Produced by Cornell University, Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci
and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Transcriber's note: All footnotes moved to end of document.]
THE
CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:
DEVOTED TO
LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.
* * * * *
VOL. I.--APRIL, 1862.--No. IV.
* * * * *
THE WAR BETWEEN FREEDOM AND SLAVERY IN MISSOURI.
It is admitted that no man can write the history of his own times with
such fullness and impartiality as shall entitle his record to the
unquestioning credence and acceptance of posterity. Men are necessarily
actors in the scenes amid which they live. If not personally taking an
active part in the conduct of public affairs, they have friends who are,
and in whose success or failure their own welfare is in some way bound
up. The bias which interest always gives will necessarily attach to
their judgment of current events, and the leading actors by whom these
events are controlled. Cotemporaneous history, for this reason, will
always be found partisan history--not entitled to, and, if intelligently
and honestly written, not exacting, the implicit faith of those who
shall come after; but simply establishing that certain classes of
people, of whom the writer was one, acted under the conviction that they
owed certain duties to themselves and their country. It will be for the
future compiler of the world's history, who shall see the end of present
struggles, to determine the justice of the causes of controversy, and
the wisdom and honesty of the parties that acted adversely. To such
after judgment, with a full knowledge of present reproach as a partisan,
the writer of this article commends the brief sketch he will present of
the beginning and military treatment of the great Rebellion in the State
of Missouri. He will not attempt to make an episode of any part of this
history, because of the supposed vigor or brilliancy of the martial
deeds occurring in the time. Least of all would he take the 'Hundred
Days,' which another pen has chosen for special distinction, as
representing the period of heroism in that war-trampled State. Any
'hundred days' of the rebellion in Missouri have had their corresponding
_nights_; and no one can be bold enough yet to say that the day of
permanent triumph has dawned. Humiliation has alternated with success so
far; and the most stunning defeats of the war in the West marked the
beginning and the close of the hundred days named for honor. This fact
should teach modesty and caution. For while justice to men requires us
to admit that the greatest abilities do not always command success,
devotion to principle forbids that a noble cause should be obscured to
become the mere background of a scene in which an actor and popular idol
is the chief figure. It is with a consciousness of such partialities as
are common to men, but with an honest purpose, so far as the writer is
able, to subordinate men to principles, that this review of the origin
and chief incidents of the rebellion in Missouri is begun.
The close connection of the State of Missouri with the slavery agitation
that has now ripened into a rebellion against the government of the
United States, is a singular historical fact. The admission of the State
into the Union was the occasion of vitalizing the question of slavery
extension and fixing it as a permanent element in the politics of the
country. It has continued to be the theatre on which the most important
conflicts growing out of slavery extension have been decided. It will be
the first, in the hope and belief of millions, to throw off the fetters
of an obsolete institution, so long cramping its social and political
advancement, and to set an example to its sister slave-holding States of
the superior strength, beauty, and glory of Freedom.
The pro-slavery doctrines of John C. Calhoun, after having pervaded the
democracy of all the other slave-holding States, and obtained complete
possession of the national executive, legislative and judicial
departments, finally, in 1844, appeared also in the State of Missouri.
But it was in so minute and subtle a form as not to seem a sensible
heresy. Thomas H. Benton, the illustrious senator of the Jackson era,
was then, as he had been for twenty-four years, the political autocrat
of Missouri. He had long been convinced of the latent treason of the
Calhoun school of politicians. He was able to combat the schemes of the
Southern oligarchy composing and controlling the Cabinet of President
Polk; unsuccessfully, it is true, yet with but slight diminution of his
popularity at home. Nevertheless, the seeds of disunion had been borne
to his State; they had taken root; and, like all evil in life, they
proved self-perpetuating and ineradicable. In 1849 the Mexican war,
begun in the interest of the disunionists, had been closed. A vast
accession of territory had accrued to the Union. It was the plan and
purpose of the disunion party to appropriate and occupy this territory;
to organize it in their interests; and, finally, to admit it into the
Union as States, to add to their political power, and prepare for that
struggle between the principle of freedom and the principle of slavery
in the government, which Mr. Calhoun had taught was inevitable. But the
hostility of Benton in the Senate was dreaded by the Southern leaders
thus early conspiring against the integrity of the Union. The Missouri
senator seemed, of all cotemporaneous statesmen, to be the only one that
fully comprehended the incipient treason. His earnest opposition assumed
at times the phases of _monomania_. He sought to crush it in the egg. He
lifted his warning voice on all occasions. He inveighed bitterly against
the 'Nullifiers,' as he invariably characterized the Calhoun
politicians, declaring that their purpose was to destroy the Union. It
became necessary, therefore, before attempting to dispose of the
territories acquired from Mexico, to silence Benton, or remove him from
the Senate. Accordingly, when the legislature of Missouri met in 1849, a
series of resolutions was introduced, declaring that all territory
derived by the United States, in the treaty with Mexico, should be open
to settlement by the citizens of all the States in common; that the
question of allowing or prohibiting slavery in any territory could only
be decided by the people resident in the territory, and then only when
they came to organize themselves into a State government; and, lastly,
that if the general government should attempt to establish a rule other
than this for the settlement of the territories, the State of Missouri
would stand pledged to her sister Southern States to co-operate in
whatever measures of resistance or redress _they_ might deem necessary.
