USA > Missouri > Missouri the center state, 1821-1915 > Part 36
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Five companies of Minute Men were recruited in St. Louis under Captains Barret, Duke, Shaler, Greene and Hubbard. Anticipating the passage of the military bill they were mustered into state service as militia by General Frost on the 15th of February and assigned to Frost's brigade. Subsequently these five companies were joined by others and made up Bowen's regiment.
Captain Nathaniel Lyon, with his company of regulars, came to St. Louis the beginning of February. He was forty-two years of age, a slender, sandy-haired man, with reddish beard, deep-set blue eyes, under medium height. of Connecticut
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birth and Yankee positiveness. His service on the western frontier had given him a rather rough, weather-beaten appearance. Immediately the closest relations were established between Blair and Lyon. The two men were of the same age and possessed similar characteristics in that both were personally without fear. Both were devoted to the Union. Both were convinced that war was certain. Neither was too much hampered by regard for formalities of law. Lyon became at once the lieutenant of Blair in the organization of the Home Guards. He attended meetings of the Union men and talked war. He went to the secret armories, drilled the men and instructed their officers. He gained the confidence of the Committee of Safety. He impressed the Union leaders with the vital importance of saving the arsenal. Recruiting and preparations for fighting went on with the Home Guards much more rapidly after Lyon came.
The Election Brings Dismay.
The 18th of February approached, the day of the election of delegates to the state convention. Entirely confident of carrying the election the southern rights men talked openly of taking the St. Louis arsenal and securing the arms for distribution to the state guard to be organized under the pending military bill. Blair and Lyon went to Isaac H. Sturgeon and reported this talk of the secession- ists. They persuaded him to write a letter to General Scott, telling him there was grave danger that the arsenal would be attacked on or immediately after election day. Scott ordered the troops from the barracks to the arsenal and they marched up there on the 16th of February. Sturgeon not only urged reinforcement, but advised that Lyon be put in command at the arsenal. The advice was not followed. If Lyon had been given command it was the purpose of Blair to put guns in the hands of the Home Guards, now several thousand strong, at the first movement of the Minute Men against the arsenal. Of the campaign methods and of the election results William Hyde, who was at the time a newspaper writer, said:
"The Republicans, in order to embrace a character of men like James O. Broadhead, Samuel T. Glover, James S. Rollins, Abiel Leonard, Samuel M. Breckinridge, Odon Guitar, had adopted the title of 'Unconditional Union' men. A fusion ticket was formed in St. Louis county, which was entitled to fourteen delegates, on the basis of the estimated strength of the three Union elements (Douglas, Lincoln and Bell men), the allotment being seven, four and three, respectively. This ticket carried the county by a majority of between 5,000 and 6,000. Similar combinations were made throughout the State, and the result was truly astonishing, being a surprise to all. The aggregate Union majority in the State was 80,000, and not a single secessionist was returned as delegate! So overwhelming a declaration of fidelity to the Union, and so stunning a rebuke to Jackson and his coadjutors, was indeed a marvel of popular outpouring.
"Amazement and dismay settled upon minds and hearts of the defeated. To them it seemed as though a political earthquake had riven the state from the Nishnabotna to the St. Francis, and from the Des Moines to the Neosho. Secession had seen 'all her pretty chickens and their dam' swept from Missouri's confines, and not one spared! The imme- diate effect upon the legislature was to indefinitely postpone the governor's pet measure for the reorganization of the militia, and was followed by a general and total collapse of any lingering idea that the State might be called on to take part in preparations to resist the placing of the 'despot's heel upon the virgin soil' of Missouri."
The Delegates.
