THE FIGHT FOR THE ARSENAL
The United States Arsenal was situated in the southern part of the city
by the river. It contained nearly thirty thousand percussion-cap
muskets, about one thousand rifles, some cannon unfit for use, a few
hundred flint-lock muskets, and a large quantity of ammunition.[14] It
was the settled policy of the seceding States to seize the United States
arsenals and arms within their boundaries. So those, who were now trying
to force Missouri out of the Union, were intent on following the
pernicious example of the seceded States. Moreover, our secession
Governor was about to call out the militia of the State and put it under
military drill; the militia would need arms and ammunition; both were in
the Arsenal; why should not these citizen soldiers have them? Why should
the sovereignty of the United States override the sovereignty of
Missouri? So secessionists reasoned.
And the fight for the Arsenal began early. Each party saw clearly that
those who held it would hold the city, and those who held the city would
hold the State. So all eyes were riveted on the coveted prize. Isaac H.
Sturgeon, a Kentuckian by birth, was Assistant United States Treasurer
at St. Louis. He belonged to the southern right wing of the Missouri
Democracy. He consorted with secessionists. He heard their plans for
seizing the Arsenal, and as the Subtreasury vaults contained four
hundred thousand dollars in gold, he began to fear that they might also
seize that. He therefore wrote a cautious letter to President Buchanan,
setting forth the facts of the case, and suggesting that it might be
wise to send a company of soldiers to guard the money belonging to the
United States. The President turned this letter over to General Scott,
who forthwith sent Lieutenant Robinson to St. Louis with a detachment of
forty men and ordered that they be placed at the disposal of the
Assistant Treasurer. They arrived on the 11th of January, and were
quartered in the Government Building. Here, in addition to the
Subtreasury, were the Post-office, the Custom-house and the Federal
Courts. The report that Federal soldiers, under the control of the
Assistant Treasurer, were on guard over the Subtreasury, flew like
wild-fire over the entire city. To put it mildly, the excitement was
intense. The papers sent out extras, that were carried by running,
yelling boys to almost every house. A great angry, vociferating crowd
packed the narrow streets on which the Government Building stood. They
hurled dire threats of vengeance against the United States, the
President, the general of the army and Mr. Sturgeon, that recreant
States-rights democrat. Some of the crowd were red, some pale, with
anger; they were hot for a fight. But nobody was in any special danger;
their rage would unquestionably soon have spent itself in angry yells
and in the shaking of empty fists; but in order to calm the secession
mind, General Harney, the department commander, ordered Robinson and his
detachment of soldiers to the Arsenal. As they went thither the tempest
subsided, and no bones were broken.
But brief as the excitement was, it invaded the capital of the State,
and agitated the lawmakers there. A grave and reverend State Senator
forthwith offered some resolutions, in which he characterized “this act
of the administration” at Washington “as insulting to the dignity and
patriotism of this State,” and asked the Governor “to inquire of the
President what has induced him to place the property of the United
States within this State in charge of an armed Federal force?”
Since, however, the excitement was over in St. Louis, these resolutions
were never passed; and it is now difficult for us to believe that a sane
legislator should ever have felt it incumbent upon him to protest
against the guarding of United States property by an armed Federal
force. But so good men thought and felt then.
The incident at the Government Building, which aroused such passion both
in our city and throughout the State, was a side-light which revealed
the settled determination of the secessionists to get control of all
United States property on the sacred soil of Missouri. Perhaps the fears
of Mr. Sturgeon for the safety of the Subtreasury—fears that had been
awakened by the declarations of the secessionists with whom he
consorted—may have been groundless, but there was no mistake in
reference to the determination of the disloyal to get into their
possession, at the earliest possible moment, the Arsenal and all that it
contained.
To understand the fight for the Arsenal, it will be necessary for us to
get before our minds as clearly as possible some of the principal
characters that directed and controlled it. The first to claim our
attention, though at the beginning of the contest subordinate in
military rank is Captain, afterwards Brigadier-General, Nathaniel Lyon.
