent
advocate of the oath and the author of most of its details, with grim
sarcasm he called it “the Draconian oath.” But the faithful minority
could not stem the tide of radicalism in the Convention and this
notorious oath became a part of the new Constitution of Missouri.
But we must cordially recognize the fact that the authors of it, and all
in the Convention who voted to make it part and parcel of the ground law
of the State, were genuinely patriotic. They sought not primarily party
ends, but the highest good of their commonwealth and of the entire
Republic. While they no longer doubted the favorable issue of the
terrible grapple of the Northern and Southern armies at Petersburg and
the Weldon Railroad, they clearly saw that this battle of blood would be
followed by a desperate political contest; that what disunionists should
fail to gain by the sword, they would endeavor to achieve by statecraft.
They were firmly persuaded that Missouri now faced her greatest peril;
that her future destiny trembled in the balance. If her old, corrupt
politicians, who, through necessity and with a sigh, had relinquished
their hold on slavery, should at once gain political ascendency, much,
if not all, that had been wrought out on the field of carnage, would be
hopelessly lost. The leaders of the Convention, with an accurate
knowledge of the situation, shaped its legislation effectively to meet,
if possible, the emergency. They framed this searching test oath to hold
in check the rebellious, pro-slavery element of the commonwealth, until
the new order of things should be thoroughly established. They were
firmly resolved that those who had striven with savage might to force
Missouri into secession, and link her to a Confederacy founded on
slavery, should not shape her future political character; that since God
had preserved the people in their passage through a sea of blood, the
taskmaster should not now lead them back to a worse than Egyptian
bondage. Whether the acts of the Convention were wise or unwise, the
whole drift of the Constitution framed by it clearly shows that this was
its sole and commendable object.
But after the Emancipation Act was passed, the Convention, having,
against the earnest protest of some of its own members, doggedly set
itself to the work of making a new Constitution, lost, to a large
extent, the confidence of many of the best loyal men of the State. Even
a goodly number of the delegates that composed it became to the extent
of their power obstructionists. Absenteeism grew apace, and only by the
rigid enforcement of the rules could the Convention be saved from
disastrous disintegration. Some of its members fell into a vein of
ridicule and one of them offered a string of satirical resolutions,
which, though unmitigated balderdash, the Convention complacently spread
on its minutes.
Most of the constituents of the Convention, while generously recognizing
the great merit of much of its work, were often ashamed of what it did
and said. In fact its debates were never published, beyond the brief and
imperfect reports of them in the daily papers. In explanation of this
curious fact, it was hinted that the leaders of the Convention were so
mortified by them, that they managed to suppress the whole, both good
and bad together.
The Convention, after dragging drearily on for seventy-eight days,
completed its work. It submitted the new Constitution which it had
wrought out to the suffrages of the people, that it might be by them
adopted or rejected. On the sixth of June it was ratified at the polls
by less than two thousand majority. This slender majority was in part
accounted for when, on analyzing the vote, it was found that the saner
radicals either stayed at home on election day or voted with the
opposition.
On the first day of July (1865) the Governor formally proclaimed the
vote for the adoption of the “Revised and amended Constitution,” and
declared that “it will take effect as the Constitution of the State of
Missouri, on the fourth day of the present month of July.” And while
this Constitution was not in all respects what the sanest minds
demanded, it contained so much that was progressive and admirable that
its rejection at that transitional epoch would have been a calamity.
While some parts of it were reprehensible, it embodied much of the most
advanced statesmanship of the day, and crystallized in fundamental law
what we had achieved by the war. It was progress made permanent.
But as soon as the Constitution became operative, there was throughout
the State confusion, trouble and distress. No attorney, clerk of court,
judge of any grade, teacher male or female, deacon, elder or minister
was permitted to perform the duties which pertained to his profession or
office unless he had subscribed to the test oath. Hosts of those upon
whom this demand was made could not take it without perjury. If without
subscribing to it they ventured to do the duties which belonged to their
respective callings, they were liable to a fine of five hundred dollars
or to imprisonment in the county jail for not less than six months, or
to both; if they should take the oath falsely they would be adjudged
guilty of perjury, and punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for
not less than two years. As was inevitable, arrests and indictments for
the violation of this statute were frequent. Its attempted enforcement
outraged and angered the people. A multitude of protests loud and bitter
came up from every part of the commonwealth. Sympathy was aroused
especially for those who had repented of their disloyalty, and now
ardently desired to serve their country, but in whose faces the new
Constitution shut and barred every door of forgiveness. Christian
pastors, especially of the Episcopal and Baptist churches, raised the
cry of persecution. But persecution was the very farthest from the
purpose of the framers of the Constitution. In their bill of rights they
set forth with great breadth and explicitness the doctrine of
unrestricted religious liberty. And in fact in the enforcement of the
test oath there was no religious persecution. No one was punished for
holding and promulgating any religious tenet. Moreover, the oath was
required of lawyers and school teachers as a prerequisite to their
duties as well as of ministers. Many ministers all over the State had in
one way or another supported the rebellion, and were now suffering for
that and nothing else.
But the Convention had strangely blundered. After having proclaimed
unrestricted religious liberty, it had decisively invaded it. For a
civil offence it had meted out an ecclesiastical penalty. For his
disloyalty to the Federal government and the State, it declared under
pains and penalties, that the pastor should neither marry the betrothed,
bury the dead, administer the ordinances of the church, nor preach the
gospel. Thus what, with a flourish of trumpets, it proclaimed in its
Bill of Rights, it struck down by its enacted Oath of Loyalty. In its
legislation it entered a sphere from which by its own pronunciamento it
was utterly debarred. It forgot the pithy utterance of the martyred
Lincoln, when appealed to restore a pastor to his parish and pulpit from
which on political grounds he had been deposed by a Presbyterian synod,
that “he could not run the government and churches too.” What a pity
that the leaders of the Convention in their consuming zeal for loyalty
undertook the impossible task of doing both. Especially when just the
smallest modicum of logic in the interpretation of their own new
Constitution would have kept them from this colossal folly.
But blessed be the Supreme Court of the United States! About three years
after the new Constitution had been ratified by the people, it declared
by barely one majority that the notorious test oath was
unconstitutional. A multitude in our State ever after held in grateful
remembrance that one Federal judge, who tipped the scales against the
oath that had too long been a thorn in the side of the body politic.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE WIND-UP
It was April 10th, 1865, the last day of the Constitutional Convention.
As, in the morning, the Convention began listlessly and wearily to do
the formal and necessary things before its final adjournment, a telegram
was received announcing the surrender of General Lee on the preceding
day to General Grant at Appomattox. The effect was electric. In a flash
all dulness and languor fled. For the nonce all differences of opinion
vanished. All hearts were surcharged with patriotic emotion. The die was
cast. The integrity of the Union was assured. From all parts of the hall
came shouts of joy; delegates and spectators vied with each other in
expressions of gladness. They clapped, stamped and cried, “The Union
forever!” Mr. Drake, the leader of the Convention, finally got the ear
of the rejoicing patriots and gravely moved that they give cheers three
times three “for the glorious news just now received.” They were given
with full lung power. Those nine hurrahs brought the members of the
Convention to quietude once more, and they proceeded by resolution to
thank “Almighty God for the success of our noble and patriotic army and
navy; for the steady and persistent perseverance of our noble President
in the work of breaking the power of the rebellion; and especially for
the noble and humane disposition which has been manifested by our
authorities to our conquered enemy.” But they also declared, that they
were not ready “to sanction any terms of peace which will admit of the
perpetuation of slavery in any part of the Republic.” While this last
resolution was well enough as an expression of opinion, it showed, at
the very last, a disposition on the part of the Convention to get beyond
its jurisdiction and attempt to shape the policy of the general
government. Its remaining routine work was soon done. Its life ended.
But the city and State, rejoicing over the close of the war, scarcely
noted it. Those who did notice its termination were twice glad; glad
that it had adjourned _sine die_ and that national peace, founded in
justice, had come.
That 10th of April was memorable not only for the whole nation, but also
especially for St. Louis. A border city, which, for four long years, had
been a bone of contention, fought over and snarled over by the dogs of
war, had perhaps a keener appreciation of the surrender of the
illustrious Lee, than could be found in any city far to the north of
Mason and Dixon’s line. At all events no pen however able and eloquent
could adequately depict our joy on the day which followed Grant’s final
victory in Virginia. No business was done, except that which was most
necessary and perfunctory. Men spontaneously gathered in crowds, their
faces radiant, their lips rippling with smiles; they shook hands with
firm grip; with tears starting in their eyes they talked of the
surrender; all bitterness seemed to be gone; there was little or no
exultation over those who had laid down their arms; men on every hand
just brimmed over with gladness that the fratricidal strife had ended,
and that slavery, the fruitful cause of our greatest woes, was no more.
