USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. IV > Part 14
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chiefly Germans. The aid which the Germans rendered the Union cause in St. Louis and Missouri in that crisis, and to the end of the war, cannot be too highly praised. There was a lack of guns for the Home Guards at the outset, though some were got from private sources, and a few from Governor Yates of Illinois.
In the United States arsenal at St. Louis, however, were 60,000 stand of arms, together with cannon, powder and other muni- tions of war. Blair, like his great antagonist Jackson, knew that war was inevitable. Both Blair and Jackson felt that the side which got possession of the arsenal would control St. Louis, and the side that controlled St. Louis would, sooner or later, command Missouri. The struggle for the arsenal between these two clear-sighted, audacious and resourceful men was an episode on which big events hinged. The story of this contest compels a glance backward of a few days.
On January 5, 1861, Isaac H. Sturgeon, assistant United States treasurer at St. Louis, fearing for the safety of the four hun- dred thousand dollars of government money in his hands and also for the arsenal, wrote to President Buchanan asking him to send troops for the protection of this property. In response, Buchanan ordered Lientenant Robinson with forty men from Newport Barracks to St. Louis. They arrived on Janu- ary II, on the evening of which day Blair's Washington hall meeting took place, and were quartered in the sub-treasury, cus- tom house and postoffice building. The presence of the troops there caused protest, from the southern sympathizers and from some lukewarm Union men, incited a special message from Jack- son to the legislature, and in the presence of this demonstration Gen. William S. Harney, commander of the Department of the West, ordered the troops to the arsenal. The headquarters of the Department of the West were in St. Louis.
Harney was a gallant soldier and a patriotic man. He had been more than forty years in the army at that time, had fought in the Black Hawk, the Florida and the Mexican wars, doing good service in cach. Moreover, he was against secession. But he was old (sixty-one years), was conservative, did not realize that war would come, had many friends among the southern radicals, and his loyalty, though unjustly, was distrusted by Blair and the rest of the Unionist chieftains. The sort of a man whom Blair wanted in St. Louis was nowhere in sight at the time. What man, nevertheless, was destined to appear carlier than any of the Unionist leaders dared hope for. This was Nathaniel
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MISSOURI STANDS BY THE UNION.
Lyon. The day, February 6, 1861, that Captain Lyon and liis company from Kansas marched into St. Louis is an important datemark in the struggle which held Missouri in the Union.
Lyon, who was born in Connecticut, who was graduated from West Point in 1841, who served with credit in the Florida and the Mexican wars, and was stationed in Kansas during most of the territorial struggle of 1854-60 between the pro-slavery and the free state men, where he, though a Democrat along to that time, had acquired a strong antipathy to slavery and a pro- found distrust of the intentions of the southern leaders, was forty-three years of age when he and his company arrived in St. Louis. Prompt, sagacious, resolute, resourceful, he was the man for the crisis. Blair immediately apprized Lyon of the conditions. He instantly grasped the situation, and these two chieftains worked in harmony from that day onward till Lyon's death at the head of his troops six months later at Wilson's Creek.
Blair and Lyon, however, were not yet in control of affairs in St. Louis. Lyon immediately entered with Blair into the work of supervising the organization and the drill of the Home Guards, but the arms in the arsenal were out of their reach. Maj. Will- iam H. Bell, a North Carolinian by birth, an old and able sol- dier, was, with a few men, in command at the arsenal in Janu- ary, 1861, at the time when Assistant Treasurer Sturgeon wrote to Buchanan to send more troops to St. Louis to protect the government's property. Bell was in sympathy with Jackson and the Southern cause, and entered into an agreement with Gen. Daniel M. Frost, commander of a brigade of state militia, to turn the arsenal over to the state troops in case of any dem- onstration against it by the Unionists. Frost was a graduate of West Point of 1844, who served creditably in the Mexican war, but who left the army shortly afterward, married a St. Louis lady, entered into business in that city, served in the legislature a few years, was an anti-Benton man, and commanded a brigade of state troops from 1858 to 1861.