He was a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of West Point. He had
served with distinction in Florida, and in the Mexican War, brilliantly
as an Indian fighter in northern California, and with moderation and
wisdom in Kansas, when that territory was harassed by the lawless
incursions of border ruffians. He was forty-two years old, just in his
prime. He was only five feet seven inches in height. He was thin and
angular, rough and rugged in appearance. He had deep-set, clear blue
eyes, sandy hair and reddish-brown stubby beard. What he was in mind and
heart, unfolding events soon clearly revealed. He reported for duty at
the Arsenal about February 2d. He at once made himself familiar with its
history. He learned that Major William H. Bell, by birth a North
Carolinian, a graduate of West Point in 1820, had been its commander for
several years; that the major, aside from his duties as an officer of
the United States army, had amassed quite a fortune in our city in town
lots and suburban property, and had come to regard St. Louis as his
home; that his sympathies had been with the extreme pro-slavery men of
Missouri; that in January he had pledged himself to General Frost that
while he would defend the Arsenal against all mobs, he would not defend
it against State troops; that as late as Jan. 24th, Frost had written
this to Governor Jackson, at the same time claiming that Bell was in
accord with them; that on the same day, to the honor of the military
service of the United States, Bell had been removed from his command and
ordered to report at New York; that he had refused to obey this order,
and, instead, had had the good sense to resign his commission and retire
to his farm in St. Charles County, Missouri.
So at the start, the real situation of affairs in our city was opened up
to Captain Lyon.
He was now associated in military duty with Brigadier-General William
Selby Harney and Major Peter V. Hagner. The former was the commander of
the Department of the West. He was more than sixty years old, having
been born in 1798. He was a Southerner; Louisiana was his native State.
He had had large experience as a soldier in the Mexican War, and as an
Indian fighter both in Florida and on the plains. He had acquitted
himself with distinction as the commander of the military Department of
the Pacific Coast. For several years he had lived in Missouri. And now
in this time of stress no one could successfully question his
patriotism, and unswerving loyalty to the Union; but he was so
interlinked with Southern families, both by blood and friendships of
long standing, that he was unfitted to command where grave and delicate
questions, involving old neighbors and intimate friends, were constantly
arising. So at last, without any stain on his honor, he was called by
his government to serve in another field.
The latter, Major Hagner, was the successor of Major Bell in the command
of the Arsenal. Washington, the national capital, was his birthplace. He
too was a graduate of West Point and was older than Lyon. He was five
years Lyon’s senior in service. But as to whether Hagner really
outranked Lyon there was room for difference of opinion. Hagner had
served in the ordnance department of the army, where promotions were
slower than in the infantry, to which Lyon belonged. Lyon’s commission
as captain in the regular army was twenty days earlier than Hagner’s;
but Hagner, having received in 1847 the brevet rank of major, claimed to
outrank him. Under this Lyon was restive. He saw at a glance what must
be done if Missouri was to be kept in the Union. He was persuaded that
Hagner was unequal to the demand made upon him by the exigencies of the
hour. So, on the ground of the priority of his commission as captain, he
claimed the right to supreme command. When his claim was denied, first,
by Gen. Harney, and then by President Buchanan and Gen. Scott, he chafed
under the decision of his superiors. He did not, however, sulk in his
tent; he was too patriotic for that; yet, in his correspondence, he
vigorously and somewhat ungraciously criticized those who differed from
him.
While his superiors in command at St. Louis were both men of undoubted
loyalty to their government, they did not have the same point of view
that he had. He was originally a Connecticut democrat. In 1852 he had
enthusiastically advocated the election of Franklin Pierce to the
Presidency. But he was sent to do military duty in Kansas, while the
people there were struggling in opposition to pro-slavery men from
Missouri to make Kansas a free State. There his political views were
almost completely changed. The full tide of his sympathy flowed out to
the Free-State men and to the negro. He then and there became convinced
that two civilizations so diametrically opposed to each other could not
continue to exist peacefully under the same flag. He saw the coming of
the inevitable conflict, and he was ready, not to say eager, for it.