And it was remarkable how few secessionists there were in our city on
that day. During the four preceding years they had been alarmingly
numerous, but now only a very few could be found; they had been
strangely and magically transformed into Unionists. Even those who for
four years had sat on the fence hopped off on the Union side, flapped
their wings and crowed.
Still our city was not a unit in political thought and sentiment. While
Grant’s victory caused the great multitude to rejoice, it was wormwood
and gall to the few, who, in spite of disaster to the Confederacy, were
still faithful to it. While their neighbors were exultant, they bitterly
mourned. The city put on its gala dress. Public buildings and private
dwellings were lavishly decorated with red, white and blue. National
flags of all sizes were flung to the breeze. But here and there a house
was flagless. Within sat sad and sombre secessionists sighing over their
shattered hopes. They refused to be comforted. At night once more the
bells rang, bands played, bonfires blazed, cannon boomed, and the
windows of most buildings, public and private, were illuminated; while
in public halls the people gathered to listen to patriotic speeches and
to sing the most popular and stirring war songs. “The Star Spangled
Banner,” “Rally Round the Flag, Boys,” and “The Soul of Old John Brown,”
had a large place in our festivity, while “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,”
was sung as the crowning and parting hymn.
But sorrow and tears trod on the heels of joy. April 15th, five days
after our exultant celebration of Lee’s surrender, came the astounding
news that our great President had been shot the night before at Ford’s
Theatre, in Washington, and that he had died in the morning. For an hour
or two we were dazed by this sudden and overwhelming calamity. No one
thought of doing business. Those who gathered on the Board of Trade did
nothing but talk over the crushing national sorrow. Men as if in a dream
moved along the streets; few said anything; they dumbly shook hands and
passed sadly on; as the most stalwart met, tears started; the city was
silent and a pall of gloom rested upon all. Men at last began slowly to
drift together in companies upon the streets. They conversed in low but
earnest tones. Beneath that calm exterior fierce passion burned.
On Fourth Street a great, excited crowd had instinctively gathered;
they, like all others, were talking over the appalling national loss. A
stranger passed by. They thought that he expressed himself as pleased
with the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. In a moment the pent up fires
within them flashed forth. They seized the stranger, beat him, dragged
him roughly along the pavement, he all the time pleading to be heard. At
last they listened to his statement and were convinced that they had
quite misunderstood what they believed to have been a grossly offensive
utterance. They were deeply ashamed of what they had passionately done,
and humbly apologized for it. But the incident showed that the life of
any one in our city, who, on that day, should have openly approved of
the murder of the President, would have been indignantly snuffed out.
Throughout the city all flags were at half-mast. On public buildings,
churches and private dwellings, the emblems of rejoicing gave place to
those of mourning. Public sentiment was such that no one living in the
better part of the residential districts dared to withhold the ordinary
tokens of the general sorrow. Houses that five days before were
conspicuously dark amid the almost universal illumination were now
draped in black; some it may be in self-defence, but probably in most
cases as the expression of genuine sorrow. Though the Confederacy for
which the secessionists of our city had worked and prayed was
irretrievably lost, they had at least come to respect Mr. Lincoln, not
only for his unswerving fidelity to what he believed to be the right,
but also for his broad charity, and not a few of them, while still
differing from him politically, admired him as a man. They recognized in
him a great and generous friend of the South, and so joined with us, on
that day of tears, in eulogizing the martyr and denouncing his assassin.
The same lips that four years before had scornfully called him clown,
the Illinois ape, baboon and gorilla, now praised him. He had not only
subdued the rebellion by force of arms, but also by his clearness of
conception, fairness in administration, unflinching advocacy of the
rights of all, patience and persistence in duty, and large-heartedness,
had conquered their inveterate prejudices.
In the afternoon of that day of sorrow, the churches were thrown open,
and large congregations met to pray. They poured out their hearts in
thanksgiving to God for the unsullied life of the martyred President;
for his courage and wisdom in proclaiming liberty to the captive, and
freedom to the oppressed. They prayed for his constitutional successor
in office, and for God’s blessing on the people both North and South.
Nor did they forget the assassin whose wanton act had bowed a nation in
grief. In all their utterances they were calm and sane, as men always
are when, in submission to the will of God, they commune with Him. At
last the curtain of darkness fell on that terrible day, and men with
throbbing brows and aching hearts lay down to rest; but to many, if
sleep came at all, it came but fitfully. We seemed to be living in a new
world. One era of our national life had ended, another had begun. And
with ever new experiences our mourning was prolonged as from day to day
with the whole Republic we followed in thought the dust of the immortal
martyr to its last resting-place at Springfield, Illinois. It was most
fitting that it should lie near the home of his early manhood, and in
the State that he, in larger measure than any other, had made
illustrious.
Thirty days after the assassination of Mr. Lincoln, the Baptist
Missionary Societies of the North held, by urgent invitation, their May
Meetings in our city. This had been made possible by the war. The
churches of this great denomination had long been divided by slavery;
but now the delegates from the churches of the North came to hold out
the olive branch to their brethren of the South on what had been slave
soil. They came by hundreds. The city gave them a royal welcome.
Christians of all denominations threw open their doors to them and
lavished upon them their hospitality. It was an era of good feeling.
Denominationalism and the irritating questions of the war decidedly fell
into the background.
But there was another side to the picture. Southern Baptists, except
from the national capital, did not come to us. The olive branch seemed
to be held out in vain. The brotherly act was even misconstrued. The
coming of these Northern missionary societies to our city was regarded
as an unwarrantable invasion of Southern soil. Forty years had to pass
away, a generation had to die in the wilderness, before, in St. Louis,
during the progress of the May Meetings of the same societies, Northern
and Southern Baptists, standing face to face, truly fraternized with
each other and sang heartily:
“Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love.”
There was one unique incident at the meetings in 1865, that deserves
special notice. The name of the martyred President was on all lips. Men
were just beginning to understand and appreciate something of his
greatness, both of mind and heart. It was whispered in the ears of our
guests that an artist of our city, A. J. Conant, had painted, from
sittings, a portrait of Mr. Lincoln. He was invited to unveil this
portrait before the assembled delegates. He did so. A great and
distinguished company greeted it with enthusiasm and cheers; and were
specially delighted to hear the artist’s account of what the great
President did and said while he kindly sat for his portrait,—what quaint
and suggestive stories he told. The portrait was painted before Mr.
Lincoln’s first inauguration. His face was then smooth shaven. He had
not yet covered up with scraggly whiskers the rugged outlines of his
lower jaw, which, from a side view, as some one has said, was shaped
like the keel of a three-masted schooner.[114] It is doubtful if any one
has produced a better portrait of that strong face with its undertone of
sadness.
A little later the Presbyterians held a convention in our city. This too
was an outcome of the war. In May, their General Assembly at Pittsburg
had enacted some severe and radical measures in reference to slavery and
loyalty to the national government. Many Presbyterians, especially of
the border States, protested against this. The convention was called to
consider the whole question. There were over two hundred delegates,
mainly from the North; probably not a score of them were from the border
States, including Missouri.[115] The aggrieved States were very slimly
represented. The synod of Missouri was so opposed to the legislation of
the General Assembly as to ask permission peaceably to withdraw from it.
Their request was very earnestly debated. A pastor from Brooklyn, N. Y.,
joined hands with a pastor of St. Louis in behalf of the recalcitrant
synod, urging, by great ingenuity of argument, that the synod should be
permitted unmolested to secede. In their impassioned appeals on behalf
of the aggrieved synod they were at times so eloquent that the galleries
burst out into applause. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs. The style
of the brother from our city was often quite flowery. These two
defenders of the refractory synod sometimes complained in their speeches
that they were not being fairly dealt with, and posed as martyrs; at
other times their language became somewhat threatening.
But at last a Scotchman from Ohio got the floor. His speech was replete
with mingled humor and sarcasm. The delegates and spectators were at
times convulsed with laughter. Among other things he said, with a
decided Scotch accent, “Mr. Moderator, the brethren who have defended
the synod that wishes to secede have posed as martyrs. What is a martyr?
In the time of the early church it was one who suffered for the truth
which he believed and advocated. He was thrown to wild beasts and was
torn limb from limb; or he was sewed in a sack and thrown into the
Tiber, or he was burned at the stake. But what is a modern martyr? It is
to live on Brooklyn Heights and be sent to Europe for the bronchitis.” A
too personal thrust at the delegate from Brooklyn. “What is a modern
martyr? It is to make an eloquent speech in an assembly like this and
have the fair in the galleries wave their handkerchiefs. But the speech
of the brother from this city brought to my mind an experience of my
school days. I wrote an oration and handed it to my teacher for
correction. When he had examined it he called me to him and said,
‘Taylor, if you would only pluck a few feathers from the wings of your
imagination and stick them into the tail of your judgment, you would
write a great deal better.’