The resolutions distinctly abdicated all right of judgment on the part
of Missouri, and committed the State to a blind support of Southern
'Nullification' in a possible contingency. They were in flagrant
opposition to the life-long principles and daily vehement utterances of
Benton--as they were intended to be. Nevertheless, they were adopted;
and the senators of Missouri were instructed to conform their public
action to them. These resolutions were introduced by one Claiborne F.
Jackson, a member of the House of Representatives from the County of
Howard, one of the most democratic and largest slave-holding counties in
the State. The resolutions took the name of their mover, and are known
in the political history of Missouri as the 'Jackson resolutions.' And
Claiborne F. Jackson, who thus took the initiative in foisting treason
upon the statute-books of Missouri, is, to-day, by curious coincidence,
the official head of that State nominally in open revolt. But Jackson,
it was early ascertained, was not entitled to the doubtful honor of the
paternity of these resolutions. They had been matured in a private
chamber of the Capitol at Jefferson City, by two or three conspirators,
who received, it was asserted by Benton, and finally came to be
believed, the first draft of the resolutions from Washington, where the
disunion cabal, armed with federal power, had its headquarters.
Thus the bolt was launched at the Missouri senator, who, from his
prestige of Jacksonism, his robust patriotism, his indomitable will, and
his great abilities, was regarded as the most formidable if not the only
enemy standing in the way of meditated treason. It was not doubted that
the blow would be fatal. Benton was in one sense the father of the
doctrine of legislative instructions. In his persistent and famous
efforts to 'expunge' the resolutions of censure on Gen. Jackson that had
been placed in the Senate journal, Benton had found it necessary to
revolutionize the sentiments or change the composition of the Senate.
Whigs were representing democratic States, and Democrats refused to vote
for a resolution expunging any part of the record of the Senate's
proceedings. To meet and overcome this resistance, Benton introduced the
dogma that a senator was bound to obey the instructions of the
legislature of his State. He succeeded, by his great influence in his
party, and by the aid of the democratic administration, in having the
dogma adopted, and it became an accepted rule in the democratic party.
Resolutions were now invoked and obtained from State legislatures
instructing their senators to vote for the 'Expunging Resolutions,' or
resign. Some obeyed; some resigned. Benton carried his point; but it was
at the sacrifice of the spirit of that part of the Constitution which
gave to United States senators a term of six years, for the purpose of
protecting the Senate from frequent fluctuations of popular feeling, and
securing steadiness in legislation. Benton was the apostle of this
unwise and destructive innovation upon the constitutional tenure of
senators. He was doomed to be a conspicuous victim of his own error.
When the 'Jackson resolutions' were passed by the legislature of
Missouri, instructing Benton to endorse measures that led to
nullification and disunion, he saw the dilemma in which he was placed,
and did the best he could to extricate himself. He presented the
resolutions from his seat in the Senate; denounced their treasonable
character, and declared his purpose to appeal from the legislature to
the people of Missouri.
On the adjournment of Congress, Benton returned to Missouri and
commenced a canvass in vindication of his own cause, and in opposition
to the democratic majority of the legislature that passed the Jackson
resolutions, which has had few if any parallels in the history of the
government for heat and bitterness. The senator did not return to argue
and convert, but to fulminate and destroy. He appointed times and places
for public speaking in the most populous counties of the State, and
where the opposition to him had grown boldest. He allowed no 'division
of time' to opponents wishing to controvert the positions assumed in his
speeches. On the contrary, he treated every interruption, whether for
inquiry or retort, on the part of any one opposed to him, as an insult,
and proceeded to pour upon the head of the offender a torrent of
denunciation and abuse, unmeasured and appalling. The extraordinary
course adopted by Benton in urging his 'appeal,' excited astonishment
and indignation among the democratic partisans that had, in many cases,
thoughtlessly become arrayed against him.[A] They might have yielded to
expostulation; they were stung to resentment by unsparing vilification.
The rumor of Benton's manner preceded him through the State, after the
first signal manifestations of his ruthless spirit; and he was warned
not to appear at some of the appointments he had made, else his life
would pay the forfeit of his personal assaults. These threats only made
the Missouri lion more fierce and untamable. He filled all his
appointments, bearing everywhere the same front, often surrounded by
enraged enemies armed and thirsting for his blood, but ever denunciatory
and defiant, and returned to St. Louis, still boiling with inexhaustible
choler, to await the judgment of the State upon his appeal. He failed.