Until nearly the end of January, the southern rights sentiment had waxed in official Missouri. State officers, the legislature, the United States Senators, the
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Representatives in Congress, the supreme court, with few exceptions, sided with the South. The atmosphere at Jefferson City favored secession. But February brought a change. The State at large spoke. To the amazement and indignation of the southern rights leaders at the state capital the convention called to consider Missouri's relations to the United States was against secession. How did it come about that in the stress of public feeling, with all of the political intrigue and war preparation of those days, Missouri was so fortunate in the selection of the members of the convention? Judge John F. Philips, who was a member, in his recollections given the State Historical Society a few years ago, said: "In some respects that convention was the most remarkable body of men that ever as- sembled in the State. With a few exceptions, they were not of the class usually found in legislatures or popular assemblages. They were grave, thoughtful, dis- creet, educated men, profoundly impressed with the great responsibilities of their positions. Among them were judges of the supreme court, ex-governors, ex- Congressmen, ex-state senators and representatives, leading lawyers, farmers, merchants, bankers and retired business men, representing the varied, vital in- terests of the communities. No impartial, intelligent man can look over the debates of the body, extending over two years and more, without being deeply impressed with the idea of their tremendous intellectual power and sense of moral, patriotic obligation."
The convention was composed of ninety-nine delegates. It was said that fifty- three of the members were of Virginia or Kentucky descent. All but seventeen were natives of slave States. Thirteen were from the North. There were three Germans and one Irishman. The convention met in Jefferson City, but almost immediately adjourned to meet in St. Louis. The adjournment to St. Louis was taken, it was freely stated, because of the secession atmosphere of the state capital. In the election of president of the convention the issue of southern rights was raised. Nathaniel W. Watkins, a half brother of Henry Clay, was nominated by the southern rights delegates. He received only fifteen votes. Sterling Price was supported by the Unionists of varying opinions and received seventy-five votes. William Hyde said :
"It reads strangely, now, that the name of the gentleman who, for his stanch Unionism as well as his commanding influence, his unquestioned integrity, his familiarity with public affairs and his experience among large bodies of men, captured the enthusiastic support of the Convention as its president was-Sterling Price. In those days any canse was honored in its being followed by that personally magnificent man. As member of Congress and as governor, he had 'done the State some service, and they knew it.' Missouri was fond of him; the people were delighted with him."
Minute Men Plan a Surprise.
The effect of the election of Union delegates was felt at once at Jefferson City. It paralyzed for the time proposed legislation by the southern rights following. Talk of an immediate attack on the arsenal ceased suddenly for a few days. The Minute Men began to lay new plans. They hinted at a demonstration on the 4th of March, the day of Lincoln's inauguration. Blair and Lyon agreed the situation was very dangerous, although the State had elected Union delegates. Blair went to Springfield to see Lincoln who was about starting for Washington and to tell him plainly that the faction which got control of the arsenal would hold Missouri.
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convention or no convention. From Springfield Blair hurried to Washington and urged President Buchanan to give Lyon command of the arsenal. On the 25th of February Lyon wrote to Blair at Washington, telling of Hagner's refusal to strengthen the defenses of the arsenal, notwithstanding the expected demonstra- tion of the Minute Men, and said: "This is either imbecility or damned villainy." Buchanan and General Scott refused Blair's plea. Hagner remained in command.
The convention met in St. Louis on the 4th of March, the day of Lincoln's inauguration. The place was Mercantile Library hall, just two blocks north of the Berthold mansion, where the Minute Men had hung out that day a secession flag and were inviting an attack by Blair's Home Guards. Snead has explained the purpose :
"During the preceding night some of the Minute Men (Duke, Greene, Quinlan, Cham- pion, and McCoy) raised the flag of Missouri over the dome of the court-house and hoisted above their own headquarters a nondescript banner, which was intended to represent the flag of the Confederate States. The custodian of the court-house removed the state flag from that building early in the morning; but the secession flag still floated audaciously and defiantly above the Minute Men's headquarters, in the very face of the submissionists' con- vention, of the Republican mayor and his German police, of the department commander, and of Lyon and his Home Guards; and under its fold there was gathered as daring a set of young fellows 'as ever did a bold, or a reckless deed. They were about a score at first, but when an excited crowd began to threaten their quarters, and the rumor to fly that the Home Guards were coming to tear down the flag, the number of defenders grew to about one hundred. They all had muskets of the latest and best pattern. On the floors of the upper rooms were heaps of hand grenades. In the wide hall was a swivel, double-shotted, and so planted as to rake the main entrance if any one should be brave enough to try to force it. At every window there were determined men, with loaded muskets, and fixed bayonets; behind them were others, ready to take the place of any that might fall; and in all the building there was not a man who was not ready to fight to the death, rather than submit to the rule of Abraham Lincoln; nor one who would have quailed in the presence of a thousand foes, nor one of them who survives today, who would not fight just as willingly and just as bravely for the flag of the Union. Outside, too, throughout the ever growing crowd, other Minute Men were stationed to act as the emergency might require.