“And then, if I heard correctly, we are threatened with disaster if we
now vote against permitting this seceding synod to depart in peace. But
shall we by threats be deterred from our duty? Having already cut off
the seven hydra heads of secession, shall we now be frightened with the
wriggle of its tail?”
This was the climax. There was long continued laughter and applause,
which the moderator was unable to check. Peaceable secession found no
more favor in this Presbyterian Convention than it had found under the
general government of the United States. Secession was dead.
At last the end of strife in Missouri had come. It came in fact even
before the surrender of Lee. Three days after the second inauguration of
Mr. Lincoln, Governor Fletcher declared by proclamation that no
organized armed force against the general government any longer existed
in the State. He called upon all civil officers to resume their duties.
And on the 17th of March, Major-General Pope, then in command of the
Department of Missouri, issued orders to aid in carrying out the
proclamation of the Governor. He withdrew the military forces from all
districts where the people were ready to return in good faith to civil
rule, and by August there remained less than a dozen military posts in
the State; and these were kept up chiefly for the protection of the
property of the Federal government.
And now rejoicing in peace which was based upon righteousness, St. Louis
entered upon an era of great prosperity. She grew apace in commerce,
wealth and population. No longer, as Carl Schurz characterized her
before the war, “a free city on slave soil,” but a great free city on
free soil.
THE END.
INDEX
Abolitionists, denounced, 48;
alleged atrocious conduct of, 54;
hated, 161;
two extraordinary, 170–176;
as viewed by Southerners, 252.
Alabama, Governor of, urges secession, 23, 33.
Alton, Illinois, arms landed at, 79;
murder of Lovejoy at, 80;
fugitives from panic in Saint Louis flee to, 111.
Anderson, Reverend Galusha, pastor of Second Baptist Church, 122, 166;
character of his church, 122;
prays for president, 124–126;
outraged by sight of rebel flag, 126;
his congregation sings America, 130;
preaches against secession, 127–130;
attempted attack upon, 131;
prints sermon in Missouri Republican, 133;
marriage of, 131;
visits Cincinnati, 131;
left by secession parishioners, 133–134;
attempt to force resignation of, 136;
preaches first Union sermon in Saint Louis, 137;
preaches so-called “politics,” 139;
his association with Christian secessionists, 141;
one of his deacons won to the Union, 148–149;
his interview with artist of “The Slave Mart,” 156–157;
denounced by Presbyterian editor, 166;
his life threatened, 167–168;
in Washington’s Birthday Parade, 249;
joins Home Guards, 275;
preaches to soldiers, 301;
works in hospitals, 302;
helps conscience-stricken Quaker soldier, 303;
cares for religious work in Fifth Street Hospital, 304–307;
examines teachers for negro schools, 334–335;
preaches confidence in 1864, 339.
Anderson, guerilla leader, 325.
Anderson, Confederate prisoner, 302.
Anderson, Reverend Richard, negro pastor, 176;
early life of, 12;
attitude toward free negro exclusion bill, 13;
pleads for slave mother, 177–178.
Anderson, Reverend S. J. P., mistaken assault upon, 134–135;
preaches on “Ultimatum of the South,” 121, 135.
Army and Brigade Hospitals, 288.
Army, Union, Missouri troops in, 62;
of the Frontier, 274.
Arsenal in Saint Louis, 23, 82, 86;
arms at, 21;
situation of, 63;
fight for, 63–85;
description of, 63;
United States troops in, 64;
threatened attack on, 69;
fortifying of, 69, 73;
two heads to, 70;
rumors about, 74;
plots against, 76, 77, 90;
arms sent from, 77–80;
defense of, by Missourians, 83;
prisoners from Camp Jackson at, 99–102;
munitions from Camp Jackson removed to, 104;
“J. C. Swan” brought to, 118;
draped in black for General Lyon, 212.
Baptist Missionary Societies, hold meetings in Saint Louis, 365;
division among, 365.
Bast, George Y., casts only vote for secession in convention of 1861,
58.
Bates, Edward, President Lincoln’s Attorney-General, 4;
frees his slave, Richard Anderson, 12.
Baton Rouge, arms stolen from, 104, 118.
Battles, Boonville, 202, 288;
Carthage, 288;
Chickamauga, 315;
Davidson, Fort, 328;
Donelson, Fort, 296;
Dug Spring, 288;
Fair Oaks, 124;
Independence, 273;
Lexington, 219;
Pea Ridge, 244;
Pittsburg Landing, 291;
Wilson’s Creek, 211, 288.
Beauregard, General P. G. T., attack of, on Fort Sumter, 74;
street in Camp Jackson named for, 104.
Bell, Major William H., at Arsenal, 66, 67, 94;
pledges himself to General Frost, 66;
ordered to N. Y., 66;
resigns, 67.
Belle Fontaine, the Cemetery, 4;
the Fort, headquarters of Department of Upper Louisiana, 7;
Sac and Fox Indians sell land around, 7.
Benton, Thomas H., most distinguished man in Missouri, 4;
funeral of, 4;
called “The Magisterial,” 4;
United States Senator, 5;
political speeches of, 5;
opposed to nomination of John C. Fremont, 5.
Bitterness of feeling in Saint Louis during the war, 159–169.
Blair, Frank P., 4, 92;
member of Congress and friend to Lyon, 69;
forms Home Guard, 69;
visits President Buchanan, 70;
appeals to Secretary of War in Lyon’s behalf, 73;
in attack on Camp Jackson, 96;
confers with Committee of Safety, 93;
rumor of his intended attack on the state capital, 104;
life of, threatened, 163–165;
proscribed, 169;
in conference with General Lyon and Governor Jackson, 199–201;
opposes Fremont, 222;
becomes conservative, 279.
Blunt, General, drives guerrillas from Missouri, 273.
Bogie, Mr., candidate for Congress, 5.
Boonville, battle of, 202, 203, 288;
panic at, 322.
Border slave states, ignored by seceding states, 60;
kept in Union by Missouri’s loyalty, 62.
Bowen, Colonel, of militia, on Kansas border, 88;
reports to General Frost at Saint Louis, 89.
Breckinridge, Judge S. M., 45.
Broadhead, James O, lawyer, 4;
member of Convention of 1861, 44;
member of Committee of Safety, 92;
attendant at Second Baptist Church, 122.
Brotherton, Marshal, deacon, slaveholder, emancipator, 170–173.
Buchanan, President James, 65, 68, 176;
inactivity of, 32, 34–36, 124;
contrast to President Jackson, 35;
his position repudiated by loyalists, 35;
sends troops to Saint Louis, 64;
refuses Captain Lyon supreme command of the Arsenal at Saint Louis,
70;
prayed for, 124–125.
Buckner, General Simon B., surrenders Fort Donelson, 246.
Bushwhackers in Missouri, 324;
murders by, 325.
Butler, General Benjamin F., 262, 285.
Cairo, fugitives from panic flee to, 111;
military encampment at, 209;
General Grant at, 223;
Sanitary Commission at, 296;
General Smith at, with relief for Missouri, 326.
Calhoun, John C., disciples of, in Convention of 1861, 50–51.
Cameron, Simon, President Lincoln’s Secretary of War, 84, 88;
visits Fremont, 222.
Camp Jackson, 86–105, 106, 119, 126, 159, 169, 181, 198, 203;
for whom named, 89;
fear of, 90–91;
number of men at, 91;
attack upon, 95–98;
prisoners from, 97–99;
results from capture of, 99–103;
character of, 104–105;
streets in, 104.
Canby, General E. R. S., calls for soldiers, 320.
Carthage, battle of, 288.
Cavender, Mr., gives time to Home for Refugees, 293.
Chamber of Commerce, division of, 153–154.
“Charcoals and Claybanks,” 276–287, 341, 342;
radical and conservative Unionists, 277–278;
differences among, 278;
extreme policy of Charcoals, 280–282;
Charcoals oppose General Schofield and Governor Gamble, 283–284;
complain to War Department, 285;
Claybanks favor and oppose General Schofield, 287.
Chicago Convention nominates Abraham Lincoln, 54–55.
Chickamauga, battle of, 315.
Chouteau, Colonel, house of, back from river, 7.
Christian secessionists, 140–141.
Church, see “Pulpit,” “Baptist,” “Presbyterian.”
City General Hospital, 290.
City Hospital, 288.
“City of Alton,” steamer, engaged to carry arms, 77–80.
“City of Louisiana,” fitted as a hospital, 297.
Civil government in Saint Louis inaugurated, 7.
“Claybanks,” see “Charcoals and Claybanks.”
Clayton, Honorable A. M., of Alabama, 119.
