USA > Missouri > Missouri the center state, 1821-1915 > Part 38
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"If it be the purpose of Paschall and Price to make me endorse the position of the Republican and the miserable, base, and cowardly conduct of Governor Price's submission convention, then they are woefully mistaken. Lashed and driven as they have been by an indignant and outraged constituency from the position of 'unconditional union,' they are now seeking shelter under the miserable absurdity of 'armed neutrality.' About the only truth in Paschall's article is that in which he states my policy to be a 'policy.'
"This is true. I am for peace, and so is everybody except Lincoln and Frank Blair. You will do me an especial favor to inform Mr. Paschall that whenever Governor Jackson wishes his position upon matters of public interest properly stated and set before the people, he will take some direct manner of doing it, and not rely upon the colored and garbled state- ments of a set of men who, under the garb of friendship, seek to obtain his confidence only to betray him, and play the part of pumps and spies.
"I do not think Missouri should secede to-day or to-morrow, but I do not think it good policy that I should publicly so declare. I want a little time to arm the State, and I am assuming every responsibility to do it with all possible dispatch. Missouri should act in concert with Tennessee and Kentucky. They are all bound to go ont and should go together, if possible. My judgment is that North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas will all be out in a few days, and when they go, Missouri and Kentucky must follow. Let us then prepare to make our exit. We should keep our own counsels. Every man in the State is in favor of arming the State. Then let it be done. All are opposed to furnishing Mr. Lincoln with soldiers. Time will settle the balance. Nothing should be said about the time or the manner in which Missouri should go out. That she ought to go and will go at the proper time I have no doubt. She ought to have gone last winter when she could have seized the public arms and public property and defended herself. This she has failed to do, and must now wait a little while. Paschall is a base submissionist, and desires to remain with the North if every other slave State should go out.
"This he proved in indorsing all those who voted against Bast's amendment. The people of Missouri, I must think, understand my position. Paschall knows the people are twenty to one against him and hence he seeks to drag me into his aid and support. Yon should denounce his course, and expose his baseness. To frighten our people into the most slavish position he parades before them from day to day our defenseless attitude, and meanly makes it out a thousand times worse than it really is. Missouri can put into the field to-day twenty thousand men, better armed than our fathers were, who won our independence. If you can, I should be glad to see you here on Tuesday evening. I hope you will fully comprehend my whole policy. And without undertaking to shadow it forth specifically or in detail, I only
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ask that you will defend me from the false position in which Paschall and Price seem dis- posed to place me. Call on every country paper to defend me, and assure them I am fighting under the true flag. Who does not know that every sympathy of my heart is with the South?
"The legislature, in my view, should sit in secret session and touch nothing but the measures of defense. Let the measures of Mr. Sturgeon, Mr. Paschall, Mr. Taylor, & Co., in regards to their railroads all go by the board. I have not the patience or the time to talk of such matters now. Let us first preserve our liberties and attend to business affairs afterwards. Let all our energies and all our means be applied to our defense and safety.
"Yours truly, "C. F. JACKSON."
As soon as he had mustered in his four regiments, Lyon set about his plans to make still more complete the defense of the arsenal. On the 30th of April he wrote to the Secretary of War: "The State is doubtless getting ready to attack the government troops with artillery. I have sent three volunteer com- panies with Captain Totten's battery to occupy buildings outside of the arsenal, hired for this purpose, both to give them shelter and to occupy commanding positions which the secessionists had intended to occupy themselves and upon which they openly avowed that they would plant siege batteries to reduce this place, the arsenal. This exasperates them and has given rise to a singular correspondence which, when convenient, I will lay before the War Department."
Committee of Public Safety Recognized.
The very day that Lyon's report on the intentions of the State against the arsenal was mailed, April 30th, there was started from the War Department a document that conveyed sweeping authority. It was signed by Secretary Cameron and was addressed to Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, commanding department of the west. It read:
"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 hereto- fore 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, and you will, if deemed necessary for that purpose by yourself and Messrs. Oliver D. Filley, John How, James O. Broadhead, Samuel T. Glover, J. J. Witzig, and Francis P. Blair, Jr., proclaim martial law in the city of St. Louis."