The pro-slavery sentiment of the people had been too thoroughly evoked
in the controversy, and too many valuable party leaders had been
needlessly driven from his support by unsparing invective. An artful and
apparently honest appeal to the right of legislative instructions,--an
enlargement of popular rights which Benton himself had conferred upon
them,--and--the unfailing weapon of Southern demagogues against their
opponents--the charge that Benton had joined the 'Abolitionists,' and
was seeking to betray 'the rights of the South,' worked the overthrow of
the hitherto invincible senator. The Whigs of Missouri, though agreeing
mainly with Benton in the principles involved in this contest, had
received nothing at his hands, throughout his long career, but defeat
and total exclusion from all offices and honors, State and National.
This class of politicians were too glad of the prospective division of
his party and the downfall of his power, to be willing to re-assert
their principles through a support of Benton. The loyal Union sentiments
of the State in this way failed to be united, and a majority was elected
to the legislature opposed to Benton. He was defeated of a re-election
to the Senate by Henry S. Geyer, a pro-slavery Whig, and supporter of
the Jackson resolutions, after having filled a seat in that august body
for a longer time consecutively than any other senator ever did. Thus
was removed from the halls of Congress the most sagacious and formidable
enemy that the disunion propagandists ever encountered. Their career in
Congress and in the control of the federal government was thenceforth
unchecked. The cords of loyalty in Missouri were snapped in Benton's
fall, and that State swung off into the strongly-sweeping current of
secessionism. The city of St. Louis remained firm a while, and returned
Benton twice to the House; but his energies were exhausted now in
defensive war; and the truculent and triumphant slave power dominating,
the State at last succeeded, through the coercion of commercial
interests, in defeating him even in the citadel of loyalty. He tried
once more to breast the tide that had borne down his fortunes. He became
a candidate for governor in 1856; but, though he disclaimed anti-slavery
sentiments, and supported James Buchanan for President against Fremont,
his son-in-law, he was defeated by Trusten Polk, who soon passed from
the gubernatorial chair to Benton's seat in the United States Senate,
from which he was, in course of time, to be expelled. Benton retired to
private life, only to labor more assiduously in compiling historical
evidences against the fast ripening treason of the times.
The Missouri senator was no longer in the way of the Southern oligarchs.
A shaft feathered by his own hands--the doctrine of instructions--had
slain him.
But yet another obstacle remained. The Missouri Compromise lifted a
barrier to the expansion of the Calhoun idea of free government, having
African slavery for its corner-stone. This obstacle was to be removed.
Missouri furnished the prompter and agent of that wrong in David E.
Atchison, for many years Benton's colleague in the Senate. Atchison was
a man of only moderate talents, of dogged purpose, willful, wholly
unscrupulous in the employment of the influences of his position, and
devoid of all the attributes and qualifications of statesmanship. He was
a fit representative of the pro-slavery fanaticism of his State; had
lived near the Kansas line; had looked upon and coveted the fair lands
of that free territory, and resolved that they should be the home and
appanage of slavery. It is now a part of admitted history, that this
dull but determined Missouri senator approached Judge Douglas, then
chairman of the Committee on Territories, and, by some incomprehensible
influence, induced that distinguished senator to commit the flagrant and
terrible blunder of reporting the Kansas-Nebraska bill, with a clause
repealing the Missouri Compromise, and thus throwing open Kansas to the
occupation of slavery. That error was grievously atoned for in the
subsequent hard fate of Judge Douglas, who was cast off and destroyed by
the cruel men he had served. Among the humiliations that preceded the
close of this political tragedy, none could have been more pungent to
Judge Douglas than the fact that Atchison, in a drunken harangue from
the tail of a cart in Western Missouri, surrounded by a mob of 'border
ruffians' rallying for fresh wrongs upon the free settlers of Kansas,
recited, in coarse glee and brutal triumph, the incidents of his
interview with the senator of Illinois, when, with mixed cajolery and
threats, he partly tempted, partly drove him to his ruin. The
Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed. What part Atchison took, what part
Missouri took, under the direction of the pro-slavery leaders that
filled every department of the State government, the 'border-ruffian'
forays, the pillage of the government arsenal at Liberty, the embargo of
the Missouri river, and the robbing and mobbing of peaceful emigrants
from the free States, the violence at the polls, and the fraudulent
voting that corrupted all the franchises of that afflicted territory, do
sufficiently attest. It is not needed to rehearse any of this painful
and well-known history.