Clubs, political, 19–22;
see “Wide-Awakes” and “Minute Men.”
Colonization Society, 175.
Columbus, Kentucky, fugitives from panic flee to, 111;
rebels at, plan to seize Paducah, 223;
Union army there first, 245.
Committee of Safety, 92–93.
Committee on Federal Relations, of Convention of 1861, 53, 49;
reports against secession, 57.
Conant, A. J., unveils Lincoln’s portrait, 366.
Conant, Major, in conference with Lyon and Jackson, 199.
Confederacy, Southern, 71, 82, 87, 105, 119, 147;
formed, 62;
Congress of, votes to admit Missouri, 232;
authorizes Jefferson Davis to raise troops in Missouri, 232.
Confiscation, of war material in Saint Louis, 116;
of the “J. C. Swan,” 118;
of slaves, 218;
by General Curtis, 280.
Constitution of Missouri, new, of 1865, 349, 356;
ratified at polls, 357;
portion of, declared unconstitutional, 359.
Convention of Missouri of 1861, how created, 41–42;
met in Jefferson City, 42–43;
adjourned to Saint Louis, 45;
its composition, 46–48;
pro-slavery in sentiment, 48;
divided on how to preserve slavery, 49;
conditional and unconditional unionists in, 50–52;
organization of, 53;
speech in, by Orr, 54;
action of, on Georgia’s Ordinance of Secession, 55;
opposed by legislature, 56;
sovereign in Missouri, 57, 231;
voted down secession, 58;
adjourned to meet on call of Committee, 58;
came together in July, 227;
established provisional state government, 228;
sustained by Halleck, 235;
required oath of allegiance, 235.
Convention, Radical, of 1865, 342–359;
calling of, 342;
composition of, 343–344;
met in Mercantile Library Hall, 343;
a German as president of, 344;
passed Emancipation Ordinance, 345–346;
made drastic requirements for the franchise, 349–352;
adopted “Oath of Loyalty,” 351–353;
amended the constitution, 349–352, 360–361;
rejoicing in, over Lee’s surrender, 360;
adjourned sine die, April 10, 361.
Cooper, William, commissioner from Alabama, 23.
Crum, Mr., candidate for Congress, 5.
Currency, 268–270;
postage-stamps used as, 269;
“postage currency,” 269;
“fractional currency,” 269;
furs used as, 8.
Curtis, General Samuel R., 274, 280;
drives Price from Missouri, 244;
wins victory at Pea Ridge, 244;
in command at Saint Louis, 274;
favors Charcoals, 280;
confiscations by, 280;
in collision with governor, 281;
removal of, 282, 283.
Davidson, Fort, battle of, 328.
Davis, Jefferson, his letter to Governor Jackson, 87;
cannon solicited from, 88, 94;
street in Camp Jackson named for, 104;
cannon sent by, to Saint Louis, 105;
cheers for, 191;
visited by Governor Jackson, 229;
authorized to raise troops in Missouri, 232;
approves act admitting Missouri to Confederacy, 233.
Decisions for and against the Union, 146–158;
for the Union, 146–149.
Democrats, 20;
on Saint Louis school board, 336.
Divisions, caused by the war, 146–158;
in church, 151–153;
in Chamber of Commerce, 153–154;
between friends, 149–151, 154.
Dix, Dorothea L., superintendent of nurses, 288;
appoints Mr. Yeatman her agent in Saint Louis, 294.
Donelson, Fort, capture of, 246;
Sanitary Commission at, 296.
Douglas, Stephen A., his debates with Lincoln, 11;
champion of squatter sovereignty, 17, 20.
Drake, Charles D., advocate of Oath of Loyalty, “Draconian Oath,” 355;
calls for cheers for Lee’s surrender, 360.
Dryden, John, altered quotation from, 148.
Dug Spring, battle of, 288.
Duke, Basil Wilson, leader of Minute Men, police commissioner, 72.
Eliot, Reverend William G., D.D., 4, 301;
Unitarian, unionist, 121;
of the Sanitary Commission, 289;
description of, 290;
offers prayer of thanksgiving in Convention of 1865, 345–346.
Emancipation, Proclamation of, by President Lincoln, 149;
by individual slave owners, 170–176;
by General Halleck, 241;
Ordinance passed by Missouri Convention of 1865, 345, 356;
celebrated at Saint Louis and Jefferson City, 347–348.
Engler, Mr., banished because of resistance to assessments, 243.
Everett, Edward, delivers oration on Washington, in Saint Louis, 271,
272.
Ewing, General, 327–330;
holds Pilot Knob, 327;
checks Price at Fort Davidson, 328;
retreats to the Meramec, 329;
holds Harrison Station, 329.
Fair, Mississippi Valley Sanitary, held by Western Sanitary Commission,
309–314;
participants in, 309–310;
departments of, 311–312;
Germans in, 311–312;
wide-spread response to appeals for, 310;
success of, 313;
a boon to Saint Louis, 314.
Federal Relations, committee on in convention of 1861, 49, 53, 57.
Filley, Oliver D., mayor of Saint Louis, a friend to Lyon, 69;
member of Committee of Safety, 92.
Flags, absence of, in 1861, 23, 38, 131, 362;
rebel, in street, 38–39, 72, 126,
hauled down, 100,
suppressed by Halleck, 237;
display of Stars and Stripes, 146–147, 159, 248;
on Court-House, 29;
lowered at Sumter, 75;
at the Fair, 313.
Fletcher, Governor T. C., 346;
election of, 341;
proclaims Emancipation Ordinance, 348;
proclaims Revised Constitution, 357;
proclaims end of armed conflict, 368.
Floyd, John Buchanan, of Virginia, Secretary of War, sends arms south,
34.
Foote, Commodore Andrew Hull, at Fort Henry, 245;
at Fort Donelson, 246.
Fort Sumter, fall of, 74, 75;
effect of, in Saint Louis, 75.
Foster, Mr., delegate to convention of 1861, 56.
Freedmen’s Relief Society, organized, 294.
Fremont, John C., offered Republican nomination for President, 5;
Major-General, 206;
his fleet on the Mississippi, 208;
deceived at New Madrid, 209;
at Cairo, 209, 230;
fails to support Lyon, 208–209, 212–213;
praises Lyon, 213;
inefficiency of, 212–213, 219, 223;
declares martial law in Saint Louis, 213,
in Missouri, 217;
frees slaves of the disloyal, 217;
is reproved by Lincoln, 217–218;
fails to reënforce Mulligan, 219;
fortifies Saint Louis, 220;
leaves for Jefferson City, 221;
his campaign in Missouri, 221;
appoints officers and approves bills improperly, 223;
occupies Springfield, 221;
at Jefferson City, 223;
reproved by Secretary of War, 222, 223;
removal of, 224;
confidence in, shown by Germans, 225;
his patriotism, 225;
favored Charcoals, 279;
aids hospitals, 288;
fits up hospital cars, 296.
Frost, General Daniel M., 66, 105;
sketch of life of, 87;
his plans for seizing Saint Louis, 87–90;
his letter to Lyon, 94;
disloyal record of, 94;
a spy, 95;
in command of all Missouri militia, 88;
forms camp at west of city, 89;
learns of Lyon’s plans, 94;
joins rebel army, 94;
surrenders Camp Jackson, 95.
Fugitive Slave Law, execution of, demanded, 52;
a dead letter, 181.
Fur trade, chief trade in Saint Louis, early part of nineteenth
century, 8.
Gallaher, Reverend H. M., attacked, while in pulpit of author, 131.
Gamble, Honorable Hamilton R., chairman of Committee on Federal
Relations, 49, 50, 53;
chosen provisional governor of Missouri, 228;
issues proclamation, 228–229;
calls for state troops, 229;
takes action against guerrillas, 273.
Georgia, Ordinance of Secession of, 55;
commissioner from, visits Missouri officials, 53–56.
Germans in Saint Louis, in 1860, 1;
Republicans, 16;
enter volunteer service, 81;
three fourths of volunteer force, 85;
soldiers, 97, 98;
at attack on Camp Jackson, 97;
in the Home Guards, 106;
rumor of intended rising of, 112;
fear attack by Americans, 113;
rumor of intended advance of, on Jefferson City, 104;
attack on, 106–107;
bitterness against, 160;
fired on, 204;
at the Fair, 311.
Giddings, Honorable J. R., of Connecticut Western Reserve, his address
on slavery, 27, 28;
his opposition to slavery, 27.
Glenn, Honorable Luther J., commissioner from Georgia, visits Missouri
convention of 1861, 53–56.
Glover, Samuel T., lawyer, 4;
member of Committee of Safety, 92;
his writ of replevin, 93.