Rumors of Bell's disloyalty reaching Washington, he was ordered to New York, but resigned instead of going there and retired from the army, and Maj. Peter B. Hagner assumed com- inand at the arsenal on January 24. This was two weeks before Lyon's arrival in St. Louis. A native of Washington, D. C., whose wife was a slaveholder's daughter, and who himself had many friends among the Southern rights men, Hagner became an object of suspicion to Blair, and also to Lyon as soon as Lyon arrived, and they tried to have him displaced and Lyon put in
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command. A demonstration by the Minute Men in St. Louis about the time of Lincoln's inauguration on March 4 worked in the Unionist interest, and on March 13 Lyon was put in nominal com- mand at the arsenal, and early in April was placed in actual com- mand. As Harney hampered Lyon somewhat in his acts Blair had Harney ordered to Washington to explain matters. Harney left St. Louis on April 23, and Lyon immediately assumed temporary command of the Department of the West.
A law passed by the legislature a month carlier authorized the governor to appoint a board of four commissioners, who, with the mayor, would have control of the St. Louis police, volunteer militia and other guardians of the peace. This was done in order to take these out of the hands of the Republican and Unionist forces, O. D. Filley, of the Union Safety committee, being mayor. The commission which Jackson appointed consisted of three secession- ists-Basil W. Duke, of the Minute Men, and James H. Carlisle and Charles Mclaren-and one conditional Unionist-John A. Brownlee. Moreover, in the election immediately afterward, on April 1, the Unionist candidate, Jolin How, of the Safety com- mittee, was beaten for mayor by Daniel G. Taylor, and the civil machinery of St. Louis's government was put in Governor Jack- son's hands. Nevertheless, Blair, Lyon and the Unionists were masters of the St. Louis situation.
Meanwhile, in the national field, Mississippi, following South Carolina's lead, seceded on January 9, 1861, Florida on the 10th, Alabama on the 11th, Georgia on the 19th, Louisiana on the 26th, Texas on February 1, and the confederate government was estab- lished on February 4. The abortive peace congress met in Wash- ington on the same day, at which Missouri was represented by A. W. Doniphan, Waldo P. Johnson, A. H. Buckner, J. D. Coalter and Harrison Hough. Buchanan stepped out of the presidency on March 4 and Lincoln stepped in, and on April 14 Sumter fell before Beauregard's guns. Lincoln issued a proclamation on April 15 for 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion.
To the demand for four regiments as Missouri's quota of the 75,000 Governor Jackson responded that Lincoln's object was "illegal, unconstitutional and revolutionary," and he added that "Not one man will Missouri furnish for such an unholy crusade." Blair, arriving in St. Louis from Washington, wired Secretary of War Cameron on the roth to telegraph to Captain Lyon to muster Missouri's quota into the service. Blair's word was promptly made good. The arms in the arsenal, now under I.you's control, were put in the hands of the new regiments, the first one of which
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MISSOURI ST.INDS BY THE UNION.
had Blair for its colonel, George L. Andrews for lieutenant colonel, and John M. Schofield, who rose to high command later, for its major. After a sufficient amount of arms were laid aside for immediate emergencies, Lyon sent the rest to Governor Yates of Illinois, to be out of reach of possible capture by the secessionists, for Jackson and Frost, in conclaves with the St. Louis Southern sympathizers, had been plotting to this time to get possession of the arsenal.
Events in Missouri now moved rapidly to the catastrophe. Act- ing under Blair's promptings, Secretary Cameron, on April 30, 1861, two weeks after Sumter's fall, and one week after Harney left St. Louis for Washington, sent this command to Lyon :
"The president of the United States directs that you enroll in the military service of the United States 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 inhabi- tants of Missouri ; and you will if deemed necessary for your pur- pose by yourself and Messrs. Oliver D. Filley, Jolm How, James O. Broadhead, Samuel T. Glover, J. J. Witzig and Francis P. Blair, Jr., proclaim martial law in the city of St. Louis."
This order bore the following indorsement from Winfield Scott, commanding general of the army: "It is revolutionary times, and therefore 1 do not object to the irregularity of this. W. S." The order also bore this attestation: "Approved April 30, 1861. A. Lincoln."
Under this authority five more regiments were mustered into the service, four before Camp Jackson's capture and one afterward. In the aggregate in these regiments the Germans were largely in the preponderance.