The Territory of Kansas was saved to its prescriptive freedom. The
slavery propagandists sullenly withdrew and gave up the contest. The
last days of the dynasty that had meditated the conquest of the
continent to slave-holding government were evidently at hand. The result
of the struggle in Kansas had reversed the relation of the contesting
powers. The oligarchs, who had always before been aggressive, and
intended to subordinate the Union to slavery, or destroy it, found
themselves suddenly thrown on the defensive; and, with the quick
intelligence of a property interest, and the keen jealousy of class and
caste which their slave-holding had implanted, they saw that they were
engaged in an unequal struggle, that their sceptre was broken, and that,
if they continued to rule, it would have to be over the homogeneous half
of a dismembered Union. From this moment a severance of the Slave
States from the Free was resolved on, and every agency that could
operate on governments, State and National, was set to work. It was not
by accident that Virginia had procured the nomination of the facile
Buchanan for President in the Baltimore Convention of 1856; it was not
by accident that Floyd was made Secretary of War, or that, many months
before any outbreak of rebellion, this arch traitor had well-nigh
stripped the Northern arsenals of arms, and placed them where they would
be 'handy' for insurgents to seize. It was not by accident that John C.
Breckenridge headed the factionists that willfully divided and defeated
the National Democracy, that perchance could have elected Judge Douglas
President; nor was it by accident that Beriah Magoffin, a vain, weak
man, the creature, adjunct, and echo of Breckenridge, filled the office
of governor of Kentucky, nominated thereto by Breckenridge's personal
intercession. And lastly, to return to the special theatre of this
sketch, it was not by accident that Claiborne F. Jackson, the original
mover for Benton's destruction, was at this remarkable juncture found
occupying the governor's chair, with Thomas C. Reynolds for his
lieutenant governor, a native of South Carolina, an acknowledged
missionary of the nullification faith to a State that required to be
corrupted, and that he had, during his residence, zealously endeavored
to corrupt.
We have now reached the turning point in the history of Missouri. The
State is about to be plunged into the whirlpool of civil war.
Undisguised disunionists are in complete possession of the State
government, and the population is supposed to be ripe for revolt. Only
one spot in it, and that the city of St. Louis, is regarded as having
the slightest sympathy with the political sentiments of the Free States
of the Union. The State is surely counted for the 'South' in the
division that impends, for where is the heart in St. Louis bold enough,
or the hand strong enough, to resist the swelling tide of pro-slavery
fanaticism that was about to engulf the State? Years ago, when it was
but a ripple on the surface, it had overborne Benton, with all his fame
of thirty years' growth. What leader of slighter mold and lesser fame
could now resist the coming shock? In tracing the origin and growth of
rebellion in Missouri, it is interesting to gather up all the threads
that link the present with the past. It will preserve the unity of the
plot, and give effect to the last acts of the drama.
The first visible seam or cleft in the National Democratic party
occurred during the administration of President Polk, in the years
1844-48. Calhoun appeared as Polk's Secretary of State. Thomas Ritchie
was transferred from Richmond, Va., to Washington, to edit the
government organ, in place of Francis P. Blair, Sr. The Jackson _regime_
of unconditional and uncompromising devotion to the 'Federal Union' was
displaced, and the dubious doctrine of 'States' Rights' was formally
inaugurated as the chart by which in future the national government was
to be administered. But the Jackson element was not reconciled to this
radical change in the structure and purpose of the National Democratic
organization; and, although party lines were so tensely drawn that to go
against 'the Administration' was political treason, and secured
irrevocable banishment from power, the close of Polk's administration
found many old Democrats of the Jackson era ready for the sacrifice. The
firm resolve of these men was manifested when, after the nomination of
Gen. Cass, in 1848, in the usual form, at Baltimore, by the Democratic
National Convention, they assembled at Buffalo and presented a counter
ticket, headed by the name of Martin Van Buren, who had been thrust
aside four years previously by the Southern oligarchs to make way for
James K. Polk. The entire artillery of the Democratic party opened on
the Buffalo schismatics. They were stigmatized by such opprobrious
nicknames and epithets as 'Barnburners, 'Free Soilers,'
'Abolitionists,' and instantly and forever ex-communicated from the
Democratic party. In Missouri alone, of all the Slave States, was any
stand made in behalf of the Buffalo ticket. Benton's sympathies had been
with Van Buren, his old friend of the Jackson times; and Francis P.
Blair, Sr., of the _Globe_, had two sons, Montgomery Blair and Francis
P. Blair, Jr., resident in St. Louis. These two, with about a hundred
other young men of equal enthusiasm, organized themselves together,
accepted the 'Buffalo platform' as their future rule of faith, issued an
address to the people of Missouri, openly espousing and advocating free
soil-principles; and, by subscription among themselves, published a
campaign paper, styled the _Barnburner_, during the canvass. The result
at the polls was signal only for its insignificance; and the authors of
the movement hardly had credit for a respectable escapade. But the event
has proved that neither ridicule nor raillery, nor, in later years,
persecutions and the intolerable pressure of federal power, could turn
back the revolution thus feebly begun. In that campaign issue of the
_Barnburner_ were sown the seeds of what became, in later nomenclature,
the Free Democracy, and, later still, the 'Republican' party of
Missouri. The German population of St. Louis sympathized from the start
with the free principles enunciated. Frank Blair, Jr., became from that
year their political leader; right honestly did he earn the position;
and right well, even his political foes have always admitted, did he
maintain it.