The document was indorsed, "It is revolutionary times, and therefore I do not object to the irregularity of this. W. S." The initials were those of Winfield Scott. The document bore the further indorsement, "Aproved April 30, 1861. A. Lincoln." The six men named were the committee of public safety who had been acting heretofore by authority of a meeting of citizens. Now the committee received government recognition.
Blair and Lyon lost no time in acting under this authority. To the regi- ments organized in April the name of Missouri Volunteers had been given. More regiments were organized with such celerity that four of them were sworn in and armed on the 7th and 8th of May, just after Frost's brigade of state militia had gone into camp in Lindell Grove. These regiments were named the United States Reserve Corps.
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Police and Militia Movements.
On the 6th of May the police commissioners took action which was in accordance with the theory of state sovereignty held by those who sympathized with the South. They served a formal demand upon Lyon to withdraw all United States troops from all buildings and grounds outside of the arsenal. The document set out in legal phraseology that this occupancy was " in deroga- tion of the Constitution and laws of the United States." Lyon replied with an inquiry. He asked, " what provisions of the Constitution and laws were being thus violated." The police commissioners stated Missouri had " sovereign and exclusive jurisdiction over her whole territory " save only where she had dele- gated certain tracts for military purposes in the form of arsenals and barracks. The answer of the police commissioners further asserted that outside of these ceded tracts the United States had no right to occupy any of the soil of Missouri without the consent of the state authorities. Lyon refused to recognize the doctrine of state sovereignty and continued to occupy the positions he had taken for his regulars and Home Guards in anticipation of an attack upon the arsenal. The police board referred the correspondence to the state authori- ties at Jefferson City and there the matter ended.
While awaiting the return of Greene and Duke from their southern mission, Governor Jackson called a special session of the legislature to meet in Jefferson City on the 2d of May, " for the purpose of enacting such measures as might be deemed necessary for the more perfect organization and equipment of the militia and to raise the money, and provide such other means as might be required to place the State in a proper attitude of defence." At the same time the governor ordered the commanding officers of the several militia districts to go into camp with their commands on the 3d of May for the annual instruction and drill, under the militia law of 1858.
Camp Jackson Established.
Camp Jackson was established on Monday, the 6th of May. Snead said: " Though the removal of the arms from the arsenal had taken away the motive that caused the governor to order the militia into camp at St. Louis, it was determined to hold that encampment, nevertheless. The intention of holding it on the hills near the arsenal was, however, abandoned. For to camp there now would be an idle threat at best, and besides, and this was a still more potent reason, those very hills had been quietly occupied by Lyon with both infantry and artillery. Frost, therefore, selected a camp in a wooded valley, known as Lindell Grove, near the intersection of Olive street and Grand avenue, in the western part of the city, and called it Camp Jackson, in honor of the governor. And there his brigade, aggregating a little more than seven hundred men, went into encampment. Besides the officers' and men of the brigade, there were a number of young men in the camp, who had come from all quarters of the state to learn something of the art of war, and to take part in any hostile movement which Frost might undertake."
General D. M. Frost assembled the First and Second regiments on Wash- ington avenue and marched to Camp Jackson. Three troops of militia cavalry under Maj. Clark Kennerly arrived in the camp the next day. The First regi- ment, Lieut .- Col. John Knapp commanding, was composed of long established
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military companies. The majority, perhaps two-thirds of the members of this regiment and of the Engineer Corps, National Guards, were Union men. Many of them afterwards served with distinction in the Union army. The Second regiment, Col. John S. Bowen, was composed largely of the Minute Men who had been organized as militia in January from the "broom rangers " of the political campaign of 1860. The United States and the Missouri state flags floated over Camp Jackson.
The general spirit of the camp was not warlike. Many of the militia obtained daily furloughs and attended to their business down town, reporting for dress parade and sleeping in camp. Of the plans of the secessionists very few were informed. The forms of loyalty to nation as well as to state were main- tained. This concession to the strong Union element in the older military companies was necessary. Colonel Pritchard and some of the other Union militiamen had been advised by Blair and did not go to Camp Jackson. Several officers had sent in their resignations before the camp was formed.
