THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR
[Illustration:
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF ST. LOUIS IN 1860.
[_Frontispiece_
]
THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR
BY
GALUSHA ANDERSON, S. T. D., LL. D.
PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
RESIDENT OF ST. LOUIS FROM 1858 TO 1866
_With Twelve Portraits and Views_
“On the perilous edge of battle.”—_John Milton._
Boston
Little, Brown, and Company
1908
_Copyright, 1908_,
BY GALUSHA ANDERSON.
_All rights reserved_
Published September, 1908
_COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U. S. A._
_To all those, living or dead, who by wisdom, tact and
self-sacrifice helped to keep Missouri in the
Union, this book is affectionately
dedicated_
AN EXPLANATION
I have been frequently urged by men in different parts of the country to
write out, and give to the public, the story of St. Louis during the
Civil War. Having had of late my time largely at my own disposal, I
determined to yield to these earnest solicitations. But I have found the
task somewhat more difficult than I anticipated. While all that I saw in
St. Louis, and all in which I participated, came back to my mind with
remarkable freshness and vividness, I have been compelled, because of
the lapse of time since the war, to verify my recollections by wide
reading and painstaking research. I have tried to weigh impartially what
has been said both by those who were for, and those who were against,
the Union.
Upon some points pertaining to military operations in St. Louis and
Missouri, I have found considerable conflicting testimony. In such cases
I have either given authorities on both sides, or, having sifted the
evidence pro and con, have presented what seemed to me to be, at least
approximately, the historical facts. And while in some instances I may
have come short of absolute accuracy, in all my statements I have
earnestly endeavored to present the exact truth.
But I have treated of the movements of troops and the acts of the
general government only in so far as they immediately affected the life
and experiences of those within our city. My sole object in all that I
have written has been to portray as clearly and vividly as I could what
transpired among us from 1860 to 1865; to note some events that preceded
the war and were the harbingers of it; to reveal the currents of thought
and feeling in St. Louis during the whole fratricidal struggle, and
especially to point out what was peculiar to us as a community made up
of the loyal and disloyal.
To my own mind it is clear that our great Civil War can never be fully
understood without a knowledge of the unique experiences of a border
city, and especially of St. Louis, for the possession of which both
parties to our great national conflict so earnestly contended. During
the long and bloody battle for the Union, my home was there, and this
book is simply “an unvarnished tale” of what I saw and of work in which
I shared. As a testimony I trust that it may be of some worth.
And since I intended it to be only a simple testimony, it has not been
written to make out a case. I have tried to divest myself of the spirit
of a partisan, and to present in an unbiased manner what I personally
observed. I have endeavored to write, as the martyred President did,
“with malice toward none, with charity for all.”
GALUSHA ANDERSON.
NEWTON CENTRE, MASS.
_April, 1908._
For the originals of several of the illustrations in this volume the
author is indebted to Miss Mary Louise Dalton, the late Librarian of the
Missouri Historical Society, whose many kindnesses will always be held
in grateful remembrance.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ST. LOUIS 1
II. FOREBODINGS OF CONFLICT 11
III. RUMBLINGS OF THE CONFLICT 32
IV. THE BOOMERANG CONVENTION 40
V. THE FIGHT FOR THE ARSENAL 63
VI. CAMP JACKSON 86
VII. RIOT, PANIC, SEARCH AND CONFISCATION 106
VIII. THE PULPIT AND THE PRESS 120
IX. DECISION AND DIVISION 146
X. BITTERNESS 159
XI. SLAVES AND SLAVE-PENS 170
XII. PRISONS AND PRISONERS 188
XIII. LYON IN CONFERENCE AND IN CAMPAIGN 198
XIV. FREMONT AND FIASCO 206
XV. EXTRAORDINARY ACTS 227
XVI. HALLECK AND HIS MANIFESTOES 234
XVII. REFUGEES 251
XVIII. DIFFICULT CURRENCY 268
XIX. NOT PEACE BUT THE SWORD 271
XX. CHARCOALS AND CLAYBANKS 276
XXI. HOMES AND HOSPITALS 288
XXII. THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY SANITARY FAIR 309
XXIII. A DARK PLOT THWARTED 315
XXIV. NEGRO SCHOOLS 333
XXV. AFTER DARKNESS LIGHT 338
XXVI. RADICALS IN CONVENTION 342
XXVII. THE WIND-UP 360
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF ST. LOUIS IN 1860 _Frontispiece_
From a lithograph in the possession of the Missouri Historical
Society.
