DECISION AND DIVISION
As soon as Camp Jackson had been taken, and the panic which so closely
followed it was over, a new spirit pervaded the entire community. Those
who had been halting between Unionism and secession felt almost
irresistibly impelled to decide with which party they would act. And
those who from the start had quietly but firmly allied themselves with
the one or the other, and for prudential reasons had refrained from
declaring their political faith, now felt constrained to show their true
colors. The process of open alignment was rapid. Society seemed to be
suddenly transformed. We felt as though we had been transported in a
state of unconsciousness to another world and when there had waked up in
astonishment, gazing upon new and strange scenes. At first some thought
that the celerity with which men were being converted to Unionism was
marvellous; but in this they were deceived. There were, to be sure, many
striking political conversions, but in the vast majority of cases, what
amazed observers was not conversion, but a frank and open declaration of
principles that up to that hour had been secretly held. Almost everybody
seemed to be confessing his political faith. The star-spangled banner
which, out of deference to the feelings of secession neighbors, had been
so long concealed, began to be hung out from the balconies and windows
of public buildings and private dwellings. It now waved from the cupolas
of schoolhouses and even from the steeples of some of the churches.
Union teamsters decked their mules and horses with it. Little children
on their way to school, or playing in the streets, carried it. Just as
sometimes in the spring the sudden coming of the warm sunshine and
showers stars the cherry and apple trees all over with blossoms, so our
city, so long bannerless, all at once bloomed with the Stars and
Stripes. Badges made of strips of red, white and blue were also
extensively worn both by men and women, while on every side, at morning,
noon and night, could be heard the song born of the hour, “Hurrah! For
the Red, White and Blue.” And the suddenness of this outburst of
patriotism for a time threw those who had been struggling in doubt and
gloom to prevent the secession of Missouri into a delirium of joy.
Nevertheless secessionism in St. Louis was neither dead nor hopeless. It
was, to be sure, for the time being overawed; but it was in fact as
tenacious and determined as ever. Our disloyal fellow-citizens were led
to believe that the city would be at last captured by the rebel army,
and both it and the State turned over to the Southern Confederacy. So,
bating neither heart nor hope, they labored incessantly for the
realization of this purpose. In secret they plotted to secure the
secession of the State. Protected by United States troops, they harbored
in their homes spies from the rebel army. Some of them themselves acted
the part of spies and were arrested for their crime. Many of them
contributed freely of their substance to help disrupt the Union and
establish the Confederacy. But while they worked clandestinely,—as they
were compelled to do if they worked at all,—most of them in social
intercourse manfully declared their sentiments. In fact the time had at
last come when true men on either side abhorred those sordid souls that
sat on the fence, ready for the sake of self, at the opportune moment,
to jump off upon the side of those who should chance to be victorious.
The words of Dryden in his “Duke of Guise,” written concerning the Whigs
and Tories of his day, slightly altered, fittingly depict them.
Not friends, nor rebels they; nor this, nor that;
Not birds, nor beasts; but just a kind of bat;
A twilight animal; true to neither cause,
With union wings, but rebel teeth and claws.[36]
One of my own deacons, a true and brave man, at first hesitated as to
the stand he ought to take. With him it was a matter of conscience. He
was not swayed by any sordid motive. His associations had been largely
with Southern and pro-slavery men. He regretted that I had felt impelled
to speak from my pulpit for the Union. But when asked by some of his
secession brethren to sign a petition to which I have already referred,
asking me to resign my pastorate, he began earnestly to think what he
ought to do. He said to those that solicited him to put his name to that
petition, “I have never yet openly opposed any one of my pastors; and
even now, while I regret that our present pastor publicly discussed a
political question, I cannot sign this petition without careful
consideration. I wish to take it home with me to-night, and pray over
it, before I decide what to do in reference to it.” He prayed. He
determined not to sign it. He began to think as never before. He now
observed that all the newspapers and journals that came to his house
were pro-slavery and secession; and he decided to secure for daily
reading some that presented the opposite view. He at once subscribed for
two Union papers. He looked over his library and did not find a book in
it that was antagonistic to slavery. He went at once to a bookstore and
bought three anti-slavery books, which he carefully read. Within a few
days his mind was completely revolutionized. He had decided what to do.