Grant, General Ulysses S., at Saint Louis, 100;
at Cairo, 209, 223;
at Paducah, 223;
organizes an army, above Columbus, 245;
at Fort Henry, 245;
at Fort Donelson, 246–247;
on the Mississippi, 251;
at Vicksburg, 298;
sustains Western Sanitary Commission, 295;
in Virginia, 320, 338, 340, 360;
accuses Rosecrans, 321;
at Appomattox, 360, 361.
Greely, C. S., Esquire, of the Sanitary Commission, 289.
Greely and Gale, loyal firm, name of, used as a blind, 104.
Guerrillas, 240, 274–275, 321–324;
cause much damage, 272;
action against, 273;
driven from Missouri, 273–274;
invade Missouri from the South and Illinois, 320;
plunder Union men, 324.
Hagner, Major Peter V., description of, 67, 72;
in command at arsenal, 67;
claims to outrank Lyon, 68;
refuses to fortify arsenal, 69;
in command of ordnance, 70.
Hall, Mr., of Randolph County, member of Convention of 1861, 44.
Hall, Willard P., provisional Lieutenant-Governor of Missouri, 228.
Halleck, General Henry W., seizes secession rendezvous, 168;
in command in Missouri, 234–250;
protects railroads, 239–240;
puts slaves to work for the government, 239–241;
assesses rich rebels, 242–243;
character of, 234;
supports convention, 235;
enforces requirement of oath of allegiance, 236, 352;
suppresses display of rebel flag, 237;
orders spies shot, 238;
banishes spies, 238;
censors newspapers, 238;
feeds refugees, 242–244;
leaves Saint Louis, 250, 272;
favors Claybanks and Charcoals, 279.
Hammer, Colonel, 208.
Hancock, Daniel J., deacon of Second Baptist Church, 123.
Hancock, General Winfield S., anecdote of, 123.
Hardee, General William J., 207.
Harding, General, quartermaster general, sent by Governor Jackson to
procure munitions, 90.
Harney, General William Selby, orders troops away from subtreasury, 64;
sketch of life of, 67;
refuses chief command to Lyon, 68;
sustained by General Scott and President Buchanan, 70;
appoints Lyon in command at the arsenal, 72;
called to Washington, 73;
characterizes the militia bill as a secession measure, 103;
returns to Saint Louis, 108;
tries to quiet panic, 108–109;
proclamation of, 108, 115;
seizes arms, 116–117;
his agreement with Price, 117;
removal of, 118;
succeeded by Lyon, 118, 198.
Harper, Captain, extraordinary abolitionist, 174–176.
Henderson, Honorable John B., chairman of committee, reports against
prayer of Georgia to secede, 55.
Henry, Fort, capture of, 245.
Home Guards, 62, 72, 73, 200, 274;
“Wide-Awakes” transformed into, 69;
plans to secure arms for, 69;
control of, in hands of Governor Jackson, 71, 72;
attack upon, 106;
rumor of intended attack by, 108–114;
declared enemies to the Confederacy, 233;
in conflict with State Guards, 240;
defend Saint Louis, 327.
“Homes,” for soldiers, 292, 296, 300;
for refugees, 293, 295, 261;
for orphans, 314;
number of people cared for in, 300.
Hospitals, 288–308;
great demand for, 291;
fifteen, 291;
New House of Refuge, 288;
City Hospital, 288;
City General, 290;
cars fitted as, by General Fremont, 296;
floating, 297;
flying, 297;
Southerners in, 302;
incidents in, 301–308;
uplifting influence of, on Saint Louis, 308.
How, John, member of Union Safety Committee, 69, 92, 93;
defeat of, for mayor, 71.
Howell, Mr., conditional unionist delegate to Convention of 1861, 52.
Hunter, General David, succeeds Fremont, 225–226, 234.
Independence, battle of, 273.
Ironton, lead seized at, by Lyon, 118.
Jackson, Governor Claiborn F., 44, 66, 71, 77, 79, 89, 94, 103, 105,
119, 198;
sympathizes with secession, 23, 33;
favors convention, 41–42;
receives Commissioner Glenn, 54;
rumor of his intention to seize arsenal, 77;
appoints police commissioners, 72;
refuses troops, 84, 88;
plants batteries, 86;
in correspondence with Confederacy, 87–88;
summons special session of legislature, 88;
confers with Frost on seizure of Saint Louis, 87–88;
buys munitions, 90;
removes war material from Jefferson City, 104;
a fugitive, 167, 227, 229;
in conference with Lyon, 198–202;
visits Jefferson Davis at Richmond, 229;
returns and issues proclamation, 231.
Jackson, James, contraband, tries to learn to read, 265–266.
Jefferson Barracks, hospital at, 291;
receives and treats eleven thousand soldiers, 292.
Jefferson City, 70, 77, 88, 201, 346, 347;
Convention leaves, 43, 45, 60;
panic at, 102–104;
evacuated by Jackson, 201;
occupied by Lyon, 202;
occupied by Brigadier-General U. S. Grant, 220;
Fremont at, 221–223;
troops at, overestimated, 330;
emancipation celebrated at, 348.
Jefferson, Thomas, purchase of Louisiana by, 6.
“John Brown’s Body,” sung by Indiana troops, 245;
by legislature, 348;
over Grant’s last victory, 362.
Johnson, Reverend G. J., D.D., 161, 162.
Johnson, J. B., M.D., of Sanitary Commission, 289.
Kansas, War, 11;
invasion of, 24;
Lyon in, 68;
troops from, pursue Price, 330.
Kelly, Captain, at Camp Jackson, 90, 91.
Kelton, J. C., Fremont’s assistant adjutant-general, 208.
Knights of the Golden Circle, 317, 338;
its numbers and wide influence, 317;
checked by Rosecrans, 318;
expected rising of, 331.
Krekel, Arnold, president of Convention of 1865, 344.
Laclede, Pierre Ligueste, early trader, 6;
digs first cellar, 7, 8.
Ladies’ Union Aid Society, 296;
formation and composition of, 293;
receives donation from Western Sanitary Commission, 314.
Lafayette, Marquis de, entertained in Saint Louis, 1825, 7.
Lane, General, of Kansas, 284.
Lawyers, distinguished, before the war, 4.
Lead, seizure of, 118;
exportation of, 118–119.
Lee, General R. E., surrender of, rejoicing over, 360, 361.
Legislature, votes to expel free negroes, 11;
creates Convention, 41, 42;
opposes Convention, 56;
attempts to carry Missouri into the Confederacy, 70, 71;
special session of, 88;
after capture of Camp Jackson, 103;
fears attack, 104;
puts Governor Jackson in absolute control of Saint Louis, 103;
passes militia bill, 103;
fugitive, 227, 232;
passes secession ordinance, 231–232.
Lexington, Missouri, battle of, 219.
Lieutenant-Governor, the unseated and fugitive secession, 227;
issues proclamation at New Madrid, 229;
the provisional, Willard P. Hall, 228.
Lincoln, Abraham, 4, 19, 32, 51, 62, 71, 82, 84, 94, 124, 149, 299,
318, 359, 360;
his debates with Douglas, 11;
his declaration of 1858, 11;
misrepresentation of, 15;
election of, 18, 51, 340, 341;
speaks in Philadelphia, 37;
inauguration of, 37, 38;
nominated for president, 55, 338;
his call for troops, 75;
his call for troops denounced, 84;
anecdote of, 162;
policy of, toward Fremont, 217;
recalls Fremont’s proclamation, 218;
letter of, to Schofield, 282;
allays strife, 285;
effects of his death, 362–365, 366;
portrait of, 366.
Lindell’s Grove, site of Camp Jackson, 89, 90, 165.
Linton, Doctor, member of Convention of 1861, 43;
in Convention of 1865; opposes Oath of Loyalty, 355.
Lovejoy, Elijah Parish, death of, at Alton, 80.
Lyon, Nathaniel, sketch of the life of, 66–68;
commissioned captain, 67, 68;
claim of, to supreme command, at arsenal, denied, 68;
visits the “Wide-Awakes,” 69;
plans of, for arsenal, 69, 72;
patrols vicinity of arsenal, 73;
in command of troops, 70;
in full command, 72, 73;
plants batteries on bluffs, 73;
empowered to raise and arm troops, 73;
fortifies arsenal, 73;
ability in defending arsenal, 76;
dealings of, with Governor Yates of Illinois, 76;
ruse of, to defend arsenal, 78;
enrolls Missouri troops, 81, 83;
refuses to remove troops, 84, 85;
occupies bluffs, 88;
declares governor in correspondence with Confederacy, 87;
visits Camp Jackson in disguise, 92;
meets with Committee of Safety, 92–93;
captures Camp Jackson, 95;
removes munitions from Camp Jackson to the Arsenal, 104;
made Brigadier-General, 118;
seizes “J. C. Swan” and lead, 118;
success of, 119;
confers with Price and Jackson, 198–201;
campaign of, 201;
at Boonville, 202–203;
occupies Springfield, 203, 207;
occupies Jefferson City, 202;
pleads for troops, 207, 208;
moves against Price and McCulloch, 209–210;
his letter to Fremont, 210;
praised by Snead, 211;
killed in battle of Wilson’s Creek, 211;
his army retreats to Rolla, 211;
surprised Price and McCulloch at Wilson’s Creek, 211;
body borne through Saint Louis, 212.