Before Lyon mustered in these later regiments some of Jack- son's militia gathered in a camp in the western part of St. Louis, about one thousand strong, including most of the Minute Men organized in that city. Jackson's original intention was that this force should make a dash on the arsenal, and seize the arms there, but Lyon's occupation of the arsenal with part of his troops, and his shipment to Illinois of all the arms not immediately needed, defeated this purpose. The militia camp, which was named for the governor, was in Lindell's Grove, a tract then extending from Channing to Vandeventer avenue, and from Laclede avenue to Olive street, and it was to last a week, beginning on May 6. Frost was in command.
Lyon cutered the camp in disguise, ascertained the situation,
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and he and Blair determined to capture it. Harney, then tem- porarily in Washington, would, they rightly feared, prevent the move if he were present. The camp would end on Saturday, the 11th, and the militia would disperse, taking their arms with them. The Unionist commanders struck with their accustomed prompt- ness and intrepidity. They surrounded the camp on Friday, May 10, with a large force, Blair, Boernstein, Sigel, and Schuttner com- manding the regiments which participated, compelled Frost to sur- render immediately and unconditionally, without the firing of a shot, disarmed his men, and paroled them not to bear arms against the United States until regularly exchanged. Grant and Sher- man, neither of whom was in the military service at the time, witnessed Lyon's exploit.
Camp Jackson's capture, attended after the surrender by a lamentable collision between some secession sympathizers on the streets and part of Lyon's men, in which twenty-five lives were lost, was an important datemark in the war of 1861-65. Coming three days before the Union troops occupied Baltimore and two weeks before they marched from Washington into Virginia, it was the first resolute blow dealt to the confederacy anywhere in the country. It held Missouri firmly on the side of the govern- ment, to which she contributed one hundred and nine thousand troops from first to last. By doing this it helped to turn the scale against secession in Kentucky, strengthened the hands of loyalists in Tennessee and the other border states, assisted in forcing the sphere of confederate influence in the Mississippi valley down near the Cumberland and the Arkansas ; contributed toward opening the Mississippi to the passage of the government troops ; defeated the confederates' purpose to cut off connection between the East and the Pacific slope by the overland route, and was a powerful factor in making this nation, in the words of Chief Justice Chase after- ward, an "indissoluble Union composed of indestructible states."
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MISSOURI IN THE CIVIL WAR.
CHAPTER XVI
Missouri in the Civil War
T 11E Unionists said that the war in Missouri was precipitated by the seizure of the United States arsenal at Liberty, in Clay county, on April 20, 1861, by Governor Jackson's order, whereby one thousand five hundred muskets, twenty small cannon and eleven thousand pounds of powder were appropriated by the secessionists. The Southern sympathizers declared that the war dated from the capture of Camp Jackson, on May 10. This is a dispute about an unimportant detail. Sumter came before either. Nobody, however, had any right to doubt that Camp Jackson's capture meant war.
Nevertheless, the civil affairs of the state, thongh subordinate, for the time, to the military movements, commanded some atten- tion. On March 4, 1861, Edward Bates entered Lincoln's cabinet as attorney general. In March the legislature elected Waldo P. Johnson, a Breckinridge Democrat, to succeed James S. Green in the senate for the term beginning at that date. "It is a noteworthy fact," said the secessionist Snead, in his "Fight for Missouri," "that Green, who was relegated to private life because he was a secessionist, did not raise his hand or his voice in behalf of the South during the war, while Johnson, who had been elected because he was a good Union man, quickly resigned his seat in the Senate, entered the army, and fought for the confederacy till the end of the war." In the case of several other prominent Mis- sourians also the war's alignments made a strange commentary on the professions and expectations of the days immediately preced- ing the ont! reak.
Johnson and Missouri's other senator, Trusten Polk, joined the confederacy m 1861, and were expelled by the senate in January,
.
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THE PROVINCE AND THE ST.ITES.
1862. Provisional Lieutenant Governor Willard P. Hall, elected by the convention, and acting in the absence of Hamilton R. Gamble, the provisional governor, appointed Robert Wilson, of St. Joseph, to succeed Johnson, and John B. Henderson, of Louisiana, to succeed Polk. Wilson held office only a short time, and the legislature elected B. Gratz Brown to succeed Jolin- son, serving until 1867. Henderson, by election and re-election, served until 1869. John B. Clark and John W. Reid, of the other branch of congress, who also entered the confederate service, were expelled in 1861, and William A. Hall, of Huntsville, was elected in place of the former, and Thomas L. Price, of Jefferson City, was chosen to succeed the latter.