"Before the hour of noon had come all the streets in the vicinity were thronged with excited men, some drawn hither by curiosity and by that strange magnetism which mobs always exert; some to take part with the Minute Men, if 'the Dutch' should attack them; some to tear down 'the rebel flag,' and to hang 'the traitors,' who had dared to raise it on the day of Lincoln's inauguration.
"Everything betokened a terrible riot and a bloody fight. The civil authorities were powerless. It was to no purpose that they implored the crowd to disperse; in vain that they begged the Minute Men to haul down their flag. The police could do nothing. The Home Guards did not dare attack, for their leaders knew that the first shot that was fired would bring Frost's brigade, which was largely composed of Minute Men, to the aid of their friends, and that they would also be reinforced by the Irish, between whom and the German Home Guards there was the antipathy of both race and religion. Only once did any one venture to approach the well-guarded portals of the stronghold. The rash fools who did it were hurled back in the street, amid the jeers and laughter of the crowd. Blair and the Republican leaders, unwilling to provoke a conflict, kept their followers quiet, and finally towards midnight the crowd dispersed. The next day's sun shone upon the rebel flag still flying above the roof of the Minute Men's quarters. But Duke and Greene were unhappy, for they had hoped to bring on a fight, in which they would have been reinforced by Frost's brigade, and the Irish and many Americans, and in the confusion to seize the arsenal, and hold it till the secessionists of the state could come to their aid. They were, neverthe- less, greatly elated because the people believed more than ever that there were thousands of Minute Men, instead of hundreds."
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Another Move at Jefferson City.
On the 5th of March, the day after Lincoln's inauguration the southern rights members of the legislature made another effort to pass the military bill. They mustered their full strength. They made use of the riotous scenes in front of the headquarters of the Minute Men on Fifth and Pine streets in St. Louis the day previous. The Union men met the appeals of the secessionists. The youngest member of the House, a native Missourian, L. M. Lawson of Platte, was one of the leaders against the bill. He said it would place dangerous power in the hands of the governor. It would bring upon the people of Missouri "the horrors of fratricidal strife." He urged that Missouri had no reason to secede, to arm her- self against the federal government. "Let her be loyal to the Union and the Union would still protect her as it had always done," Lawson said. The southern rights leaders, Claiborne, Harris and others, quoted from Lincoln's inaugural of the previous day and demanded the passage of the bill. The House again re- fused. "In this," said Snead, "the South sustained a defeat more disastrous to. its independence than any which thereafter befell its arms, down to the fall of Vicksburg."
Blair used the 4th of March incident with telling effect on the War Depart- ment. Lincoln was in the White House. On the 13th of March Lyon was as- signed to command of the arsenal, but was not given control of the arms.
Convention Spirit and Conclusions.