THE ARSENAL, ST. LOUIS, IN 1866 63
CAMP JACKSON, ST. LOUIS 89
From a photograph in the possession of the Missouri Historical
Society.
GRATIOT STREET PRISON, FORMERLY THE MCDOWELL MEDICAL COLLEGE 188
From an oil painting, the property of the Missouri Historical
Society.
BRIGADIER-GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON 198
GENERAL FREMONT’S HEADQUARTERS, ST. LOUIS 206
FACSIMILE OF A PASS, ISSUED TO THE AUTHOR IN 1861 215
THE AUTHOR, GALUSHA ANDERSON, IN 1861 218
From a daguerreotype.
HONORABLE FRANK P. BLAIR, JR. 279
From an oil painting, the property of the Missouri Historical
Society.
MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY W. HALLECK 279
MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS 279
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT 279
MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN MCA. SCHOFIELD 279
THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER I
ST. LOUIS
I need not say that St. Louis is built on the western bank of the
Mississippi River about twenty miles below the mouth of the Missouri,
since everybody knows that. But the present generation thinks of the
city only as it is to-day, with its more than half a million of
inhabitants, extensive parks, palatial residences, well-constructed
churches, imposing business blocks, great railroad bridges spanning the
river, unrivalled central depot and attractive trolley cars. But all
this has flowed from its wonderful development since the close of the
Civil War. We write of it as it was immediately before, and during, that
mighty conflict.
In 1860 it had only one hundred and fifty-one thousand seven hundred and
eighty inhabitants, about one thousand five hundred of whom were slaves.
A large number of enterprising young men had flocked to the city from
every part of the United States, so that the white males of the city
exceeded the white females by more than ten thousand. Among the whites
there were many thousands of intelligent, manly, thrifty Germans, a fact
which needs to be borne in mind, if we would fully understand and duly
appreciate the part which the city acted in the earlier stages of the
Civil War.
Most of the city stood then, as now, on bluffs or extended terraces that
rise gradually one above the other. Its situation is both healthful and
beautiful. But before the war its area was comparatively small. It
extended along the river only six and a half miles and between three and
four back from it. It contained only fifteen and a half square miles.
The ground now occupied by the finest residences was then rough, open
fields, lying beyond its western limits. The city was built of brick.
The business blocks, warehouses, hotels, residences, schoolhouses, and
churches were all of the same material. Most of the sidewalks were also
made of red brick. Whichever way you looked your eyes rested on red
brick, and wherever you walked you trod on red brick. I remember but one
business block that had a stone front, and that was marble. The
enterprising citizen who built it made quite a fortune out of it. Its
very novelty made it attractive, and its rooms were readily rented to
professional men. The city is still largely built of brick. The clay
from which the brick is made is found in large quantities near the city,
and its inhabitants naturally and wisely use this excellent building
material that lies close at hand.
Most of the dwelling-houses were built out to the street, so that, with
rare exceptions, there were no front yards. On warm summer evenings the
families living in any given block sat on the front stone steps of their
houses, that they might be refreshed by the cooler air of the evening.
But most of the streets were macadamized with limestone, and in summer
absorbed during the day so much heat, as they lay under the burning rays
of the sun, that they continued to radiate it long after the sun went
down. At such times a perch on the front stone steps afforded so little
relief from the heat-laden atmosphere that the half-baked sufferers
longed for the arctic regions. A distinguished man from the East, on a
hot night in September, waking up at two o’clock in the morning from a
troubled sleep, declared that he found himself, on account of the
stifling heat, swelling up like a mouse in an exhausted receiver. But
such days were exceptional and not peculiar to St. Louis.
The larger part of the fuel then consumed in the city was soft coal. We
bought it not by the ton, but by the bushel. In those days there were no
smoke-consumers. Vast volumes of smoke poured forth from the black
throats of great chimneys in manufacturing establishments, while the
chimneys of every dwelling-house, and the smoke-stack of every steamer
on the river, added their contribution to render the atmosphere dusky.
In still days of the autumn or winter the smoke hung like a pall over
the city.
But in spite of a few such drawbacks it was even then a very pleasant
city. There were few who were very poor. None were permitted to go
unclothed and unfed. Most of the people were thrifty; many of them were
rapidly accumulating wealth. The markets of the city were well supplied
with all the varied products of the fields and the forests. The homes of
the people were comfortable, many of them attractive. Their tables were
loaded with abundant and wholesome food. The churches were numerous and
well attended. The public schools were of a high order. Private schools
and colleges had been founded, and were already doing good work.