While Harney was not in sympathy with Lyon’s political views, he
nevertheless showed that he admired him both as an officer and as a man;
but between Lyon and Hagner there was but little if any real fellowship.
Lyon therefore formed his friendly associations in the city, outside the
Arsenal. His political views led him into the company of such men as
Frank P. Blair, our brilliant congressman and aggressive free-soil
leader; Oliver D. Filley, our popular mayor, a New Englander by birth
and education; John How, a Pennsylvanian, a member of the Union Safety
Committee; and others of the same ilk, whose trumpets never gave an
uncertain sound in reference to the maintenance of the Union. These
uncompromising loyalists at once saw in Lyon the man for the hour and
the place, and he saw in them men who would do all in their power to
help him realize his aims. He frequently visited the rendezvous of the
Wide-Awakes, now, under the lead of Blair, transformed into Home Guards.
He encouraged them in their work, suggested plans for their more perfect
organization, and often personally drilled them in the manual of arms.
They needed muskets. Blair thought that they should be armed from the
Arsenal; and while this was contrary to the letter of the law, Lyon was
in full accord with Blair.
In view of threatened attacks on the Arsenal, Lyon urged Hagner to
fortify it. He refused. He then urged him to arm the Home Guards; this
he regarded as illegal, and from his point of view justly decided
against it. Not that Lyon was lawless, but his reasoning was, a law that
was made to preserve the Republic must not be obeyed when such obedience
would destroy the Republic. In such a case obedience to the letter of
the law would be disobedience to its spirit. He held that the commandant
at the Arsenal was bound to defend it at all hazards, and by all means
within his reach, since on the holding of it depended the political
destiny of Missouri. Nothing must stand in the way of securing an end so
transcendently important. Laws good and wholesome in the “weak piping
time of peace,” for the highest public good may be held in abeyance in a
time of revolt against constituted authority. But this captain, all
aflame with patriotism, and so impatient of restraint, must still wait a
little longer before unhindered he can do his appointed work.
The first of February, Blair went to Washington and in person urged
President Buchanan to give Lyon the supreme command of the Arsenal; but
neither he nor General Scott would consent to this, having full
confidence in Harney and Hagner. But a serious disturbance around the
headquarters of the Minute Men, or organized secessionists, which
threatened the peace of the whole city, led Harney, on March 13th, to
give the command of the troops at the Arsenal to Lyon, while Hagner was
still permitted to retain his command over the ordnance stores. Nothing
could have been more impractical and absurd. The Arsenal now had two
heads; one over the troops, the other over the arms. If the two had been
in perfect accord, the doubleheaded arrangement might have worked
efficiently; but in all their thinking and methods they were at sword’s
points with each other. But strange to say, out of this apparent
deadlock of authority came deliverance.
This anomalous state of affairs, seemingly so favorable to the
secessionists, together with a legislative act expressly in their
interest, resulted in their discomfiture. In March, the secession
lawmakers at Jefferson City, disappointed and incensed because the
Convention at St. Louis had voted that, for the present, at least, it
was inexpedient for the State to secede from the Union, determined if
possible to neutralize, or to overturn, this reasonable and wise
decision. They saw clearly that if in any way they could get control of
St. Louis, they could through it, in spite of the Convention, control
the State. They thought that if the police of the city could by some
device be put under the jurisdiction of their secession Governor, there
would be a rational and strong hope of uniting the destiny of St. Louis
and Missouri with that of the Southern Confederacy. Swayed by this
thought, and intensely anxious to realize it, they framed and passed an
act, authorizing the Governor to appoint four commissioners, who,
together with the mayor, should have absolute control of the police, of
the local voluntary militia, of the sheriff, and of all other
conservators of the peace. This act virtually threw the whole police
force of the city into the hands of the Governor, and seemed also to put
under his absolute control not only the ordinary local volunteer
militia, but also the Minute Men, and Wide-Awakes or Home Guards of St.