Uriel Wright made an anti-secession speech in the convention. He was the great advocate who moved juries as did no other Missourian of that day. He referred to the southern rights flag hanging in front of the headquarters of the Minute Men :
"I looked one day toward the southern skies, toward that sunny land which constitutes our southern possessions, and I saw a banner floating in the air. I am not skilled in heraldry, and I may mistake the sign, but as it first rose it presented a single dim and melancholy star, set in a field of blue, representing, I suppose, a lost pleiad floating through space. A young moon, a crescent moon, was by her side, appropriately plucked from our planetary system, as the most changeable of all representatives known to it, a satellite to signify the vicissitudes which must attend its career. The sad spectacle wound up with the appropriate emblem of the cross, denoting the tribulation and sorrow which must attend its going. I could not favor any such banner."
No time was wasted by the convention in discussion. Hamilton Gamble was made chairman of the principal committee-that on "Federal Relations." James O. Broadhead was the floor leader of the Unconditional Union men. John B. Henderson was, perhaps, the most outspoken against secession. Price, Gamble, Broadhead and Henderson were Virginians.
On the 9th the formal report on Federal Relations was ready. It was a dignified declaration: "To involve Missouri in revolution, under the present circumstances, is certainly not demanded by the magnitude of the grievances of which we complain ; nor by the certainty that they cannot be otherwise and more peaceably remedied, nor by the hope that they would be remedied, or even dimin- ished by such revolution. The position of Missouri in relation to adjacent States, which would continue in the Union, would necessarily expose her, if she became.
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a member of a new Confederacy, to utter destruction whenever any rupture might take place between the different republics. In a military aspect secession and connection with a Southern Confederacy is annihilation for Missouri."
The report pledged the convention to do all in its power to bring back the Southern States by a compromise through amendments to the Constitution, but repeated the conviction that Missouri could not join the Southern States in seces- sion : "To go with those States-to leave the government our fathers builded- to blot out the star of Missouri from the constellation of the Union is to ruin ourselves without doing them any good."
One of the declarations was, "That while Missouri cannot leave the Union to join the Southern States, we will do all in our power to induce them to again take their places with us in the family from which they have attempted to separate themselves. For this purpose we will not only recommend a compromise with which they ought to be satisfied, but we will endeavor to procure an assembly of the whole family of States in order that in a general convention such amend- ments to the Constitution may be agreed upon as shall permanently restore har- mony to the whole nation."
William A. Hall pointed out the geographical impossibility of Missouri's seces- sion: "The geographical position of Missouri makes her essential to the North and even if the North should consent to the secession of every other slave-holding State, it will never consent to the secession of Missouri. She lies in its pathway to the West. She commands the navigation of the Missouri and all its tributaries, of the Upper Mississippi, the Illinois, the Ohio, the Tennessee, and the Cumber- land. Never will the North and the Northwest permit the navigation of these great rivers to be controlled by a powerful foreign nation, for their free navigation is essential to the prosperity of these regions. They might let the mouths of the Mississippi be held by a weak confederacy of Cotton States, but never by a power- ful people of which Missouri would form a part. Our feelings and our sympathies strongly incline us to go with the South in the event of a separation; but passion and feeling are temporary, interest is permanent. The influence of geographical position will continue so long as the face of the earth remains as it is, and the position of Missouri and the navigation of the Mississippi will be great and im- portant interests long ages after the feelings and passions which now dominate the country shall have passed away and been forgotten."
The Convention Firm Against Secession.
The great majority of the convention accepted the report of the committee. Mr. Bast offered an amendment that if the proposed compromise failed and the other border States seceded Missouri would go with them. Twenty-three voted for this proposition, among them Sterling Price, Robert A. Hatcher, Prince L. Hudgins, John T. Redd and Nathaniel W. Watkins.
John H. Moss, a Union man, wanted the convention to declare that Missouri would "never furnish men or money for the purpose of aiding the general govern- ment in any attempt to coerce a seceding State." The resolution was voted down. In supporting his resolution, Mr. Moss said: "I submit to every man of common sense in this assembly to tell me whether Missouri will ever furnish a regiment to invade a Southern State for the purpose of coercion. Never! Never ! And, gentlemen, Missouri expects this convention to say so." In conclusion Mr.