Every fibre of his being was for the Union. He soon called me into his
office and said: “Pastor, you made one serious mistake. You ought to
have preached against secession at least three months before you did.”
And the good deacon was undoubtedly right. From that time all measures
taken for the preservation of the Union seemed to him to be dilatory. He
chafed because the President held back his emancipation proclamation.
After the war was over, St. Louis sent him to Washington as one of its
representatives. But we should not forget how much such a decision made
in that time of political upheaval cost him. It may seem easy to us now,
but it tried the soul then. It broke up old associations, and for a time
at least made lifelong friends enemies.
In my own neighborhood there lived a most excellent Christian family. It
consisted of husband and wife and four or five children. The children, I
should judge, were from twelve to eighteen years of age. But the father
and mother were divided on the great national issue. He was decidedly
for the Union, she just as decidedly for the Southern Confederacy. At
the dinner hour almost every day, in the presence of their children,
they hotly discussed the question on which they were divided. This
procedure at last menaced the union of the household. But with good
sense, the father, before his whole family, proposed to the mother that,
for the sake of peace in their home, they declare a truce until the
close of the war. The wife and mother acceded to this timely proposal.
The national question was never thereafter mooted under that roof; but
when the war ended I noticed that the wife as well as the husband was
for the Union. Silence and events had prevailed. But this divided
household was not an isolated case. There were scores of families in the
city made discordant and unhappy over the burning issue of the hour.
In those days of decision there was a distinguished judge of one of our
courts who was a Southerner by birth and education. He was pro-slavery
in sentiment, but a decisive, ardent Union man. One morning he met an
old Southern friend at the Post-office, whither in those days we all
went for our mail. As usual they cordially greeted each other. Then the
judge said to him: “I understand from others that you are an enemy of
the Old Flag?” He replied that he was. Then responded the judge, “You
are my enemy. Never recognize me again by look or word.” That decision
was positive and irreversible; the division was sharp and
irreconcilable.
Living on the same square with myself was a man of Southern birth. He
was a pleasant, agreeable gentleman. I held him in high esteem. I had
been called by him to minister in his household in a time of sickness
and death. Tenderness of feeling had marked our intercourse in those sad
days. He and I had never exchanged a word on the subject of secession.
Still, one morning as I met him and as usual saluted him, he did not, as
he had been wont to do, return my salutation. I concluded that, absorbed
in something else, he did not see me. I could not believe that his
seeming discourtesy was intended. Two or three days after, I greeted him
again, but obtained from him no sign of recognition. I determined not to
give up my friend without one more effort. A week later I met him on the
sidewalk near his own door, stood within four feet of him, looked him
straight in the face, and said, “Good morning,” calling him by name; but
he made no response either by word or look. He was no longer my friend,
but my enemy. Why? He had learned from others that I was for the
Union,—that was the explanation of his rudeness. During all the war we
frequently met, but passed each other as though we were walking,
insensate posts. I always felt a strong impulse to speak once more, but
I checked it, lest speaking might give to my dumb neighbor useless
offence. Such experiences as this were peculiar to those who lived in a
border city during the war of the rebellion.
But the open alignment of men and women in our city for or against the
Union, disturbed, if it did not destroy, in many of our churches the
Christian fellowship that had hitherto existed. Where the membership of
a church was politically very largely of the same mind, the friction
arising from the few in opposition, while deplorable, did not very
seriously interfere with its general harmony. In such a case the small
minority either remained and held its peace, or else withdrew noisily or
quietly, while the main body of the church, freed from irritation and
unified, continued its legitimate work with increased power and
efficiency. But where the members of a church were about equally divided
on the great national issue their contention sometimes became
acrimonious. When such conflict was waged, brotherly love was
overwhelmed, and the very existence of the church itself was imperilled.