Louis. On the heel of this sweeping and radical legislation came the
municipal election of April 1st, when Daniel G. Taylor, a plastic,
conditional Union man, openly opposed to Lincoln’s administration and to
the coercion of the South, was elected mayor by a majority of two
thousand six hundred and fifty-eight over John How, a very popular,
unconditional Union man. In the preceding February, when the city chose
delegates to the Convention, the unconditional Union men had triumphed
by a majority of full five thousand; but now we had elected a mayor who
would play into the hands of our disloyal Governor. The cause of this
backset it was difficult to discover; and the alarming thing about it
all was that with a pliant mayor under the thumb of our foxy Governor we
seemed to be in the tightening grip of the secessionists.
The Governor, under the recent enactment of the legislature, now
appointed the police commissioners. In doing this he carried into effect
this new and pernicious statute both in its letter and spirit. He had
probably originally suggested it. At all events it was evidently a
legislative act after his own heart. Under it he named as commissioners
three of the most outspoken, virulent secessionists in the city, and a
man of Northern birth, who was strongly opposed to any attempt to coerce
seceded States. At the head of this interesting quartette stood Basil
Wilson Duke, the acknowledged leader of the Minute Men, the organized
secessionists of St. Louis. This man inspired those who hung out a rebel
flag over their rendezvous on Pine Street, and defied the Union men of
the city. He was a man of ability and conviction. He fought for what he
believed to be right. Like the Governor that appointed him, he regarded
the coming of United States troops, even for the purpose of defending
United States property, as an invasion of the State that should be met
and repelled by force.
But out of apparent defeat came victory; out of the gloom light
streamed. Lyon at the Arsenal was undaunted. While he chafed under his
limitations, he used energetically all the power that he had. Rightly
regarding the holding of the Arsenal as of paramount importance, he
declared, perhaps unwisely, that if the secessionists attempted to seize
it, he would issue arms to the Home Guards and other Union men, and if
Hagner interfered he would “pitch him into the river.” Harney, at last
convinced that right there in St. Louis war was imminent, enlarged the
powers of Lyon so that for the time being he had supreme command over
the arms at the Arsenal as well as over the soldiers.
Lyon now, as a precautionary measure, patrolled the streets beyond the
Arsenal, and planted his artillery on the bluffs above it. Against this
the police commissioners protested, but Lyon would not budge. So they
appealed to Harney. For the sake of peace he ordered the patrols back
into the limits of the Arsenal, and forbade Lyon to issue arms to any
one without his consent. This reactionary and disheartening movement on
the part of Harney soon made Lyon the master of the situation. Blair
appealed for relief to the Secretary of War, who at once summoned Harney
to Washington. In obeying this summons on the 23d of April, he
temporarily retired from his command.
Lyon had now what he and Blair had so intensely desired, supreme command
at the Arsenal. He at once re-enforced it. He fortified it. All
approaches to it were vigilantly guarded. Lyon was now empowered by the
Federal government to arm the Home Guards; to raise and arm additional
regiments and muster them into the United States’ service. So the battle
within the Arsenal for the Arsenal was at last won. But what of the
battle for it without?
Taken as a whole, the city at this time was tossed and torn with doubt
and fear. That there was a mighty struggle on the part of the disloyal,
in some way to get possession of the Arsenal, we all knew. How many of
them there were, and what were their resources, we could not with any
certainty ascertain. Our imaginations were often active. When we retired
at night we thought it at least possible that, by some strategic stroke,
we might wake up in the morning and find our city turned over into the
hands of the secessionists. The very indefiniteness of the force which
threatened us made our situation peculiarly weird, and filled us at
times with apprehension. This hostile force was as vague and
indeterminate as the shadowy power that passed before Eliphaz,
concerning which he said (Job 4: 12):
“Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a whisper
thereof.
In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on
men,
Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up:
It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof.”