The inhabitants of the city were a conglomerate; but just on that
account were broad and catholic in their thinking. Coming from every
section of the Republic, by attrition their provincialisms and
prejudices were worn away till they came to take comprehensive and just
views of the great questions that were at that time agitating the
nation. Men from the South and North had learned each other’s
excellences, and with mutual respect and high esteem stood shoulder to
shoulder in business, civic duty and charitable and religious service. I
have never met anywhere men of broader gauge.
Among them were those distinguished as lawyers, statesmen, and
preachers. To name some to the neglect of others would seem to be
invidious. But among the lawyers, Samuel Glover and James O. Broadhead;
among the preachers, Henry A. Nelson, Truman M. Post, Wm. G. Eliot and
Father Smarius; among the statesmen, Frank P. Blair and Edward Bates,
the latter afterwards Attorney-general in President Lincoln’s Cabinet,
are names which readily occur to those of that generation who still
live.
When, in the autumn of 1858, I made St. Louis my adopted home, the name
of Thomas H. Benton was on all lips. He had died in April of that year.
The people of the city were justly very proud of him. He had represented
Missouri for thirty years in the Senate of the United States, and was
unquestionably the most distinguished man of the State and of the
Northwest. A funeral procession fully five miles in length had followed
his body to its burial-place in Belle Fontaine Cemetery. But this great
man, like many others who have been pre-eminent, had marked
peculiarities. In the Senate he was called “The Magisterial.” In
consonance with that descriptive phrase, when he addressed crowds at
political meetings in St. Louis, he never said, “Fellow-citizens,” but
always simply, “Citizens.” And the contents of his speeches from the
stump were often quite as magisterial.
Mr. Benton, while United States Senator, at times took an active part in
the election of congressmen from St. Louis. It was customary then for
those opposed to each other to speak in turn to the people from the same
platform. On one occasion Mr. Crum was the name of the candidate who,
with Mr. Benton, was addressing the voters of the city. Near the close
of one of Mr. Benton’s speeches, he said, “Citizens, is my opponent a
loaf, or even a crust? No,” then suiting the action to the word, he
apparently picked up and held a very small particle between his thumb
and finger, while he added in a tone of great contempt,—“No, citizens,
he is nothing but a tiny Crum.”
During another canvass, he was stoutly opposing Mr. Bogie, who was a
candidate for Congress. Late one evening when about to close his speech
in reply to him, he said, “Citizens, you have been told that my
opponent’s name is Bogie. Citizens, it is a mistake; his name is Bogus.
But, citizens, notwithstanding that, like Cato of Rome, I would now send
my servants (slaves) to light him home, were it not that to-morrow you
would be asking, ‘Mr. Benton, what sort of company do your servants
keep?’”
In 1856, his son-in-law, John C. Fremont, was offered the Republican
nomination for the Presidency, and asked him if he thought it was best
for him to accept it? Benton, believing the Republican party to be
sectional, was bitterly opposed to it; so he said to Fremont, “If you
accept the nomination, I’ll drop you like a hot potato, sir! like a hot
potato, sir!”
These incidents, standing alone, would misrepresent Mr. Benton; but they
throw a side-light on his character and help us better to understand the
most eminent citizen of St. Louis, a statesman of large mold and of a
well-merited national reputation.
The early history of St. Louis is so full of interest that we cannot
refrain from briefly noting a few items that belong to it. Its beginning
carries us back to 1764. It was then a mere trading-post of a company of
merchants, whose leader was Pierre Ligueste Laclede. The post consisted
of one house and four stores. It was named St. Louis in honor of the
patron saint of Louis XV of France. Though not possessing the dignity of
an incorporated town, the following year it became the capital of Upper
Louisiana. Through the wise foresight of Jefferson, despite his party
principles, the vast and vaguely defined territory of Louisiana was
purchased from France at a time when Napoleon sorely needed money. In
transferring this immense region there were two formal ceremonies, one
at New Orleans, Dec. 20th, 1803; the other at St. Louis, on March 10th,
1804. On the latter day Major Stoddard, who was the agent of the French
Government to receive Upper Louisiana from Spain, for France, was also
the accredited agent of our government to take over the same territory
for the United States. That one man should represent both nations in
affairs of such tremendous importance was, to say the least, unique.[1]
This ceremony of transfer took place at the northeast corner of First,
or Main, and Walnut Streets. The event should be commemorated by some
suitable tablet or monument erected on the spot of transfer. We trust
that the Missouri Historical Society will have the honor of doing this
work so consonant with its aims and character.