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Moss declared it was the duty of Missouri "to stand by the gallant men of South- ern Illinois, who have declared that they will never suffer a Northern army to pass the southern boundary of Illinois for the purpose of invading a Southern State." But Fort Sumter had not been fired upon at that time. In a few weeks Mr. Moss was to raise and command a Missouri regiment in the Union army. There were others whose views were to undergo sudden reversal on the subject of coercing a sovereign State. John B. Henderson opposed the Moss resolution because it was entirely unnecessary. "Does any man suppose," he asked, "that the President of the United States will so far disregard his duties under the Con- stitution, or forget the obligation of his oath, as to undertake the subjugation of the Southern States by force? Will the abstract principle of the enforcement of the laws ever be carried by the President to the extent of military subjugation? If so, this government is at an end. Will you tell me that Mr. Lincoln will send Don Quixotes into the Southern States with military force to subjugate those States? Certainly not."
Hyde said : "A profound impression was made by a speech by Colonel Broad- head, in which he declared, as though he knew whereof he spoke, that the State had 'not the power to go out of the Union' if she wanted to." Broadhead was a member of the Committee of Public Safety.
In his reminiscences, given before the Missouri Historical Society in 1901, Thomas Shackelford told some of the unpublished history of the time: "I now wish to mention an incident not heretofore published, in relation to the action of General Price. After the passage of the original resolution, a member intro- duced a resolution to the effect that if all of the border States, meaning Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland, seceded from the Union, then Missouri would take her position with her sister Southern States. Judge William A. Hall and myself voted no to this resolution, and General Price, who voted last, voted yea. That evening, after the adjournment of the convention, he took me by the arm and led me to the extreme south end of the hall in the Planters' House, and said to me: 'You were surprised at my vote to-day.' I told him I was. He said to me: 'It is now inevitable that the general government will attempt the coercion of the Southern States. War will ensue. I am a military man, a Southern man, and, if we have to fight, will do so on the part of the South.' His subsequent acts are matters of history.
"I must here mention the treatment to which I was subjected, by reason of my vote on the above resolution. On my return home from the convention to Howard county, I found printed placards, calling a meeting of the people at Fayette, to condemn Judge Hall and myself for our vote on this resolution. I attended the meeting, and asked to be heard, but was denied with hisses and shoutings. I asked the privilege of speaking on the steps of the yard to all who wished to hear me; this was denied. Just at this juncture a man with whom I was intimate, whom I knew to be raising a company to go South, came with a number of armed men, took position by my side, and said that I should have the privilege of speaking. I did so, and appealed to the Missourians present, and said: 'This resolution does not propose that Missouri shall go out of the Union on principle, but will abjectly follow the other border States. Now,' I asked, 'is there a Missourian present who would desire me to vote for such a cowardly resolution?' The brave Missourians present gave me a rousing cheer, and voted to approve my vote."
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Denounced by the Legislature.
On the 22d of March the legislature received from the convention which had so disappointed the southern rights element the resolution proposing that a con- vention of all the States be called to frame constitutional amendments in the interest of peace. How resentful the southern rights men felt was shown in the treatment of the resolution. Mr. Vest made the report of the committee to which the matter was referred. That report declared it was inexpedient to take any steps toward calling a national convention. "Going into council with our op- pressors, before we have agreed among ourselves, can never result in good. It is not the North that has been wronged but the South, and the South can alone determine what securities in the future will be sufficient."
In the discussion on the report, Mr. Vest said: "The convention has been guilty of falsehood and deceit. It says there is no cause for separation. If this be so, why call a convention? In declaring that if the other border slave States seceded Missouri would still remain within the Union, these wiseacres have perpetrated a libel upon Missouri. So help me God! if the day ever comes when Missouri shall prove so recreant to herself, so recreant to the memories of the past and to the hopes of the future, as to submit tamely to these Northern Phili- stines, I will take up my household goods and leave the State."
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