Not that we feared for our personal safety. But we were often anxious
lest the city, by some secret move, should be swept into the maelstrom
of secession. True men could not help being anxious. Ugly rumors filled
the air. The Post-office, the Custom-house, the Subtreasury, the Arsenal
were all about to be seized. At last, on April 12th, the whole nation,
North and South, burst into flame. Beauregard was bombarding Fort
Sumter. Hostilities had not been formally declared. Without any
preannouncement, the dread conflagration of war began to sweep over the
land. But after all, this was but fanning into fiercer flame the fire
that was already burning. For several months the seceding States had
been committing acts of war in seizing the property of the United
States. From the strong desire of averting armed conflict, such acts had
been overlooked by the Federal authorities. The nation had been hoping
for a peaceful solution of its difficulties. But now the belching cannon
at Charleston, the very nest of secession, had swept away the last hope
of peace. Every ear in St. Louis was attent. The shameful end came all
too soon. The Old Flag, around which clustered so many glories, was
lowered before a disunion army. On the 14th of April those brave troops
that had so gallantly defended the fort marched out with the honors of
war. There was now no longer any hesitation at the White House. The
President’s call for seventy-five thousand men to put down the rebellion
rang out trumpet-tongued all over the Republic. The lines that had
separated political parties faded away. Persons of all shades of
political opinion rallied as one man to save the Union.
To depict the effect in St. Louis of the capture of Fort Sumter and the
President’s call for volunteer troops would require an abler pen than
mine. At first the Union men were silent, but their thoughts were hot
within them. The fall of Sumter stirred them to indignation; the call of
the President inflamed their patriotism and strengthened their hope.
Most of their secession neighbors for a time were also silent. They too
were agitated by conflicting emotions. While the lowering of the Old
Flag at the behest of Beauregard’s thundering guns lighted up their
faces with smiles, they hotly protested against Lincoln’s call for
troops as an invasion of State rights. But these national events that
had so suddenly come upon us, producing in the minds of our
fellow-citizens such varied and antagonistic effects, greatly
intensified the determination of both Unionists and secessionists. Each
party now began to struggle as never before to gain its end. And the
immediate purpose of the one was to seize, and of the other to hold, the
Arsenal.
Men of the same race, the same nation, the same State, the same city,
hot with passion, stood face to face. One party declared: “Come what
may, we will take the Arsenal.” The other responded: “At all hazards we
will defend and retain it.” But those who determined to get possession
of it did not yet understand the ability and resourcefulness of the
officer who at last had secured supreme command over it. He was cool and
clear-headed. He saw intuitively the manifold dangers by which he and
his command were beset. He penetrated the designs of our acute and wily
Governor. He unearthed his correspondence with the Confederate
authorities at Montgomery. He also discovered what was going on in the
rebel rendezvous of the city. He unerringly detected and unravelled the
plots of the disloyal. Just how he did these things, no one knew. But
his apprehension of what his enemy was doing was but the means to the
end. When he made a discovery he knew just what to do. And in executing
his plans he was resolute and decisive. In him, purpose and deed were
yoked together, thought was crowned with act. He was admired and trusted
by the loyal, but distrusted, feared and hated by the disloyal.
Even while he was in subordinate command, as early as April 16th, with
perhaps unjustifiable officiousness, he had written to Governor Yates of
Illinois, that it might be well for him “to make requisition for a large
supply of arms, and get them shipped from the Arsenal to
Springfield.”[15] Governor Yates, acting on his suggestion, made the
requisition. But the execution of the enterprise was difficult and
dangerous. Secession spies swarmed in the neighborhood of the Arsenal.
Everything done there was promptly reported to the disloyal of the city
in their various places of meeting. These segregated secessionists grew
more and more determined, come what might, to make the coveted Arsenal
their own. A rumor also got afloat that the Governor had ordered two
thousand of his militia down from Jefferson City to assist the
secessionists in seizing it, and that he had determined to plant cannon
on the heights above it and bombard it. And even if the rumor were
merely a creation of the imagination, it was none the less effective on
that account. It now became doubly clear that if the munitions of war at
the Arsenal were to be delivered from constant liability of seizure, no
time should be lost in removing them to Springfield, Illinois. In this
Captain Lyon and Governor Yates were agreed. To make sure the safe
delivery of them at Springfield, Governor Yates summoned to his aid
Captain James H. Stokes, late of the regular army. He chose the right
man for this delicate and hazardous undertaking. Under the direction of
the United States authorities, he commissioned him to remove ten
thousand muskets from the Arsenal in St. Louis to the capital of
Illinois. To accomplish this work Captain Stokes chartered the steamer
“City of Alton.” She was, however, to remain at Alton until called for.