The town of St. Louis was laid out between the river and the first range
of bluffs on the west, and a series of circular towers was erected
around it for defence. The houses were mainly built of rough stone and
whitewashed, and each house had a separate lot for fruit and flowers.
These houses were without cellars. The first house provided with such a
convenience was built by Laclede on what is now called Main Street,
between Market and Walnut. Indian women and children helped dig it,
carrying out the dirt on their heads, in wooden platters and baskets. In
this house civil government was inaugurated in 1765 by Captain Louis
Saint Ange, Acting French Governor of Upper Louisiana; in it, also, the
Marquis de Lafayette was entertained in 1825.
The streets of the old town were all quite narrow; it was thought that
such streets could be more easily defended. And there they are, cramped
and narrow to this day. But in time the land above and west of the
village was laid out in town lots, and the chief promoters of this
enterprise, Judge Lucas and Colonel Chouteau, built their
dwelling-houses far back from the river and the old town, the former at
the corner of Seventh and Chestnut Streets, the latter at the corner of
Sixth and Olive Streets. In 1809, the year in which St. Louis was
incorporated as a town, Fort Belle Fontaine became the headquarters of
the Department of Upper Louisiana. It was several miles north of the
village, on a high bluff, overlooking the Mississippi. The land for this
fort was secured by treaty from the Sac and Fox Indians. On it was a
great spring of pure water capable of supplying a thousand men; hence
the name of the fort, Belle Fontaine.
St. Louis was early called the Gateway of the West. In 1817 the first
steamboat tied up to her levee.[2] This was the beginning of an imperial
trade. Streams of commerce now began to flow into her markets from the
great continental rivers, from the upper Mississippi, the Illinois, the
Missouri, the Ohio, the lower Mississippi with its far-reaching
affluents; and, through the Gulf of Mexico, even from the cities of the
Atlantic seaboard. For many years her chief trade had been in the pelts
and furs of wild animals; but now this lucrative traffic was greatly
augmented. For forty years the annual value of it alone was between two
and three hundred thousand dollars, while commerce in all agricultural
products and in manufactured goods was constantly swelling in volume.
Still it is worthy of note that deerskins were an article of barter, and
furs were currency in St. Louis, from the days of Laclede until Missouri
became a State in 1821; and a year later, even before St. Louis had five
thousand inhabitants, it was chartered as a city.
When under Spanish control, it was strictly Roman Catholic. In 1862 I
met at a wedding in St. Louis a lady almost a hundred years old. She was
still in excellent health. Her intellect was clear and vigorous. As she
took my arm to go to the wedding supper, she archly remarked, “Your wife
will not be jealous when she learns how old I am.” Yet, when we were
seated at the table, after some moments of absolute silence on her part,
into which I did not venture to intrude, she said, “I do believe that
God has forgotten me.” I looked at her with mingled astonishment and
curiosity and said, “Why so?” She replied, “All the friends of my early
life are gone and I am left alone.” She now became reminiscent and
added, “I lived here when St. Louis belonged to Spain. And just as for
many years no free negro has been permitted to enter this city without a
pass, so for years, in my early life, no Protestant could enter it
without a written permit from the Spanish authorities.”
But, while under the rule of the United States all religious intolerance
disappeared, African slavery flourished, established and protected by
law. And although in 1860 St. Louis had but few slaves, nevertheless
pro-slavery sentiment largely prevailed. Those who cherished it were
often intense and bitter, and at that time socially controlled the
entire city. But on the other hand the leading business men of the city
were quietly, conservatively, yet positively, opposed to slavery. Many
of them had come from New England and the Middle States and believed
slavery to be a great moral wrong; but those from the North and South
alike saw that slavery was a drag upon the commercial interests of the
city and all were hoping that in some way the incubus might be lifted
off from it. For St. Louis, the commercial capital of Missouri, already
had many great merchants and enterprising manufacturers, who were not
only throwing out their lines of trade into every part of the State, but
also into all the surrounding States and territories. It was linked by
the Mississippi and Missouri, fed by numerous and important affluents,
with a vast territory which was probably the richest on the earth’s
surface. And very much of its trade was with southern cities. In 1860,
more than four thousand steamers, with a capacity of one million one
hundred and twenty thousand and thirty-nine tons, loaded and unloaded at
its wharves. To obstruct the Father of Waters at the mouth of the Ohio,
or to divide it by secession, was a matter of life and death to all the
business interests of St. Louis. And no one without this conception
clearly in mind can adequately understand what took place there in those
days of awful storm and stress between 1860 and 1865.