Meanwhile the convention, which was elected on February 18, 1861, to decide whether Missouri should secede or should stand by the Union, and which declared for the latter, did not expire when it did this work, as most of the people of the state and most of its own members at the outset expected it would do. Events forced it to remain in existence more than two years longer. It adjourned on March 22, met again on July 22, on October 10, on June 2, 1862, and on June 15, 1863, remaining in session a week or two each time, and being always subject to call from the provisional governor. Through the officials whom it elected to take the place of Jackson and others whom it deposed for dis- loyalty, the convention managed the civic affairs of the state until Thomas C. Fletcher, chosen governor by the people in 1864, went into office.
The legislature, which adjourned in March, met in extra ses- sion under Jackson's call on May 2, eight days before Camp Jack- son's capture, and immediately after getting news of that event it passed a series of war measures creating a Missouri state guard, authorizing expenditures by the governor aggregating about two million dollars, and directing him to take such steps as his judgment dictated to "repel such invasion and put down such rebellion," the invasion and rebellion being the demonstration of the federal forces under Lyon and Blair at St. Louis, and those which were expected under the same leadership. Sterling Price, who resigned from the convention and went over to the governor's side immediately after Camp Jackson, was appointed by Jackson commander of the Missouri state guard, with the rank of major general, and afterward he went into the regular confederate serv- ice. Jackson appointed John B. Clark, M. M. Parsons, A. E. Steen. James Il. McBride, Thomas A. Harris, James S. Rains,
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MISSOURI IN THE CIVIL WAR.
N. W. Watkins and W. Y. Slack to be brigadier generals in the guard.
Harney returned to St. Louis shortly after Camp Jackson, resumed the command, issued a proclamation justifying the cap- ture, and on May 21, yielding to the solicitations of many Union men who vainly hoped to avert war in Missouri, entered into an agreement with Price, the state guard's commander, with the object of "restoring peace and good order to the people of the state in subordination to the laws of the general and the state governments." This displeased Lyon and Blair, who believed nothing could be accomplished by it, and on their advice and that of the members of the St. Louis Safety Committee, Harney was removed by Lincoln on May 30, and on June 1 Brigadier General Lyon was placed in command.
Lyon had a free hand at last, but before he began his advance against the enemies of his government in the interior of the state William A. Ilall and a few other peace loving persons made . another attempt to avert bloodshed, and arranged a meeting between Jackson and Lyon. It took place in the Planters' House on June 11, was participated in by Jackson, Price and Snead on the side of the South and I.yon, Blair and Maj. Horace L. Conant on the side of the Union, and after it had been under way several hours it was closed abruptly by Lyon, who said. "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, ont of, or through the state; rather than concede to the state of Missouri for one single instant, the right to dictate to my govern- ment 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 a hour one of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines." (Snead's "Fight for Missouri," pp. 199, 200.)
Snead adds that then, "without another word, without an incli- nation of the head, without even a look, he turned upon his heel and strode out of the room, rattling his spurs and clanking his saber, while we, whom he left, and who had known each other for years, bade farewell to each other courteously and kindly and separated-Blair and Conant to fight for the Union, we for the land of our birth."
This did, indeed, mean war. The seven states-South Caro-
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lina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas-which comprised the confederacy at the date of its estab- lishment on February 4, 1861, at Montgomery, had been joined by Virginia on April 17, by Arkansas on May 6, by North Caro- lina on May 21, and by Tennessee on June 8, three days before Lyon's conference with Jackson at St. Louis. The confederacy's capital had been removed to Richmond, the United States troops had marched into Virginia, McDowell had assumed command, Ellsworth had been killed in Alexandria, and the battle of Big Bethel, in which Major Winthrop lost his life, had been fought. From Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas and the rest of the loyal states in Missouri's region as well as all over the country troops were being hurried to the defence of the Union.
As soon as Jackson reached Jefferson City, on June 12, he issued a proclamation calling for fifty thousand troops to repel "invasion and for the protection of the lives, liberties and property of the citizens of this state." At the same time he evacuated Jefferson City, which he was destined never to see again, fell back to Boonville, where he believed he would be in a friendly country, and General Price went on to Lexington to supervise the organization of state troops at that point.