In the meantime, Stokes, in citizen’s dress, came quietly and unobserved
to St. Louis. When he went to the Arsenal, he found it surrounded by a
crowd of sullen, resolute secessionists. At first he was unable even to
work his way through the compact throng; but by patience and good nature
he finally elbowed his way to the coveted fortress and handed to Captain
Lyon the requisition from Governor Yates. At first Lyon doubted if it
were possible at that time to meet it, but promptly decided that, if it
could be met at all, there must be no delay in action. Both Lyon and
Stokes were resourceful. The latter sent a spy into the secession camp.
He met him at a designated time and place, and through him learned every
move that the secessionists proposed to make. On the 25th of April, a
little more than twenty-four hours after his arrival, he telegraphed the
“City of Alton” to drop down to the Arsenal landing about midnight. He
then returned to the Arsenal and, with the help of the soldiers there,
began moving the boxes of muskets from the upper to the lower floor.
When this work had been done, he sent some boxes of old flint-lock
muskets up the bank of the river, as if he intended to ship them by some
steamboat lying at the levee; but it was merely a blind to divert
attention from his real enterprise. The secessionists eagerly followed
and seized these almost worthless guns; thinking that they had secured a
rich prize, they made night hideous by their boisterous rejoicing. A few
of them, however, still hung round the Arsenal. These Captain Lyon
arrested and locked up.
Between eleven and twelve o’clock the “City of Alton” tied up at the
landing. The seven hundred men in the Arsenal quickly put aboard of her
the ten thousand muskets demanded. Captain Stokes then urgently asked
permission to empty the Arsenal of all guns except those that were
immediately needed to arm the volunteers that Lyon was gathering around
him. He was told to go ahead. With marvellous celerity, he then put
aboard the steamer ten thousand more muskets, five hundred new rifle
carbines, five hundred revolvers, one hundred and ten thousand musket
cartridges, and a considerable quantity of miscellaneous war material.
Seven thousand muskets were left to arm the St. Louis volunteers.
When in hot haste the steamer had been loaded, the word was given to
push off from the landing; but she could not be moved. The boxes of
muskets had been piled up around the engine-room to guard it against any
shot that might be sent from the battery planted by our plausible
Governor for the defence of the State on the levee above, and their
weight had pressed the prow of the steamer down into the clay of the
river-bank, and she stuck fast. Such a moment would have paralyzed many
men; but the undaunted Stokes was cool and equal to the occasion. He
cried to his energetic helpers, “Move the boxes aft.” With right good
will the order was obeyed. Two hundred boxes of muskets were quickly
carried astern, when the steamer’s prow was lifted free from the clay
and she floated out upon deep water. “Which way?” said the captain of
the “City of Alton.” Stokes replied, “Out to the channel of the river,
then north to Alton.” “But,” said Captain Mitchell of the steamer, “what
if the battery on the levee fires upon us?” “We will defend ourselves,”
said Stokes. “What if they beat us?” asked Mitchell. “Push her to the
middle of the river and sink her,” replied Stokes. “I’ll do it,” said
Mitchell. On he steamed. He came abreast the battery; he passed it.
Cannoneers and cannon seemed to be asleep. There was no sound from human
or brazen throat. Plash, plash went the steamer’s wheels; on, on she
ploughed through the murky waters, and at five in the morning reached
her destination.