McClellan, General George B., 298;
nominated for president, 338.
McCulloch, General Ben, 203, 207, 209;
helps win battle of Wilson’s Creek, 211;
with Price occupies Springfield, 211;
defeated at Pea Ridge, 244.
McDowell, Dr., Medical College of, made a military prison, 188–189.
McKinstry, Major J., suppresses disloyal papers, 214;
reprimands editor of Christian Advocate, 215;
requires special permits to pass lines, 215.
McNeil, Colonel, commandant of Saint Louis, 206.
McPherson, William M., 122, 123.
Marmaduke, marches towards Missouri, 323.
Marshall, John, his interpretation of the Constitution, 51.
Marshall, Honorable Thomas, lectures of, on Henry Clay, and the
Revolution, 25, 26;
downfall of, 27.
Martial law, proclaimed in Saint Louis and Saint Louis County, 213;
in the State, 217;
passes required to leave the city, 215;
deprecated by the loyal and disloyal, 216–217.
Massachusetts, 26, 127, 295, 299.
Meetings for prayer, 137–138.
Mercantile Library Hall, 116, 117, 183;
address in, by Honorable J. R. Giddings, 27;
Convention of 1861, meets in, 44, 45;
Convention of 1865 meets in, 343.
Militia, of Missouri, to be called out by governor, 63;
called to drill, May 2, 1861, 88;
bill for equipping, 103;
regiment of, mutinies, 284.
Minute Men, Democratic political club, 20;
drilled in military tactics, 21;
armed, 22;
under control of Governor Jackson, 71, 72;
refuse to lay down arms, 81;
join General Frost, 89.
Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, of 1864, 309–314;
see “Fair.”
Missouri Historical Society, 6.
Missouri Republican, prints sermon on “Duty of Obedience to Established
Government,” 133;
its Union and Secession editors 143–144.
Mitchell, Captain, of “City of Alton,” 79.
Mulligan, surrender of, at Lexington, 219, 220.
Napoleon, sells Louisiana, 6.
Negroes in Saint Louis, slaves, 1, 9;
bill to exclude free, 11–14;
a pastor of, 12–13;
at the Fair, 313;
schools for, 333–337;
celebrate passing of Emancipation Ordinance, 347;
own taxable property, 333.
Nelson, Reverend Henry A., 4;
Presbyterian Unionist, 121.
Neosho, guerrillas near, 323.
New House of Refuge Hospital, 288.
New Orleans, slave market, 172, 177, 182.
Newspapers, see “Press.”
Noble, Thomas S., sketch of life of, 155–157;
paints “The Slave Mart,” 156;
paints “John Brown going to Execution,” 157.
Nurses, qualifications of, for Saint Louis hospitals, 294;
efficiency of, 305.
Oath, to sustain the constitution of United States and Missouri, by
Convention of 1861, 53;
by members of Camp Jackson, 89;
of fealty to Missouri asserted supreme, 103;
of allegiance, taken by prisoners, 102, 196;
in prayer-meeting, 137–138;
demanded by Halleck, 235–236;
keeps many from voting, 341;
“of Loyalty,” 351;
severity of, 354–356;
distress resulting from, 357–359;
“Test Oath,” 353;
called “Draconian,” 355;
set aside by Supreme Court, 359.
Oliver, Mordecai, Secretary of State of Missouri, 228.
Order of American Knights, 317, 331.
Order of the Star, 317;
see “Knights of the Golden Circle.”
Ordinance of Emancipation, 345–349.
Orr, Honorable Sample, speech in Convention of 1861, 54.
Paducah, occupied by Grant, 223;
Sanitary Commission at, 296.
Panic, in Saint Louis after capture of Camp Jackson, 101–102;
in Jefferson City, 103–104;
of May 12, 107–115;
at Boonville, 322.
Partridge, George, Esquire, of Sanitary Commission, 289.
Pierce, President Franklin, 68.
Pike, General Albert, 244.
Pillow, General Gideon J., 207, 208, 229, 230.
Pilot Knob, Confederate troops near, 326;
General Ewing at, 327.
Planters’ Hotel, 163, 164;
conference at, 199–202.
Plot against the Union, 315–332;
clues of, followed up, 316;
object and character of, 317;
names of organization in, 317;
places and leaders in, 317;
incited by press, 319;
rumors of, get abroad, 320;
movements by guerrillas, a part of, 321–325;
helped by bushwhackers, 324–326;
General Price in, 326–331;
failure of, 331.
Police of Saint Louis, control of, in hands of Governor Jackson, 71,
72;
commissioners of, demand removal of troops, 84;
checks rioting, 102.
Pope, Major-General John, 212, 368.
Post, Reverend Truman M., 4, 121, 301.
Praying for the President, 124–126.
Preachers, distinguished, before the war, 4.
Preaching, against disunion, 127–134, 136, 139–140, 149, 166;
preaching “politics,” 139;
to soldiers, 301;
of good cheer, 338–340.
Presbyterians, minister of, preaches on “The Ultimatum of the South,”
121;
General Convention of, in Saint Louis, 366;
debate in Convention over secession of Synod, 367–368.
Press, the, attitude and influence of, 142–145;
censored by Halleck, 238;
The Missouri Republican, 12, 116, 133, 143–144,
publishes sermon on “Obedience to Government,” 132;
Harper’s Weekly, 15;
The Missouri Democrat, 143,
prints Te Deum extra, 247;
Evening News suppressed for criticizing Fremont, 219–220;
War Bulletin and Missourian suppressed, 214;
Christian Advocate threatened with suppression, 215;
Metropolitan Record, circulation of, prohibited in Missouri, 319.
Price, Sterling, president of convention of 1861, 53, 61;
a Confederate general, 61, 117, 191, 234;
campaigns of, 201–203, 226, 326–332;
driven from Missouri, 203, 240, 244, 330;
invades Missouri, 207, 209, 239–240, 327;
rumor of intended invasion of, 322–323;
in conference with Lyon, 198–201;
victorious at Wilson’s Creek, 211;
occupies Springfield, 211;
defeated at Pea Ridge, 244;
recognizes guerrilla Anderson, 325;
checked at Fort Davidson, 328;
fails to attack Saint Louis and Jefferson City, 329–330;
destroys much property, 331–332;
failure of his last campaign, 331–332.
Prisoners, from Camp Jackson, 97–99,
refuse food at Arsenal, 99;
paroled, 102;
Confederate, 191–196;
anecdotes concerning, 189–197;
a Baptist preacher a prisoner, 191–194;
soldiers get Thanksgiving dinner meant for, 195;
secession minister a prisoner, 196;
at Boonville, 202.
Prisons, military, 188–197;
character of, 189;
Dr. McDowell’s Medical College used as, 188;
slave-pen used as, 193.
Pritchard, Colonel, 89.
Proclamations, of General Harney, 108, 110, 115;
Emancipation, of Lincoln, 149;
of General Fremont, 217;
of secession, Lieutenant-Governor, 229;
of General Thompson, 230;
of Governor Jackson, 231;
of General Price, 233;
of General Halleck, 236, 239;
assessing rich rebels, 242,
freeing slaves, 241;
of Governor Gamble, 228–229;
of General Schofield, 284;
of Emancipation by Governor Fletcher, 348;
of the Revised Constitution, 357;
declaring end of the war, 368.
Protestants admitted to Spanish Saint Louis only by pass, 9.
Provisional Government of Missouri, 228.
Pulpit, 120–142;
prudentially silent, 120–121;
one voice for secession, 121, 135;
supported by loyal laymen, 122–126;
soldiers in the congregation, 123–124.
Quaker conscience, 303.
Quantrel, 273, 322;
invades Kansas, 284.
Quinby, Major-General, 249–250.
Quincy, fugitives from panic flee to, 111.
Ramsay, Charles G., editor Evening News, imprisoned, 219–220.
Rawlings, United States Marshal, seizes munitions of war, 116.
“R. C. Wood,” floating hospital, 297.
Refugees, 251–267;
follow army of Fremont, 226;
fed by private charity and army rations, 242,
and by enforced assessments, 243–244;
anecdotes of, 253–267;
classes of, 252–259;
ignorance of, 255–260;
numbers of, 261;
freedmen, 262–267;
homes for, 261, 293, 295;
white, 300;
from Price’s invasion, 332.