I well knew one such church. It occupied, in the northern part of our
city, a very important field for aggressive Christian work, but by its
internal dissensions its influence for good was neutralized. It was of
course no wonder that they were absorbed in the gigantic national battle
then being waged. Not only the most vital political interests were at
stake, but a great moral question was submitted to the arbitrament of
the sword. These Christian men and women were irresistibly impelled to
take sides. Some of them were fighting for the Union and against
slavery; others against the Union and for slavery. They were all honest
and intensely earnest. The government of their church was democratic,
and they were continually counting noses. Each party sharply watched the
other lest in some unexpected exigency it should be outvoted. Their
pastor, worn out by their belligerency, resigned and quit the city. All
real Christian work in that church was now at a standstill. Something
must be done to prevent the church itself from being blotted out. The
case was desperate and called for heroic treatment.
The remedy was forthcoming. A neighboring pastor, who had at heart both
the highest good of his country and of the kingdom of God, persuaded two
of his brethren to take their letters from his church and to unite with
that. They did so, and that gave those there who were loyal to their
country a majority. With them he considered a series of measures, which
both he and they believed to be for the highest good of that contentious
and divided Christian body. A meeting was called to consider them. Some
of these measures were very distasteful to the secession party in the
church; so they were long and hotly debated. That memorable meeting
began at eight o’clock in the evening and did not adjourn until two
o’clock the next morning. A little after one in the morning a measure
long and stubbornly resisted by the secessionists passed by a bare
majority; in their resentment a half dozen of them asked for letters of
dismission; these were of course promptly granted; when they discovered
that by their spiteful withdrawal they had given their opponents an
assured majority, they requested to be restored to membership again, but
their request was ignored. And now for a time pandemonium seemed to have
broken loose. A half dozen of either party were on their feet at once,
each in loud tones addressing the moderator, while he pounded with his
gavel and cried, “Order! Order!” At last the tempest subsided. The
discomfited left. The remaining projected measures were quickly passed,
and the meeting adjourned. Both the victors and the vanquished were all
good brethren. But both did what, under soberer circumstances, they
would not approve. Nevertheless, after that stormy business meeting
prosperity came to that church. Their house of worship, which had been
only half constructed, was soon after finished. A strong, level-headed
pastor was called, and a Sunday-school of more than a thousand pupils
met there every Lord’s day.
The divisive work, which we are endeavoring to set forth, went on
through almost the whole period of the war. As late as January 9th,
1862, it appeared in the Chamber of Commerce. A number of Union business
men applied for membership. The secession members of the Chamber were
bitterly opposed to their admission, and by the ballots which they
controlled secured their defeat. This insulting and unbusiness-like act
split the Chamber of Commerce in twain. The Union members withdrew and
established the Union Chamber of Commerce. Thus at the very centre of
trade in our city corrupt politics overruled legitimate business. For a
time the eternal laws of exchange gave place to scheming policies of
secession. In that border city, men who did not believe in the Union and
in free labor refused for awhile even to barter with those who did.
Every human association seemed to be rent asunder. But this unjust and
short-sighted action of the secessionists in the Chamber of Commerce
stirred up much bad feeling throughout the city. It was vehemently
denounced. Very few outside the extreme disunionists rose up to defend
it. It was folly so unmitigated that it soon reacted on its authors;
what they attempted to make a stronghold of secession soon ceased even
to exist, and the Union Chamber of Commerce remained without a rival;
and there every worthy business man was welcomed irrespective of his
political opinions.
But notable events, in swift succession, were now casting new light on
the problems over which armed hosts were contending and for the solution
of which they were freely pouring out their blood. The views of
receptive souls were rapidly becoming broader and more national. Some
original secessionists under the increasing illumination joined the
Unionists, and did it at great personal self-sacrifice. Their Southern
friends looked upon them as traitors to the Southern Confederacy, and
scorned them. They cut them on the street; they socially ostracized
them. It required great moral courage in one born and bred in the South,
to become, in that border city, an out and out, patriotic nationalist.
But no inconsiderable number were equal to the demand. For the sake of
an undivided country they gave up tender social relations and the
amenities of life and boldly proclaimed their change of heart.
