LYON IN CONFERENCE AND IN CAMPAIGN
War really began in Missouri at the taking of Camp Jackson. But many
hoped against hope that the fire that then began to flame might be
dampened and extinguished. Eminent citizens of St. Louis besought the
Governor and his chief of staff, General Price, to ask for a conference
with General Lyon, that, by a frank, honest interchange of views, some
basis for peace might be discovered. This these officers reluctantly
consented to do. When their request was presented to General Lyon, some
men, who commanded his confidence, urged him to grant it, in order that
no one in the future might be able to say that he refused to consider
any measure by which war might have been honorably averted. Lyon,
yielding to this reasonable solicitation, agreed to participate in the
proposed conference. But with him time was precious. Harney had
relinquished his command of the department on May 30th, and Lyon had
assumed it on the following day. Since that time he had been exceedingly
busy in gathering and equipping troops. To him war in Missouri, probably
fierce and protracted, was inevitable, and he was bending every energy
upon the work of preparation, that he might be able to wage it
successfully. He considered any suspension of his activity as
intolerable. Whatever was done by way of compromise must be done without
delay. So he fixed an early day for the solicited conference. He
announced that if the Governor and his general, or either of them,
“should visit St. Louis on, or before, the 12th of June, in order to
hold an interview with him for the purpose of effecting, if possible, a
pacific solution of the troubles in Missouri, they should be free from
molestation or arrest during their journey to St. Louis, and their
return from St. Louis to Jefferson City.” Thus assured of safe-conduct,
in the afternoon of June 10th, Governor Jackson, General Price, and one
of the Governor’s aides-de-camp, Thomas L. Snead, left the State capital
for our city. On the following morning, June 11th, they apprised Lyon
that they were at the Planters’ Hotel. In the afternoon of that day, the
conference took place.[38] The fact of that vitally important meeting
became generally known. All intelligent persons in the city were full of
interest, not to say anxiety, in reference to the outcome.
[Illustration:
BRIGADIER-GENERAL NATHANIEL LYON.
[_Page 198_
]
Both parties to the rapidly developing national conflict were ably and
fittingly represented in the conference. The Unionists felt that their
interests, identical with the national interests, would be wisely
guarded by General Lyon, Colonel Blair and Major Conant. General Lyon
opened the conference, stating that it would be conducted on the side of
the Union by Colonel Blair, than whom no one was better equipped for the
responsible task. But as the deliberations between these men of
irreconcilable views proceeded, Lyon, who had profoundly studied the
underlying questions and principles that divided the Federals and the
Confederates, and was by nature aggressive and inclined to disputation,
gradually assumed the part of leader in that momentous interchange of
views, while Mr. Blair lapsed into silence, a satisfied and admiring
listener. State and national sovereignty there met face to face. They
were opposites. Both could not be true. Hours passed in seeking some
basis of agreement, but none was found. So long as each party held his
view unflinchingly, there could be no common standing ground. Colonel
Blair, afterwards speaking of the conference, declared that he said
little or nothing, and did not need to; that General Lyon, in the most
thorough and lucid manner, analyzed every proposal submitted by the
Governor, pointed out every subterfuge and held up to the light every
fallacy. The main contention of the secessionists was that the United
States had no right to organize and arm Home Guards, nor to send troops
into, and to occupy, the territory of sovereign Missouri; if General
Lyon would agree to these vital propositions, on other grounds they were
willing for the sake of peace to make what seemed to them great and
humiliating concessions. But what they asked no loyal officer of the
United States army would or could grant. So, after the conference had
lasted nearly five hours, and all the views presented had been
thoroughly discussed, Lyon closed this memorable, crucial debate by
saying: “Rather” (he was still seated and spoke deliberately, slowly and
with peculiar emphasis) “rather than concede to the State of Missouri
the right to demand that my government shall not enlist troops within
her limits, or bring troops into the State whenever it pleases, or move
its troops at its own will into, out of, or through the State; rather
than concede to the State of Missouri for one single instant the right
to dictate to my government in any matter however unimportant, I would”
(rising as he said this, and pointing in turn to every one in the room)
“see you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and every man, woman and
child in the State dead and buried.” Then turning to the Governor, he
said: “This means war. In an hour one of my officers will call for you
and conduct you out of my lines.” And then, without another word,
without an inclination of the head, without even a look, he turned upon
his heel and strode out of the room, rattling his spurs and clanking his
sabre.[39]
The report of the abortive deliberations of the conference spread with
lightning speed through the city and State. But notwithstanding the
untoward result, it brought relief to all loyal hearts; for while all
desired peace, a host of true men and women preferred war to peace with
dishonor. Like their general, rather than tamely yield the vital
question at stake, they were ready to sacrifice their property and lay
down their lives. It was inspiring to feel the touch and thrill of this
unselfish devotion.
The Governor and his attendants at once returned to Jefferson City. They
reached their destination at two o’clock in the morning of the 12th. The
Governor at once issued a proclamation, calling for fifty thousand
volunteers to repel the invasion of the State.[40] For fear of the
speedy coming of Lyon by rail, General Price ordered the railroad
bridges across the Osage and Gasconade to be burned. Jefferson City was
hastily evacuated. The archives of the State were removed, and such
material of war as had been gathered at the capital, including even the
armory and workshop. The rebel forces were concentrated at Boonville,
farther to the west, for the purpose of holding that place and the
Missouri River long enough at least for the secessionists in the
northern counties of the commonwealth to rally to the support of the
fugitive State government. The Governor desired if possible to segregate
and solidify the disloyal, and so carry the State by force over into the
Southern Confederacy.