Frank Blair was a disciple of Benton; yet, as is often the case, the
pupil soon learned to go far ahead of his teacher. In 1852, there was a
union of the Free Democrats and National Democrats of Missouri, in
support of Franklin Pierce. But the entire abandonment of Pierce's
administration to the rule of the Southern oligarchs sundered the
incongruous elements in Missouri forever. In 1856 Benton was found
supporting James Buchanan for President; but Blair declined to follow
his ancient leader in that direction. He organized the free-soil element
in St. Louis to oppose the Buchanan electoral ticket. An electoral
ticket in the State at large, for John C. Fremont, was neither possible
nor advisable. In some districts no man would dare be a candidate on
that side; in others, the full free-soil vote, from the utter
hopelessness of success, would not be polled; and thus the cause would
be made to appear weaker than it deserved. To meet the emergency, and
yet bear witness to principle, the free-soil vote was cast for the
Fillmore electoral ticket, 'under protest,' as it was called, the name
of 'John C. Fremont' being printed in large letters at the head of every
free-soil ballot cast. By this means the Buchanan electors were beaten
fifteen hundred votes in St. Louis City and County, where, by a union as
Benton proposed, they would have had three thousand majority. But the
'free-soilers' failed to defeat Buchanan in the State.
Nothing discouraged by this result, Blair resumed the work of organizing
for the future. The Fillmore party gave no thanks to the free-soilers
for their aid in the presidential election, nor did the latter ask any.
They had simply taken the choice of evils; and now, renouncing all
alliances, Blair became the champion and leader of a self-existing,
self-reliant State party, that should accomplish emancipation in
Missouri. He again established a newspaper to inculcate free principles
in the State. By untiring effort, he revived and recruited his party. He
gave it platforms, planned its campaigns, contested every election in
St. Louis, whether for municipal officers, for State legislature, or for
Congress; and always fought his battles on the most advanced ground
assumed by the growing free-soil party of the Union. The powerful and
rapidly-increasing German population of St. Louis responded nobly to his
zeal and skillful leadership. Soon a victory was gained; and St. Louis
declared for freedom, amid acclamations that reverberated throughout the
States that extended from the Ohio to the lakes, and from the
Mississippi to the Atlantic. But, having wrenched victory from a people
so intolerant as the pro-slavery population of Missouri, it was not to
be expected that he would retain it easily. He was set upon more
fiercely than ever. The loss of the city of St. Louis was considered a
disgrace to the State; and the most desperate personal malignity was
added to the resentment of pro-slavery wrath in the future election
contests in that city. The corrupting appliances of federal power were
at last invoked, under Buchanan's administration; and Blair was for the
moment overwhelmed by fraud, and thrown out of Congress. But, with a
resolution from which even his friends would have dissuaded him, and
with a persistency and confidence that were a marvel to friend and foe,
he contested his seat before Congress, and won it. And this verdict was
soon ratified by his brave and faithful constituency at the polls. Such
was the Republican party, such their leader in St. Louis, when the black
day of disunion came. And in their hands lay the destiny of the State.
As soon as the presidential election was decided, and the choice of
Abraham Lincoln was known, the disunionists in Missouri commenced their
work. Thomas C. Reynolds, the lieutenant-governor, made a visit to
Washington, and extended it to Virginia, counseling with the traitors,
and agreeing upon the time and manner of joining Missouri in the revolt.
The legislature of Missouri met in the latter part of December, about
two weeks after the secession of South Carolina. A bill was at once
introduced, calling a State convention, and passed. The message of
Claiborne F. Jackson, the governor, had been strongly in favor of
secession from the Union. The Missouri _Republican_, the leading
newspaper of the State, whose advocacy had elected the traitor,
declared, on the last day of the year, that unless guaranties in defence
of slavery were immediately given by the North, Missouri should secede
from the Union. And so the secession feeling gathered boldness and
volume.