On the evening of the 8th of May, two days after the column had marched out to Camp Jackson, the steamboat, J. C. Swon, with a Southern flag flying, arrived at the St. Louis levee. She had taken on board at Baton Rouge the cannon and the ammunition intended for the siege of the arsenal. The guns and the powder and ball were in boxes of various sizes marked "marble Tamaroa." They were addressed to "Greeley and Gale." Carlos S. Greeley and Daniel Bailey Gale were New Hampshire born. They were most pro- nounced Union men. They were in the wholesale grocery business. When the boxes of "marble " were unloaded Maj. James A. Shaler was there to receive them, and the secret service men were there to see what became of the con- signment. Major Shaler was a staff officer of Colonel Bowen's regiment of Minute Men. He removed the boxes quickly to Camp Jackson. The detectives followed and then reported to the Committee of Public Safety at Turner Hall The information was at once sent to Lyon at the arsenal. The afternoon of May 9 Lyon, in disguise, was at Camp Jackson, examining the surroundings. The boxes of "marble" were there, but unpacked. It developed long after- wards that but very few officers and men in the ranks knew of the arrival of the shipment.
Lyon's Visit to Camp Jackson.
The Committee of Public Safety, sitting long and late, knew better what was going on than did the citizen soldiers under the tents in Lindell Grove. Couzin's detectives were alert. Lyon's disguise consisted of clothes borrowed from Mrs. Alexander, the mother-in-law of Blair. Made up and veiled to pass for an elderly lady who was quite deaf, but armed with two heavy revolvers, Lyon in a carriage borrowed from Franklin A. Dick, rode through Camp Jackson. The disguise was so good that when the carriage halted in front of headquarters at the arsenal about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, Blair stepped forward to greet his relative. He was undeceived when the toe of an army boot protruded from beneath the bombazine skirt. Lyon immediately sent out messages by Witzig to the members of the Committee of Public Safety to come to him at 7 o'clock in the evening. He had made up his mind what to do. He wanted the committee to approve his plan. He proposed to take
GEN. NATHANIEL LYON
Who captured Camp Jackson and fell at Wilson's Creek
JAMES O. BROADHEAD
Member committee of public safety, 1861
OLIVER D. FILLEY Chairman committee of public safety, 1861
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Camp Jackson. Late into the night the members of the committee talked. They were divided. There was no question of the gravity of the situation. The guns and ammunition from the government arsenal at Baton Rouge were in Camp Jackson. But the United States flag floated over Camp Jackson. There had been no "overt act"-how those two words did roll from the tongue in 1861! The lawyers on the committee favored a legal process. They proposed to Lyon to get out a writ of replevin for government property and have it served on General Frost as the first step. That was law, they said, and should be the first step. But Lyon said it was not war. Perhaps, in his mind he saw those big guns on the high grounds south of him and west of him. He insisted that the bringing of the guns and the ammunition from Baton Rouge and the removal of them to Camp Jackson were sufficient provocation. Late that night the committee voted. Four approved Lyon's proposition to take Camp Jackson. Two opposed and urged the legal process be tried first. One of the two was Samuel T. Glover. He insisted that the writ of replevin be sworn out and that the United States marshal march at the head of the troops, carrying the writ to serve as the first step. He went so far as to prepare the writ and place it in the hands of United States Marshal Rawlings. But when the marshal went to the arsenal next morning he was denied admit- tance. Another early morning visitor was not only refused admission, but the, written note he carried was not accepted by Lyon. He was Colonel Bowen, commander of the Second regiment, the Minute Men. Colonel Bowen bore a letter from Frost to Lyon in which the commander of Camp Jackson denied that he or any of his command had any hostile intention toward the United States government. He referred to the reports that Camp Jackson was to be attacked, and expressed the hope that they were unfounded. He concluded: "I trust that after this explicit statement we may be able by fully understanding each other to keep far from our borders the misfortunes which so unfortunately afflict our common country."