Lyon struck quickly. Dispatching Sigel, B. Gratz Brown and Salomon, with their regiments, under Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Sweeney's command, toward Springfield, to head off Jackson and Price if they tried to retreat to Arkansas and to intercept con- federate aid from Arkansas for them, Lyon pushed up the Mis- souri by boat with two thousand men for Jefferson City, left Col- onel Boernstein with three hundred men there on June 15; and he himself with the great body of his troops steamed onward to Boonville, where he defeated Col. John S. Marmaduke. This demonstration put the state capital, and the entire line of the Missouri in Lyon's control, sent Jackson and Price in retreat southward, and closed, except in spots and for short times, the whole of Missouri north of the river as a possible recruiting ground for the confederates.
The Marmaduke here mentioned was the son of M. M. Marma- duke, who was governor in 1844; was a graduate of West Point who resigned from the army at the outbreak of the war ; gained a high reputation in Missouri and elsewhere by his operations in that struggle, and was himself governor of the state in 1885-87.
But in the southwest the Union troops met disaster. A delay of two weeks by Lyon at Boonville, most of it unavoidable, enabled Jackson and Price to retreat in safety to Southwestern Missouri,
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their object being to form a junction with Gen. Ben McCulloch, the old Texan ranger, who, with a large body of confederate and Arkansas troops, was in Northwest Arkansas, to guard that state and the Indian Territory from invasion. Unexpectedly to both, Jackson, with a largely superior force, fell on Sigel near Carthage on July 5 and defeated him. Then Jackson's men joined Price, who, in perfect safety, was organizing and drilling state troops at Cowskin Prairie, in the extreme southwestern corner of the state, with McCulloch only a few miles away.
Lyon, after issuing a proclamation at Boonville to the people of Missouri, promising not to harm anybody who, then under arms against the government, should return home and remain loyal, started after Jackson, but was too late to overtake him, and entered Springfield on July 12. Realizing that he was greatly outmim- bered by Price's and McCulloch's forces in his front, Lyon made several urgent appeals to Fremont, then in command of the Western Department, with headquarters at St. Louis, and to Scott in Washington, for more troops, but these were not furnished in time, and even if they had arrived when Lyon wanted them they would have been inadequate. The panic throughout the Union because of the confederate victory at Bull Run on July 21, and the demand from Washington for all the troops which could be spared to be pushed to the defence of that city, is probably partly accountable for the failure to furnish aid to Lyon.
Knowing Lyon's strait, and encouraged by the Bull Run victory, Price a far abler and more dashing officer than McCulloch, and, who was, indeed, the most skillful confederate commander who operated in Missouri at any time during the war -- induced Mlc- Culloch to cross into Missouri and march on Springfield, the advance beginning on July 31.
Believing that a fight meant defeat, but also believing that retreat would enable Price to overrun most of the state outside of St. Louis and its immediate neighborhood, Lyon on August 10, with four thousand five hundred men, advanced on double as large an enemy at Wilson's Creek, nine miles southeast of Springfield. Lyon sent Sigel with one thousand two hundred of his men to attack them on the right flank and in the rear, and he himself to move on their left and front, and a desperate assault was made on the confederate position. McCulloch crushed Sigel, and then turning to the aid of Price, who was being hard pressed, over- whelmed Lyon who himself was killed in, leading a charge in the hope of being able to drive Price off the field before the re-enforcem. at came. The losses in killed, wounded and missing
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on the Union side were 1,317, and among the confederates 1,230. In proportion to the numbers engaged Wilson's Creek was one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Among the officers in the Union ranks in that battle who subsequently rose to high command were Sigel, Schofield, Stanley, Steele, Osterhaus, Herron and Granger, who became major generals, while Sturgis, Plummer, Carr, Mitchell, Sweeney, Totten, Gilbert and Powell Clayton, rose to be brigadier generals. The men among Price's Missourians on that day wlio ultimately rose to high rank were Joe Shelby, Colton Greene, M. M. Parsons, William Y. Slack, John B. Clark, Jr., and Francis M. Cockrell, the present senator.
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