Candidates for the State convention came to be nominated in St. Louis,
and two parties were at once arrayed--the unconditional Union party, and
the qualified Unionists, who wished new compromises. Frank Blair was one
of the leaders of the former, and he was joined by all the true men of
the old parties. But the secessionists--they might as well be so called,
for all their actions tended to weaken and discredit the
Union--nominated an able ticket. The latter party were soon conscious of
defeat, and began to hint mysteriously at a power stronger than the
ballot-box, that would be invoked in defence of 'Southern rights.' To
many, indeed to most persons, this seemed an idle threat. Not so to
Frank Blair. He had imbibed from Benton the invincible faith of the
latter in the settled purpose of the 'nullifiers' to subvert and destroy
the government. And in a private caucus of the leaders of the Union
party, on an ever-memorable evening in the month of January, he startled
the company by the proposition that the time had come when the friends
of the government must arm in its defence. With a deference to his
judgment and sagacity that had become habitual, the Unionists yielded
their consent, and soon the enrolment of companies began; nightly drills
with arms took place in nearly all the wards of the city; and by the
time of election day some thousands of citizen soldiers, mostly Germans,
could have been gathered, with arms in their hands, with the quickness
of fire signals at night, at any point in the city. The secessionists
had preceded this armed movement of the Union men by the organization of
a body known as 'minute-men.' But the promptness and superior skill that
characterized Frank Blair's movement subverted the secession scheme; and
it was first repudiated, and then its existence denied. The day of
election came, and passed peacefully. The unconditional Union ticket was
elected by a sweeping majority of five thousand votes. The result
throughout the State was not less decisive and surprising. Of the entire
number of delegates composing the convention, not one was chosen who had
dared to express secession sentiments before the people; and the
aggregate majority of the Union candidates in the State amounted to
about eighty thousand. The shock of this defeat for the moment paralyzed
the conspirators; but their evil inspirations soon put them to work
again. Their organs in Missouri assumed an unfriendly tone towards the
convention, which was to meet in Jefferson City. The legislature that
had called the convention remained in session in the same place, but
made no fit preparations for the assembling of the convention, or for
the accommodation and pay of the members. The debate in the legislature
on the bill for appropriations for these purposes was insulting to the
convention, the more ill-tempered and ill-bred secession members
intimating that such a body of 'submissionists' were unworthy to
represent Missouri, and undeserving of any pay. The manifest ill feeling
between the two bodies--the legislature elected eighteen months
previously, and without popular reference to the question of secession,
and the convention chosen fresh from the people, to decide on the course
of the State--soon indicated the infelicity of the two remaining in
session at the same time and in the same place. Accordingly, within a
few days after the organization of the convention, it adjourned its
session to the city of St. Louis. It did not meet a cordial reception
there. So insolent had the secession spirit already grown, that on the
day of the assembling of the convention in that city, the members were
insulted by taunts in the streets and by the ostentatious floating of
the rebel flag from the Democratic head-quarters, hard by the building
in which they assembled.
Being left in the undisputed occupancy of the seat of government, the
governor, lieutenant-governor, and legislature gave themselves up to the
enactment of flagrant and undisguised measures of hostility to the
federal government. Commissioners from States that had renounced the
Constitution, and withdrawn, as they claimed, from the Union, arrived at
Jefferson City as apostles of treason. They were received as
distinguished and honorable ambassadors. A joint session of the
legislature was called to hear their communications. The
lieutenant-governor, Reynolds, being the presiding officer of the joint
session, required that the members should rise when these traitors
entered, and receive them standing and uncovered. The commissioners were
allowed to harangue the representatives of Missouri, by the hour, in
unmeasured abuse of the federal government, in open rejoicings over its
supposed dissolution, and in urgent appeals to the people of Missouri to
join the rebel States in their consummated treason. Noisy demonstrations
of applause greeted these commissioners; and legislators, and the
governor himself, in a public speech in front of the executive mansion,
pledged them that Missouri would shortly be found ranged on the side of
seceded States. The treason of the governor and legislature did not stop
with these manifestations. They proceeded to acts of legislation,
preparatory to the employment of force, after the manner of their
'Southern bretheren.' First, it was necessary to get control of the city
of St. Louis. The Republican party held the government of the city,
mayor, council, and police force--a formidable Union organization. The
legislature passed a bill repealing that part of the city charter that,
gave to the mayor the appointment of the police, and constituting a
board of police commissioners, to be appointed by the governor, who
should exercise that power. He named men that suited his purposes. The
Union police were discharged, and their places filled by secessionists.
Next, the State militia was to be organized in the interests of
rebellion, and a law was passed to accomplish that end. The State was
set off into divisions; military camps were to be established in each;
all able-bodied men between the ages of eighteen and fifty were liable
to be called into camp and drilled a given number of days in the year;
and, when summoned to duty, instead of taking the usual oath to support
the Constitution of the United States, they were required only to be
sworn 'to obey the orders of the governor of the State of Missouri.'
These camps were styled camps of instruction. One of them was
established at St. Louis, within the corporate limits of the city, about
two miles west of the court-house, on a commanding eminence.
Thus the lines began to be drawn closely around the Unionists of St.
Louis. The State convention had adjourned, and its members had gone
home, having done but little to re-assure the loyalists. They had,
indeed, passed an ordinance declaring that Missouri would adhere to the
Union; but the majority of the members had betrayed such hesitancy and
indecision, such a lack of stomach to grapple with the rude issues of
the rebellion, that their action passed almost without moral effect.
Their ordinance was treated with contempt by the secessionists, and
nearly lost sight of by the people; so thoroughly were all classes
lashed into excitement by the storm of revolution now blackening the
whole Southern Hemisphere.
The friends of the Union could look to but one quarter for aid, that was
Washington, where a new administration had so recently been installed,
amid difficulties that seemed to have paralyzed its power. The
government had been defied by the rebellion at every point; its ships
driven by hostile guns from Southern ports; its treasures seized; its
arsenals occupied, and its abundant arms and munitions appropriated.