Bowen carried the letter back to Camp Jackson. He was a West Pointer, a Georgian. He had resigned from the regular army and had established himself in St. Louis as an architect. There was no question as to his sympathies. He believed in the right of secession. He was undoubtedly in sympathy with Governor Jackson's purpose to get the arsenal. Frost, also, was a West Pointer. His service in the army had been marked by special bravery. He was a New Yorker by birth and of one of the old families of that State. Strangest of all to tell, he had graduated at West Point in the same class with Lyon. Other classmates of Frost were Grant, McClellan, Rosecrans and Franklin, all to become famous Union generals. In the same class was Beauregard of Louisiana. Frost carried the class honors in such company.
The Surrender and the Tragedy.
Bowen reported to Frost he was certain from what he had seen Lyon was about to move on Camp Jackson. There was a hurried consultation. These were brave men, but they had been trained in military precedents. They had 750 men in camp, some of them unarmed. Bowen had not been able to get guns for all of his Minute Men. Resistance was folly. So the leaders, who had studied in the same school that Lyon had, waited while the battalion of regulars
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and six regiments of the ten recruited by the Committee of Public Safety, marched up from the arsenal. Blair took Laclede avenue; Boernstein, Pine street ; Schuttner, Market street; Sigel, Olive street; Gratz Brown, Morgan street ; McNeil, Clark avenue. In this order the regiments moved westward toward Grand avenue; thousands of men, women and children filling the side- walks and many following. The men who were marching were St. Louisans. They were going out to kill or to take prisoners several hundred of their fellow citizens. Lyon went through all of the forms of war. He posted his artillery. He disposed of his troops so that the camp was surrounded. He demanded surrender. He had been a captain in the regular army when he came to St. Louis. He was in command of the army raised by a Committee of Public Safety, but was still without the commission suitable to the rank. He was calling for the surrender of his former classmate who had stood above him in the class at West Point and who was a brigadier general of state troops. When his force was in position Lyon sent his demand in writing. His note set forth that Frost was in communication with the Confederacy, and had received war material therefrom which was the property of the United States. He charged Frost with " having in direct view hostilities to the general government and coopera- tion with its enemies." Thirty minutes was given for the answer. Frost replied, protesting against the action of Lyon as unconstitutional. He added that being wholly unprepared to defend his command from the unwarranted attack he was forced to comply.
Lyon offered immediate parole to all who would take the oath of allegiance. Several accepted the terms. The others refused, stating that they had already taken the oath of allegiance, and to repeat it would be an admission that they had been enemies. The regulars gathered up the arms, including the " marble." The state militia were marched out and formed in line as prisoners, with armed guards on both sides of them. A long wait occurred. The crowds which had followed the regiments from down town pressed closer. They became noisy. They guyed the soldiers. They grew bolder. Insults were shouted. Clods were thrown. A pistol was fired. Then came war of the character which Sherman described -" War is Hell!" Ninety men, women and children were shot. Twenty-eight of them died on the streets or in the hospitals. A baby in its mother's arms was killed. The column moved on slowly, armed men and prisoners, to the center of the city and then southward to the arsenal. The prisoners were paroled. The baptism of blood, which the Committee of Public Safety for four months stayed, had come at last.
From the steps of the Planters Hotel, Uriel Wright, who had fought seces- sion in the convention, Virginian born though he was, addressed a great throng of excited men. He denounced "the Camp Jackson outrage." He said: "If Unionism means such atrocious deeds as have been witnessed in St. Louis, I am no longer a Union man." Mobs formed and wildly cheered the violent speeches made by secession orators. One body of men started down Locust street to destroy the Missouri Democrat office. Mayor Daniel Gilchrist Taylor, who had succeeded Oliver D. Filley as the city's executive a few weeks before, met the rioters and warned them to go back. Behind the mayor was a line of policemen under Chief McDonough, blocking the entire street. The police were armed with guns. Their instructions were to use the bayonet and then fire. In
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the Democrat office the shooting stick had been laid aside for the shooting iron. The force was armed. The building was prepared for desperate resistance. This coming of a mob was the fulfillment of many threats from those who sympathized with secession movement. For this night the newspaper force had been waiting weeks. The mob listened to the words of the mayor and went back to the Planters to be satisfied with oratory.