Republicans, 20;
party of, success of, the doom of slavery, 15;
appealed to by Carl Schurz, 17;
success of, in 1860, 18.
Rioting, after the capture of Camp Jackson, 101–102, 106–107;
in attack on church, 131–132;
in attack on minister, 135;
from attack on German troops, 204–205.
Robinson, Lieutenant, 64.
Rolla, Missouri, Lyon’s army falls back to, 211;
guerrillas near, 322;
Ewing retreats to, 329;
wounded hero at, 307.
Rosecrans, General W. S., President of Mississippi Valley Sanitary
Fair, 309, 316;
succeeds Schofield, 309;
in command of Department of Missouri, 315;
ferrets out disloyal plot, 316–323;
enlists negro troops, 319;
sends away troops, 320;
prohibits circulation of Metropolitan Record, checks 319;
accused of violation of orders, 321;
gets help from General Smith, 327.
Sac and Fox Indians, sell land, 7.
Saint-Ange, Captain Louis, acting French governor, 1765, 7.
Saint Louis, character of people of, in 1860, 1, 3, 4;
population in 1860, 1, in 1822, 8;
buildings in, 2;
dwellings in, 2, 3;
early history of, 6–10;
site of, on terraces, 2, 7;
capital of Upper Louisiana, 6;
trading-post in 1764, 6;
its defenses in 1764, 7;
incorporated as a town, 7;
chartered as a city, 8;
divided in sentiment, 40.
Schofield, General John McAllister, in command in Missouri, 272–275,
282–286, 309, 315;
commands militia against guerrillas, 273;
commands Army of the Frontier, 282;
opposed by Charcoals, 283;
threatens newspapers, 284;
sustained by Lincoln, 285;
his view of the radicals, 286;
opposed by Claybanks, 287;
drills negro troops, 313.
Schools, for negroes, 333–337;
no public, for negroes in 1864, 333;
legislature provides, 336;
private, for negroes, poor quality of, 333–335;
examination of teachers for, 334;
school board in favor of, for negroes, 336.
Schurz, Carl, address of, in Saint Louis, “The Doom of Slavery,” 16–18,
369.
Scott, General Winfield, denies supreme command to Lyon, 68, 70.
Schuyler, Episcopalian clergyman, Unionist, 121.
Search for arms, May 17, 116–117.
Secession, urged by cotton states, 23, 24, 33, 49, 57;
of South Carolina, 24, 32, 33;
of Gulf states, 32, 33, 36;
of Georgia, 53, 55;
reasons against, 35, 36, 48–60;
process of, 40;
Missouri saved from, 40–62;
results of Missouri’s rejection of, 62;
efforts for, 71, 81, 82, 147, 315, 332;
preaching against, 127–134;
attitude of church and press toward, 142–145;
discussion of, 146–148;
divisions over, in families, neighborhoods and churches, 146–158;
division over in Chamber of Commerce, 153–154;
Ordinance of, passed by defunct legislature, 231–232.
Secessionists, active, preceding Lincoln’s inauguration, 38;
in Missouri, hopeful, 42.
Seward, William H., 11.
Sheeley, Mr., of Independence, conditional unionist, 51.
Shelby, General, invades Missouri, 326;
opposes Ewing, 328.
Sherman, General W. T., 295;
at Camp Jackson, 99–100;
receives aid from Western Sanitary Commission, 298;
calls for soldiers, 320;
troops meant for, sent to Missouri, 327;
in Georgia, 338, 340.
Simmons, Colonel, 92.
Simmonds, Medical Director, turns over the “Ben Franklin,” to Sanitary
Commission, 297.
Sisters of Charity, in hospital, 288, 302.
Slave Mart, the, painting, 156–157.
Slave-pens, Lynch’s and Children’s, 182–187.
Slavery, its extinction hoped for, 9,
feared, 15;
discussion of, 11;
protected by law in Saint Louis, 9;
speech of Carl Schurz on, 16;
speech of Giddings on, 27;
how to preserve, 48;
Fugitive Slave Law, 51, 52, 181;
condition of the slaves, 170–181;
abolition of, demanded, 277, 345–348;
abolition of, by Convention of 1865, 344–345.
Slaves, small number of, in Saint Louis, 1, 9;
last auction of, 28–31;
condition of, 170–181;
emancipation of, by Lincoln, 149,
by owners, 170–176,
by Fremont, 217,
by Halleck, 241;
attitude of, towards their masters and the war, 178–181.
Smarius, Father, 4.
Smith, General A. J., defends Saint Louis, 326–327;
advances to Pilot Knob, 327;
retires behind the Meramec, 328.
Smith, Mr., delegate from Saint Louis to Convention of 1861, 54.
Snead, Thomas L., aide to Governor Jackson, 199;
praises Lyon, 211;
slaves of, freed by Fremont, 217.
Soldiers’ Home, 300;
see “Homes.”
Songs, John Brown’s Body, 245;
Star-Spangled Banner, 247;
Yankee Doodle, 247;
Rally Round the Flag, 362;
America, 129, 362.
Sons of Liberty, The, 317;
see “Knights of the Golden Circle.”
Spies, in Saint Louis, 237, 238.
Springfield, Illinois, shipment of arms to, 76–81;
Lincoln at, 162;
Lincoln’s burial at, 365.
Springfield, Missouri, occupied by Lyon’s troops, 202;
occupied by Lyon, 203, 207, 209;
by Price and McCulloch, 211.
State Guards, 229, 233;
in conflict with Home Guards, 240.
State Rights Doctrine, absurdity of, shown, 84;
humored by Lincoln, 218.
Statesmen, distinguished, before the war, 4.
Steamboat, first at Saint Louis, 8;
four thousand of, in 1860, 9;
City of Alton, 77–80;
J. C. Swan, 118;
City of Louisiana, 297;
R. C. Wood, 297.
Stephens, Alexander H., vice-president of Confederacy, 59, 197.
Stevenson, Colonel, 213.
Stewart, R. M., Governor of Missouri, 33;
pockets bill expelling free negroes, 14;
received coldly commissioner from Alabama, 23.
Stoddard, Major, agent of France and United States, 6.
Stokes, Captain James H., conveys arms from arsenal, 77–81.
Sturgeon, Isaac H., assistant treasurer, calls for troops, 63–65.
Sumner, General Edwin V., 124.
Tate, Samuel, of South Carolina, views of, on importance of Missouri to
Confederacy, 118, 119.
Taylor, Daniel G., mayor of Saint Louis, 71.
Thanksgiving dinner to unintended diners, 195.
Thompson, Brigadier-General, of Missouri State Guards, 229;
issues proclamation, 230.
Union Chamber of Commerce, formed, 154.
Unionists, kinds of, 35, 49–53;
unconditional, 35, 36, 51;
conditional, 51, 52, 57;
Calhoun unionists, 50, 51;
condition of, 51, 52, 53;
not panic-stricken, 115;
numbers of, in 1865, 362;
their success in Convention of 1861, 61;
parade of on Washington’s birthday, 248–249.
United States Sanitary Commission, 297.
Vallandigham, Clement L., supreme commander of secret order, 317, 331.
Vanbuskirk, Mr., of Holt County, 51.
Van Dorn, General Earl, defeated at Pea Ridge, 244.
Vicksburg, supplies received at, 298.
Volunteer troops, 81, 83;
numbers of, increased, 85, 244;
preaching to, 301;
come to defense of Saint Louis, 327.
Webster, Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home at, 314.
Welsh, “Father,” Baptist minister, forced to solicit pass, 216.
Western Sanitary Commission, 254, 288–308;
helps refugees, 261;
authorized to fit up hospitals, 288–289;
composition of, 289;
opens, City General Hospital, 290,
home for soldiers, 292,
home for refugees, 293;
sustained by generals and Secretary of War, 295;
donations to, 295–296, 299, 314;
visits Cairo and Paducah, 296;
coöperates with United States Sanitary Commission, 297–298;
sends aid to Generals McClellan and Sherman, and to prisoners at
Andersonville, 298;
aids freedmen on the lower Mississippi, 298;
great demands on, 309;
holds Fair, 309;
establishes Orphans’ Home, 314.
Wide-Awakes, The, a Republican political club, 19, 20;
arms for, sent as plaster casts, 21–22;
become Home Guards, 69, 71, 72;
armed, 81;
see also “Home Guards.”
Wilson’s Creek, battle of, 160, 212, 213, 288;
General Lyon killed at, 211.
Witzig, Julius J., member of Committee of Safety, 92.
Wood, R. C., Assistant Surgeon General, commands flying hospital, 297.
Yancey, William L., of Alabama, 59;
a Calhoun Unionist, 51.
Yankees, 99;
denounced, 161–162.
Yates, Governor Richard, of Illinois, makes requisition for arms in
arsenal, 76;
summons Stokes to secure the arms, 77.