Nowhere had the federal arm resented insult and robbery with a blow.
This had not been the fault of the government that was inaugurated on
the fourth of March. It was the fruit of the official treason of the
preceding administration, that had completely disarmed the government,
and filled the new executive councils with confusion, by the numberless
knaves it had placed in all departments of the public service, whose
daily desertions of duty rendered the prompt and honest execution of the
laws impossible. But the fact was indisputable; and how could St. Louis
hope for protection that had nowhere else been afforded? The national
government had an arsenal within the city limits. It comprised a
considerable area of ground, was surrounded by a high and heavy stone
wall, and supplied with valuable arms. But so far from this
establishment being a protection to the loyal population, it seemed more
likely, judging by what had occurred in other States, that it would
serve as a temptation to the secession mob that was evidently gathering
head for mischief, and that the desire to take it would precipitate the
outbreak. The Unionists felt their danger; the rebels saw their
opportunity. Already the latter were boasting that they would in a short
time occupy this post, and not a few of the prominent Union citizens of
the town were warned by secession leaders that they would soon be set
across the Mississippi river, exiles from their homes forever. As an
instance of the audacity of the rebel element at this time, and for
weeks later, the fact is mentioned that the United States soldiers, who
paced before the gates of the arsenal as sentinels on duty, had their
beats defined for them by the new secession police, and were forbidden
to invade the sacred precincts of the city's highway. The arsenal was
unquestionably devoted to capture, and it would have been a prize to the
rebels second in value to the Gosport navy-yard. It contained at this
time sixty-six thousand stand of small arms, several batteries of light
artillery and heavy ordnance, and at least one million dollars' worth of
ammunition. It was besides supplied with extensive and valuable
machinery for repairing guns, rifling barrels, mounting artillery, and
preparing shot and shell. The future, to the Union men of St. Louis,
looked gloomy enough; persecution, and, if they resisted, death, seemed
imminent; and no voice from abroad reached them, giving them good cheer.
But deliverance was nigh at hand.
About the middle of January, Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, of the Second
Infantry, U.S.A., arrived in St. Louis with his company; and his rank
gave him command of all the troops then at the arsenal and Jefferson
Barracks, a post on the river, ten miles below, the department being
under the command of Brigadier General Harney. Capt. Lyon had been
garrisoning a fort in Kansas. He was known to some of the Union men of
St. Louis; and his resolute spirit and devoted patriotism marked him as
their leader in this crisis. Frank Blair at once put himself in
communication with Capt. Lyon, and advised him fully and minutely as to
the political situation. He exposed to him the existence of his
volunteer military organization. At his request Capt. Lyon visited and
reviewed the regiments; and it was arranged between them that if an
outbreak should occur, or any attempt be made to seize the arsenal,
Capt. Lyon should receive this volunteer force to his assistance, arm it
from the arsenal, and take command for the emergency. It should be
known, however, to the greater credit of the Union leaders of St. Louis,
that they had already, from private funds, procured about one thousand
stand of arms, with which their nightly drills, as heretofore stated,
had been conducted. As soon as Capt. Lyon's connection with this
organization was suspected, an attempt was made to have him removed, by
ordering him to Kansas on the pretext of a court of inquiry; but this
attempt was defeated. Thus matters stood for a time, the Union men
beginning to be reassured, but still doubtful of the end. After a while,
Fort Sumter was opened upon, and fell under its furious bombardment. The
torch of war was lit. President Lincoln issued his proclamation for
volunteers. Gov. Jackson telegraphed back an insolent and defiant
refusal, in which he denounced the 'war waged by the federal government'
as 'inhuman and diabolical.' Frank Blair instantly followed this
traitorous governor's dispatch by another, addressed to the Secretary of
War, asking him to accept and muster into service the volunteer
regiments he had been forming. This offer was accepted, and the men
presented themselves. But Brig. Gen. Harney, fearing that the arming of
these troops would exasperate the secession populace, and bring about a
collision with the State militia, refused to permit the men to be
mustered into service and armed. This extraordinary decision was
immediately telegraphed to the government, and Gen. Harney was relieved,
leaving Capt. Lyon in full command. This was the 23d of April. In a week
four full regiments were mustered in, and occupied the arsenal. A
memorial was prepared and sent to Washington by Frank Blair, now colonel
of the first of these regiments, asking for the enrolment of five other
regiments of Home Guards. Permission was given, and in another week
these regiments also were organized and armed. The conflict was now at
hand. Simultaneously with this arming on the part of the government for
the protection of the arsenal, the order went forth for the assembling
of the State troops in their camps of instruction. On Monday, the 6th of
May, the First Brigade of Missouri militia, under Gen. D.M. Frost, was
ordered by Gov. Jackson into camp at St. Louis, avowedly for purposes of
drill and exercise. At the same time encampments were formed, by order
of the governor, in other parts of the State. The governor's adherents
in St. Louis intimated that the time for taking the arsenal had arrived,
and the indiscreet young men who made up the First Brigade openly
declared that they only awaited an order from Gov. Jackson--an order
which they evidently had been led to expect--to attack the arsenal and
possess it, in spite of the feeble opposition they calculated to meet
from 'the Dutch' Home Guards enlisted to defend it. A few days
previously, an agent of the governor had purchased at St. Louis several
hundred kegs of gun-powder, and succeeded, by an adroit stratagem, in
shipping it to Jefferson City. The encampment at St. Louis, 'Camp
Jackson,' so called from the governor, was laid off by streets, to which
were assigned the names 'Rue de Beauregard,' and others similarly
significant; and when among the visitors whom curiosity soon began to
bring to the camp a 'Black Republican' was discovered by the
soldiers,--and this epithet was applied to all unconditional
Unionists,--he was treated with unmistakable coldness, if not positive
insult. If additional proof of the hostile designs entertained against
the federal authority by this camp were needed, it was furnished on
Thursday, the 9th, by the reception within the camp of several pieces of
cannon, and several hundred stand of small arms, taken from the federal
arsenal at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was then in the possession of
the rebels. These arms were brought to St. Louis by the steamboat _J.C.