As soon as she touched the landing at Alton, Captain Stokes ran to the
market-house and rang the fire-bell. The inhabitants roused from their
morning slumbers, came pouring out of their houses, some of them
half-dressed, to fight fire as soon as they found it. The Captain told
them, “There is no fire; but at the landing is that steamer which you
all know; it is now loaded with arms and ammunition from the Arsenal at
St. Louis; to get them we outwitted and of course disappointed the
secessionists; they may pursue us; so we wish as speedily as possible to
get these guns to the capital of your State. Will you help us carry them
from the ‘City of Alton’ to these empty freight-cars?” With a shout that
rolled across the Father of Waters to the opposite shore, men, women,
and children laid hold of this hard task. They tugged at the heavy boxes
of muskets, carrying, dragging, wheeling them. Their enthusiasm rose
every moment to a higher pitch; and just as the clock struck seven the
work was done. The cargo of the steamer was on the cars. The doors were
shut and padlocked. The locomotive whistled, the bell rang, the steam
puffed, the wheels moved, on went the ponderous train with its coveted
load amid the shouts and huzzas of the patriotic Altonians.[16] Nor did
they forget that morning their own martyred Lovejoy, who, fighting
against slavery and for the freedom of the press, poured out his blood
on the same spot where they then stood; and that his blood so ruthlessly
spilled foretokened the awful conflict into which the whole nation was
then rapidly drifting.
When the morning of April 26th dawned, to say that the secessionists of
St. Louis were unhappy would be an inadequate expression of their mental
state. They then discovered that they had immoderately exulted over a
few worthless, flint-lock muskets; and that while they had shouted, most
of the arms for which they had been scheming, had, in the darkness,
slipped forever beyond their reach. When they fully apprehended that
they had been artfully outwitted, their mortification was unbounded.
Covered with shame, they crept into their holes. That night’s work by
Lyon and Stokes was decisive and pivotal. On it the political destiny of
St. Louis seemed to turn. Every day thereafter both the Arsenal and city
grew more and more secure, and volunteers to defend the city gathered in
ever increasing numbers.
The foundation for this volunteer movement had been laid weeks before.
In February, or early in March, many of our most influential loyal
citizens petitioned the Minute Men or secessionists to lay down their
arms, to quit their rendezvous, and to dissolve all their military
organizations, promising if they would do this, that the Wide-Awakes or
Union men would do the same. This very earnest petition was for the
purpose of maintaining peace within the city; but the secessionists
rejected it with scorn. So some days later a regiment of Wide-Awakes
appeared on the streets, bearing on their shoulders bright, burnished
muskets. These were the guns of which we have before spoken, that were
sent as plaster casts to our Art Exhibition. Most of this regiment were
ready, when the call came, to enter the volunteer service of the United
States. Many Germans of the city eagerly volunteered. Soon Captain Lyon
had over three thousand men from St. Louis, all well armed and under
drill. The number continued to swell till all anxiety for the safety of
the Arsenal at last died away.
Now, however, a strange phenomenon arrested our attention. Many of those
who were bent on forcing Missouri out of the Union, for the time being
relaxed all effort. They seemed to have given up the contest. What led
them thus to lay aside their open belligerency? We were able soon to
solve this mystery. It had been often and confidently asserted that the
Federal government was to send, from the adjoining free States, several
thousand men to defend the Arsenal and other property of the United
States. A little later some regiments from Illinois came. This wrought
up the secessionists to fever heat. To their minds the introduction of
troops from other States was an outrageous invasion of State
sovereignty.
Moreover there had been for several weeks a persistent effort to
misrepresent the attitude of the general government. While it was simply
endeavoring to defend its property and domain, it had been dinned into
the ears of the secessionists, in the most emphatic terms, that the
object of the United States was invasion and subjugation; and as true
men they must arise and defend their hearths and homes, wives and
children against Lincoln’s minions. So our fellow-citizens, who had been
devising every possible scheme to secure the secession of Missouri,
thought it quite unnecessary for them to put forth any further effort to
attain their object, since the incoming of soldiers from other States
would produce such a revulsion of feeling against the Federal
government, that the people without any further incentive would speedily
determine to secede. They began to talk confidently of setting aside the
decree of the Convention. But without proposing any further effort, they
were quietly awaiting the natural drift of events. They believed that by
the force of circumstances the State would be carried out of the Union
and into the Southern Confederacy.
Their confident expectation was not altogether baseless. Clear-headed
Union men saw the danger of introducing troops at that time from other
States into our city. The authorities at Washington were induced to take
this view of the case into serious consideration. The result was that
for the time being they wisely changed their policy. Some regiments that
had been ordered from Illinois to St. Louis were sent elsewhere.