The official report of what was taken at Camp Jackson showed preparation for war. When Lyon had hauled the spoils to the arsenal he had captured, according to the inventory :
"Three 32-pounders.
"Three mortar beds.
"A large quantity of balls and bombs in ale barrels.
"Artillery pieces in boxes of heavy plank, the boxes marked 'marble, Tamaroa, care Greeley and Gale.'
"Six brass field pieces.
"Twenty-five kegs of powder.
"Ninety-six 10-inch bombshells.
"Three hundred six-inch bombshells.
"Six brass mortars, six inches in diameter.
"One iron mortar, 10 inches.
"Three iron cannon, six inches, five boxes of canister shot."
Besides the rifles taken from the brigade, there were " several boxes of new muskets and a very large number of musket stocks and musket barrels, together with lots of bayonets, bayonet scabbards, etc."
But for that long wait in the streets after Frost had surrendered, the blood- shed at Camp Jackson might have been avoided. And that wait was in considerable part occasioned by an accident to General Lyon. In dismounting, Lyon was kicked in the stomach by the horse of one of his aides. He was temporarily disabled. His condition was carefully concealed at the time by his staff and the movement of the troops back to the arsenal was delayed. It was another case of important history turning on a trivial event.
More Bloodshed and a Panic.
Harney returned to St. Louis on the 11th. He was again in active com- mand. That day a regiment of Home Guards left the arsenal and marched up town. It was composed largely of Germans whose homes were in North St. Louis, or Bremen, as it was called. Some of the secessionists were seeking revenge for the bloody scene of Camp Jackson, the day before. A group gathered at Fifth and Walnut streets, where stood at that time a Presbyterian church, with large columns. As the regiment passed the church there came from the protection of the columns jeers and hisses and then stones. A pistol was fired. A soldier fell dead. Other shots were fired. Some of the soldiers who had already passed the church turned and fired back. They were raw recruits. They had been given the guns only a short time. They aimed badly. They killed three of their own men and two unarmed citizens, also wounding several persons who were standing on the sidewalk.
The bloodshed of Saturday intensified the excitement of Friday. With Sunday came the worst panic in the history of St. Louis. Everywhere in the
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central section spread the rumors that the German Home Guards were going to sack the city. Shutters were closed. Doors were bolted. Many of the churches did not open for Sunday school and service. Citizens called upon General Harney and besought him to disarm the Germans. The general said he could not do that. The report got out that Harney had said he " had no control over the Home Guards." He meant to inform the panic stricken that these regiments were United States volunteers, accepted under the call of the President, that the guns had been issued to them in due form and that he could not take them away. But the most alarming construction was put upon the general's words. Thousands of citizens hastily gathered the most necessary articles and went out to the suburbs, west of the city. Others crossed the river to Illinois towns. Not few took boats and went up or down the river. All day Sunday the exodus went on. The panic fed upon itself. Those who did not think of leaving in the morning departed in the afternoon. Harney issued a proclamation and posted copies about the city, declaring there was no danger. He sent detachments of troops to several centers to give assurance of protec- tion. When the people saw these soldiers moving about and on guard they were certain that the Germans were coming to attack the central part of the city. Curiously the panic spread to the northern and southern parts of the city, and in those sections it took the form of fear that the Minute Men and their friends were going to raid and destroy the homes of the Germans.
One regiment of Home Guards was composed principally of Americans and Irishmen who lived in the central part of the city. These men in numbers assembled after dark Sunday night and formed a skirmish line from east to west across the central part of the city. They moved slowly and cautiously southward to determine for themselves what there might be in the reports that the Germans were assembling to attack the central section. Some distance south of Chouteau avenue these American and Irish Home Guards came within hailing of another long line of Home Guards facing north. The Germans had heard that the Americans were coming down to burn their homes and they were ready to protect their families. As soon as the German Home Guards and the American and Irish Home Guards recognized each other and realized that each had been alarmed by false reports about the other there was some loud laughing and healthy cheering, after which the lines were disbanded and everybody went home to bed. Monday the panic was a joke, a rather serious one for it was the strangest, most strenuous moving day an American city had ever known. St. Louisans with bag and baggage moved home.
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