Yeatman, James E., President of Western Sanitary Commission, 254, 289,
290;
his great work, 288–299;
description of, 289;
agent for Miss Dorothea L. Dix, 294;
takes aid to Vicksburg, 298, 299.
Zagonyi, 221;
heroism of a soldier of, 307–308.
-----
Footnote 1:
The originals of both these commissions are in the archives of the
Missouri Historical Society. See also Scharf’s History of St. Louis,
and Billon’s Annals of St. Louis.
Footnote 2:
The Louisiana Purchase; Hitchcock, p. 243.
Footnote 3:
W. R. S. 2 Vol. I, p. 244.
Footnote 4:
W. R. S. 4, Vol. I, pp. 1–75.
Footnote 5:
They called all male slaves, boys.
Footnote 6:
W. R. S. 4, Vol. I, pp. 1–75.
Footnote 7:
See, on this whole Chapter, Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri
State Convention, 1861.
Footnote 8:
Journal of the Missouri State Convention, 1861, p. 11.
Footnote 9:
Snead, pp. 68–72.
Footnote 10:
Journal Missouri State Convention, 1861, pp. 13–20.
Footnote 11:
Blaine’s Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. I, p. 505. Vol. II, pp.
202–203.
Footnote 12:
Journal Missouri State Convention, 1861, pp. 248–256.
Footnote 13:
The State of Missouri by Williams, pp. 545–546.
Footnote 14:
Snead in “The Fight for Missouri,” p. 110, says there were in the
Arsenal sixty thousand muskets. For this I find no authority.
Footnote 15:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. I, p. 667; also W. R. S. 3, Vol. I, p. 80.
Footnote 16:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 44. Also Doc., p.
147–8.
Footnote 17:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 30.
Footnote 18:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 59.
Footnote 19:
“The Fight for Missouri,” p. 113.
Footnote 20:
Moore, D. of E., Vol. II, p. 60. Doc. 174, p. 494. Also W. R. S. 1,
Vol. III, pp. 5–10.
Footnote 21:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 4; also Moore, Vol. IX, Doc. 11, p. 258.
Footnote 22:
Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, pp. 16–17.
Footnote 23:
Fiske, pp. 18–19.
Footnote 24:
Yet Lucian Carr, “In Missouri a Bone of Contention,” Series of
American Commonwealths, pp. 304–305, contends that Frost was loyal.
Footnote 25:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 706.
Footnote 26:
Fiske, The Mississippi Valley in the Civil War, p. 20.
Footnote 27:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. IX, Doc. 11, p. 259.
Footnote 28:
D. J. Hancock, President of the Illinois River Packet Co., says the
cannon were sent in crockery crates.
Footnote 29:
See Lyon’s Report, W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 4–5; also pp. 386–387.
Footnote 30:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 9.
Footnote 31:
Snead, The Fight for Missouri, p. 179.
Footnote 32:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol. I, p. 92.
Footnote 33:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. I, p. 363. Also W. R. S. 1, Vol. III,
pp. 374–81, 383.
Footnote 34:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. I, D. of E., p. 76.
Footnote 35:
W. R. S. 4, Vol. I, p. 276.
Footnote 36:
“Not whiggs, nor tories they; nor this, nor that;
Not birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat;
A twilight animal; true to neither cause,
With tory wings, but whiggish teeth and claws.”
_—Duke of Guise, Prol._
Footnote 37:
This painting was purchased by Wm. B. Howard of Chicago, and was
burned, not in the great fire, with all of Mr. Howard’s Collection.
Footnote 38:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. I, p. 363.
Footnote 39:
Snead, The Fight for Missouri, pp. 199–200.
Footnote 40:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. I, Doc., p. 363.
Footnote 41:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 384.
Footnote 42:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, D. of E., Vol, I. pp. 105–106.
Footnote 43:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 390.
Footnote 44:
P. 410.
Footnote 45:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 512, 532, 540 to 549, 568.
Footnote 46:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 409–410.
Footnote 47:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 407–409.
Footnote 48:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 419–424.
Footnote 49:
Pp. 419–423.
Footnote 50:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. II, D. of E., p. 52, Doc. 153, p. 467.
Footnote 51:
Peckham’s General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861, pp. 324–325.
Footnote 52:
Snead, The Fight for Missouri, pp. 266–267.
Footnote 53:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 425.
Footnote 54:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 460.
Footnote 55:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. II, Doc. 183, pp. 626–627; also W. R.
S. 1, Vol. III, p. 442.
Footnote 56:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, D. of E., p. 10, Doc. 18, p. 36.
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 466–469.
Footnote 57:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, D. of E., p. 25, Doc. 43, p. 126.
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, Doc., p. 129.
Footnote 58:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, p. 477.
Footnote 59:
P. 485.
Footnote 60:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, D. of E., p. 32, Doc. 33, p. 70.
Footnote 61:
Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. III, D. of E., p. 34, Doc. 58, p. 146.
Footnote 62:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. III, D. of E., p. 43.
Footnote 63:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 532–533.
Footnote 64:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 544–47.
Footnote 65:
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Vol. I, pp. 265–267.
Footnote 66:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. VIII, p. 434.
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 512, 532, 540–549, 568.
Footnote 67:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 549, 568–9.
Footnote 68:
The order for his removal is dated at Washington, October 24, 1861.
Footnote 69:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. III, D. of E., p. 65, Doc. 126, p. 270. W. R.
S. 1, Vol. III, pp. 559–560.
Footnote 70:
Pigges Corantoe, or Newes from the North, p. 3.
Footnote 71:
The Missouri Republican, July 31st, 1861. Moore’s Rebellion Record,
Vol. II, D. of E., p. 40.
Footnote 72:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. II, D. of E., p. 51, Doc. 151, p. 458.
Footnote 73:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. II, D. of E., p. 53, Doc. 156, p. 472.
Footnote 74:
August 24th, Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. III, Doc., p. 5.
Footnote 75:
American Cyclopædia, 1861.
Footnote 76:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. II, D. of E., p. 56, Doc. 163, p. 479.
Footnote 77:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. II, D. of E., p. 70.
Footnote 78:
P. 74.
Footnote 79:
The State Guards were armed Secessionists, the Home Guards armed
Unionists.
Footnote 80:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. VIII, p. 369.
Footnote 81:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. III, D. of E., p. 108. Also W. R. S. 1, Vol.
VIII, p. 414.
Footnote 82:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. IV, D. of E., p. 18, Doc., p. 129.
Footnote 83:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. VIII, pp. 586–587, p. 832.
Footnote 84:
Pp. 557, 648.
Footnote 85:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. IV, Doc., p. 52.
Footnote 86:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. III, D. of E., p. 121.
Footnote 87:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. III, D. of E., p. 103. Also W. R. S. 1, Vol.
VIII, pp. 431, 490.
Footnote 88:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. IV, D. of E., p. 16.
W. R. S. 2, Vol. I, p. 150.
Footnote 89:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXII, P. 1, p. 811.
Footnote 90:
At that time Missouri was called a State of Misery.
Footnote 91:
Forty-Six Years in the Army, pp. 104–106.
Footnote 92:
In addition to my own observations, for the facts set forth in this
chapter I am largely indebted to “The Western Sanitary Commission: A
Sketch ——.”
Footnote 93:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. III, D. of E., p. 25.
Footnote 94:
Fiske, The Miss. Valley in the Civil War, p. 270.
Footnote 95:
Nicolay and Hay, Vol. VIII, Ch. 1.
Footnote 96:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 4, p. 505.
Footnote 97:
Moore’s Reb. Rec., Vol. VIII, D. of E., pp. 56, 57.
Footnote 98:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, p. 107.
Footnote 99:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, pp. 42, 62, 107.
Footnote 100:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, pp. 381, 416.
Footnote 101:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, p. 30.
Footnote 102:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, pp. 197, 232, 238, 283, 344, 381.
Footnote 103:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, pp. 283, 364.
Footnote 104:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, p. 416.
Footnote 105:
P. 443.
Footnote 106:
P. 574.
Footnote 107:
P. 626.
Footnote 108:
P. 4, pp. 216, 233, 277.
Footnote 109:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 4, pp. 216, 233, 277.
Footnote 110:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XXXIV, P. 3, p. 351.
Footnote 111:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XLI, P. 1, p. 309.
Footnote 112:
W. R. S. 1, Vol. XLI, P. 1, pp. 307–340.
Footnote 113:
For the facts of this chapter, aside from my own personal
observations, see “Journal of the Missouri State Convention, held at
the City of St. Louis, January 6–April 10, 1865.”
Footnote 114:
See Volk’s life-mask of Lincoln’s face.
Footnote 115:
American Church Hist., Vol. VI, pp. 168–9.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
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