In illustration of this I wish briefly to call attention to one of the
many converts to Unionism. Just before the war there was a slave auction
on the steps of the Court-house. An artist, Mr. Thomas S. Noble, made
sketches of the impressive and shameful scene. He was a Southerner, but
from a child had been opposed to the system of slavery. He then and
there determined from the sketches which he had made to depict on canvas
that sale of men and women under the hammer of the auctioneer. But he
was too busy with other work to put his hand at once to this projected
task. And while it was deferred the war broke out. Out of sympathy for
the people of the South he enlisted as a soldier in the Confederate
army. When the term of his enlistment expired, he returned to St. Louis,
and took up again the work of his studio. On account of his absence his
patrons to a considerable extent had fallen away from him. He found that
he had leisure time on his hands, and so determined to begin the work of
painting the slave auction, projected so long before. In his mind this
public sale of men and women was a typical national crime. It was
sanctioned by both State and national law. The steps of the Court-house
in which both were interpreted and enforced became without protest a
slave mart. The Stars and Stripes floating over the heads of the
auctioneer and cowering slaves exposed to the gaze of the curious throng
made the sale a national offence. Under a sense of this flagrant
national injustice he began to paint and the product was a mighty
protest against the crime of legalized bondage. With his sword he had
just been fighting for slavery and the Southern Confederacy; now with
his brush, he was contending against both. And his brush was mightier
than his sword.
But he was soon put to the severest test. What he had painted with
exhilaration and joy brought upon him the sharpest of trials. In a
social way some highly esteemed Southern friends dropped into his
studio. For the first time they looked on his slave auction, or “Slave
Mart” as he called it. Knowing nothing of his real attitude towards
slavery, they nevertheless at once felt the powerful protest which that
new painting uttered against slavery and its accompanying evils.
In the front window of a picture store on Fourth Street the artists of
the city were accustomed to display their paintings. The Southern
friends of Mr. Noble, as in his studio they gazed upon his embodied
protest against slave auctions, anxiously asked: “Are you going to
exhibit that painting in the window on Fourth Street?” He replied that
he had thought of doing so. They said, “If you do, you shall have no
social standing with us. Our relations with you will end forever.”
Almost all of the artist’s intimate friends were Southerners. To be cut
by them in that way seemed to him a very bitter trial. For the moment he
hesitated. Up to that time I had not known him; but I was known in St.
Louis as an uncompromising Union man; so, in his hesitation as to what
he should do, he called at my house, told me his whole fascinating
history, and asked my advice as to whether, in view of the threats of
his old friends, he should put his painting of the slave auction in the
show-window. I counselled him not to be turned aside by threats from
doing any right thing, and insisted that in his case his conscience was
involved; that he was bound in some way to bear witness to his
conviction concerning slavery, and that he should do it by his brush as
well as by his lips. I told him, come what would, he ought to display
his painting; that while it would cost him much so to do, there
certainly would be compensations for his sacrifice; that, in my
judgment, where he would lose one friend he would gain three; and that
those whom he would gain would be better than those whom he would lose.
At the close of our conversation he determined to act in accordance with
his own judgment and conscience, even if he lost all his old friends and
gained none.
The next day his “Slave Mart”[37] was in the show-window. Before it all
day long stood a crowd, ever going, ever coming. Thousands viewed with
admiration the work of the artist. There was a soul, a life in the
picture, that appealed to every onlooker. Some subtle power in it laid
hold of the imagination and touched the heart. The artist became more
widely known. He entered on a new career. Friends such as he never had
before sprung up on every hand. He afterwards painted John Brown going
out, with pinioned arms, to execution, and stooping to kiss a negro
baby. This historical painting was afterwards engraved, and the
engraving was extensively sold.
We have written enough to show how much it cost one in St. Louis, during
the war, to decide firmly with which party in the national conflict he
would cast his lot. Such decisions in a multitude of cases were
divisive; they often set in bitter antagonism husbands and wives,
parents and children; in not a few instances destroyed old friendships
and blotted out for a time the ordinary amenities of life, and even
split asunder Christian churches, the very body of Christ; and the
cleavage was so deep and radical that it remains to this day; some
churches still being designated either “North” or “South.”
The whole thing was amazing when it was enacted, the recollection of it
now is weirdly strange. But we should never forget that those who
uncomplainingly sacrificed for their country the tenderest relations of
life were as heroically patriotic as those brave men who fell pierced
with Minie balls on the “high places” of bloody battlefields.