Swon_, the military authorities at Cairo having been deceived by the
packages, which were represented to contain marble slabs. On the arrival
of the _Swon_ at the St. Louis levee, the arms were taken from her, sent
to Camp Jackson, and received there with demonstrations of triumph.
When Capt. Lyon was entrusted with full command at St. Louis, President
Lincoln had named, in his orders to him, a commission of six loyal and
discreet citizens with whom he should consult in matters pertaining to
the public safety, and with whose counsel he might declare martial law.
These citizens were John How, Samuel T. Glover, O.D. Filley, Jean J.
Witsig, James O. Broadhead, and Col. Frank P. Blair. The last
mentioned--Colonel Blair--was Capt. Lyon's confidential and constant
companion. They were comrades in arms, and a unit in counsel. Their
views were in full accord as to the necessity of immediately reducing
Camp Jackson. Defiance was daily passing between the marshalling hosts,
not face to face, but through dubious partisans who passed from camp to
camp, flitting like the bats of fable in the confines of conflict. Capt.
Lyon's decision, urged thereto by Col. Blair, was made without calling a
council of the rest of his advisers. They heard of it, however, and,
though brave and loyal men all, they gathered around him in his quarters
at the arsenal, Thursday evening, and besought him earnestly to change
his purpose. The conference was protracted the livelong night, and did
not close till six o'clock, Friday morning, the 10th. They found Capt.
Lyon inexorable,--the fate of Camp Jackson was decreed. Col. Blair's
regiment was at Jefferson Barracks, ten miles below the arsenal, at that
hour. It was ordered up; and about noon on that memorable Friday, Capt.
Lyon quietly left the arsenal gate at the head of six thousand troops,
of whom four hundred and fifty were regulars, the remainder United
States Reserve Corps or Home Guards, marched in two columns to Camp
Jackson, and before the State troops could recover from the amazement
into which the appearance of the advancing army threw them, surrounded
the camp, planting his batteries upon the elevations around, at a
distance of five hundred yards, and stationing his infantry in the roads
leading from the grove wherein their tents were pitched. The State
troops were taken completely by surprise; for, although there had been
vague reports current in camp of an intended attack from the arsenal,
the cry of the visitors at the grove, 'They're coming!' 'They're
coming!' raised just as the first column appeared in sight, found them
strolling leisurely under the trees, chatting with their friends from
the city, or stretched upon the thick green grass, smoking and reading.
* * * * *
BEAUFORT DISTRICT,--PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
The sovereign State of South Carolina seems from the beginning to have
been actuated by the desire not only to mold its institutions according
to a system differing entirely from that of its sister States, but even
to divide its territory in a peculiar manner, for which reason we find
in it 'districts' taking the place of counties. The south-west of these
bears the name of its principal town, 'Beaufort.' It is bounded on the
west by the Savannah River, and on the south by the Atlantic. Its length
from north to south is fifty-eight miles, its breadth thirty-three
miles, and it contains about one and a quarter millions of acres of land
and water. Considered geologically, Beaufort is one of the most
remarkable sections of the United States. As recent events have brought
it so prominently before us, we propose to consider its history,
capacities, and prospects.
From its proximity to the Spanish settlements in the peninsula of
Florida, its beautiful harbors and sounds were early explored and taken
possession of by the Spaniards. It is now certain they had established a
post here called 'Fort St. Phillip,' at St. Elena,[B] as early as
1566-7; this was probably situated on the south-western point of St.
Helena Island, and some remains of its entrenchment can still be traced.
From this fort Juan Pardo, its founder, proceeded on an expedition to
the north-west, and explored a considerable part of the present States
of South Carolina and Georgia.