But the lynx-eyed, alert Lyon thwarted that scheme. When he left the
Planters’ Hotel in the evening of June 11th, he at once telegraphed the
national War Department for five thousand additional stand of arms, and
for authority to enlist more troops in the State.[41] What he asked was
granted without hesitation or delay. The next day, with characteristic
energy, he prepared his small army for an offensive campaign. A part of
it, on the 13th, he ordered to Springfield, in southwest Missouri, to
cut off the retreat of Price, whom he expected to drive in that
direction. Knowing that he could not use the Pacific Railroad, since its
main bridges had been destroyed, on the same day, with the rest of his
army, he moved up the Missouri by steamboat. On the 15th, he quietly
took possession of Jefferson City, and garrisoned it. On Sunday, the
16th, he was steaming on toward Boonville. On Monday, a few miles south
of that city, he met and easily dispersed the rebel army, which, having
been hastily gathered, was raw, undisciplined, and poorly armed. The
collision between these hostile forces did not, in the sacrifice of
life, reach the dignity of a battle. Only two or three on each side were
killed and a few wounded. The Union army, however, took a goodly company
of prisoners, together with considerable war material and camp equipage;
and this comparatively bloodless conflict secured the end that from the
beginning Lyon had clearly in view. By taking Camp Jackson in May, he
had suppressed the open disloyalty of St. Louis and the counties
adjacent to it, assuring their support of the Union; by dispersing
Price’s gathering host at Boonville he cleared the Missouri River of all
formidable hostile forces; isolated the counties north of the river,
which were rich, populous, and largely disloyal; drove the fleeing
Governor with his general and army panic-stricken into the extreme
southwest of the State; and sent General Price, with several members of
his staff, on a flying expedition into northwestern Arkansas, to urge
General McCulloch of the Confederate army to invade Missouri and deliver
him and his retreating troops from utter disaster.
Lyon and his army were received with exultant gladness by the many loyal
citizens of Boonville, and on the 18th he issued a proclamation,
assuring all that were peaceful and law-abiding of his protection. He
also paroled the prisoners that he had taken, putting them under oath
not again to take up arms against the United States.
Without going further into detail, which would be aside from our object,
it is sufficient to say that Lyon, following up his victory at Boonville
as best he could, with the inadequate force under his command, finally
made his headquarters at Springfield. There we must leave him for a
time. Every act that he had thus far performed, every step of his
victorious march, had been watched with breathless interest by both the
loyal and disloyal of St. Louis. The former well knew that his victory
was theirs; the latter considered his triumph their defeat.
But while Lyon with unusual energy and startling celerity was
prosecuting his victorious campaign in the State, a lamentable event
within the city saddened all hearts. On the east side of Seventh Street,
between Olive and Locust, in a substantial brick building, was the
Recorder’s Court. On Saturday, June 15th, a company of volunteer
soldiers, belonging to the regiment of Colonel Kallman, was marching by,
when somebody, from a window of the story just above the court-room,
fired a revolver into the ranks of these armed volunteers. They were raw
and undisciplined. Being Germans, they were bitterly hated by the
secessionists. They had become sensitive and vindictive under the
stinging taunts which had been wantonly hurled at them by their hostile
neighbors. So now, when unexpectedly fired upon, exasperated, and
evidently without a moment’s thought, they turned and fired into the
building, from which they had been assailed. They did not stop to think
from which story the hostile shot had come, and emptied their muskets
into the room occupied by the innocent recorder. He and three other
guiltless citizens were instantly killed, while two others were mortally
wounded and another sadly injured.[42] Such not unprovoked, but
inconsiderate, action on the part of these Union soldiers for the time
being materially damaged the cause of the loyal in our city and put
weapons into the hands of the secessionists. Nevertheless, all
conservative citizens on either side were grateful that an event so
ill-starred did not lead, as it naturally might have done, to general
bloody conflict in our streets.
The whole affair was investigated; not very thoroughly, many of us
thought. Those who attempted it, found it difficult to get at the bottom
facts. Their investigation at last came to a rather inglorious end,
leaving the community in doubt as to whether any one fired upon the
soldiers. Several in the neighborhood testified that they saw no one
shoot from the building; but one man declared that he saw the shot from
the second-story window, and described the position of the man’s arm
when he discharged his revolver into the ranks of the unoffending
soldiers; but there was no other witness, aside from the soldiers
themselves, to confirm this testimony, and as only in the mouth of two
or three witnesses so grave a matter could be satisfactorily
established, the investigators returned the Scotch verdict, “Not
proven.” This, however, was quite unsatisfactory to thinking men. Very
few believed that these soldiers, without provocation, fired into the
room of a civil magistrate with whom they were unacquainted, and against
whom they could have had no ill will. Still, the lamentable event was
part and parcel of the mad effort to dismember the Republic, and hardly
surprising in a city where earnest, passionate men on both sides of the
great national conflict daily looked each other in the eye. But as it
has often happened, so in this sad case, the innocent suffered, while
the undetected guilty went free. However, in the onrushing tide of
events, the deplorable incident was soon lost sight of and forgotten.