Moreover, the President, carefully humoring the prejudices of those who
tenaciously held the doctrine of State sovereignty, on April 30th,
ordered Captain Lyon “to enroll in the military service of the United
States the loyal citizens of St. Louis and vicinity, not exceeding, with
those heretofore enlisted, ten thousand in number, for the purpose of
maintaining the authority of the United States, and for the protection
of the peaceable inhabitants of Missouri.” So the State rights men were
beaten at their own game and on their own ground. In his order the
President seemed carefully to respect the doctrine of State sovereignty.
Only Missourians, and they from “St. Louis and vicinity,” were to defend
the Arsenal and city. Could anything have been more fitting and
beautiful? But the secessionists were altogether unwilling to take their
own medicine. The order of the President was not to their liking. It
took the wind out of their sails; it upset their calculations. If ten
thousand volunteers were to be gathered from their own city and
vicinity, and no troops were to come from adjoining States, State
sovereignty would not apparently be infringed, and there would be no
revulsion of feeling against the Federal government; and, most of all,
if the secessionists should attempt to rise in force, these ten thousand
local volunteers would in all probability quickly and sternly suppress
them. The very care that the President had taken to humor their
prejudices aroused them to intense and bitter activity against the
Federal government. With warmth they asked if these ten thousand
Missourians were not to be used in defending the property of the United
States, the very property that they had vainly tried to get into their
own hands? Was it not as unjust to use Missourians to guard Federal
property within the boundaries of their own State as it was to use them
to guard like property in Maryland or Virginia? Did not the President’s
plausible policy ruthlessly override State sovereignty? Had not our
Governor peremptorily refused to furnish the Federal government with
Missouri soldiers to put down rebellion in the seceded States? Had he
not already replied to Mr. Cameron, President Lincoln’s Secretary of
War, that the requisition for troops from Missouri by the United States
“is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and
cannot be complied with?”[17] They did not propose to submit quietly to
such indignities. They were once more on fire for action, but their
activity now showed itself not in any attempt to take the Arsenal, but
in sharp denunciation of the Federal authorities, and in aiding in every
possible way those already in open revolt.
On May 6th, an event transpired which excites laughter now, but to a
large number of our fellow-citizens was natural and very serious then.
The disloyal police commissioners of St. Louis, appointed by our
secession Governor, in a solemn and weighty document, formally demanded
of Captain Lyon the removal of all United States troops from all places
and buildings occupied by them outside the Arsenal grounds. The
commissioners declared that such occupancy was “in derogation of the
Constitution and laws of the United States.”[18] Captain Lyon in his
reply to them asked: “What provisions of the Constitution and laws were
thus violated?” The commissioners replied that originally “Missouri had
sovereign and exclusive jurisdiction over her whole territory,” that she
had delegated a portion of her sovereignty to the United States over
certain tracts of land for military purposes, such as arsenals and
parks, and asserted that outside of such places the United States had no
right to occupy her soil. The whole thing was so ludicrous that
thousands in St. Louis were merry over it. Police commissioners
dictating as to where the United States should house the officers of its
army and quarter its troops! But it was an object lesson that vividly
revealed the absurdity of State sovereignty, in which so many at that
time implicitly believed. Captain Lyon of course positively refused to
comply with a demand so preposterous, and the commissioners with great
gravity referred it to the Governor and legislature. Nothing more was
ever heard of it.
During all this time the work at the Arsenal went right on. The number
of volunteer soldiers daily increased. By the middle of June there were
more than ten thousand of them, three fourths of whom were Germans. This
latter fact should be specially noted since it alone can explain some
events with which we yet shall have to deal. And under the command of
Captain Lyon, the Arsenal ceased to be a bone of contention. It was no
longer regarded with solicitude by the loyal of the city. It had become
a bulwark of Unionism. Whatever came we felt measurably safe, since all
the force of the Arsenal was now wielded to prevent the secession of
Missouri, and to maintain the integrity of the Union.