NOT PEACE BUT THE SWORD
On the 19th of May, 1862, Edward Everett came to us and delivered his
famous oration on Washington. Very few in our city had ever before seen
him. A large audience of the most intelligent and cultured among us
gathered to hear him. The style of his great speech was clear and
finished; his elocution, while a little stately, was nearly faultless;
his voice was agreeable and reaching; his gestures graceful and fitting,
but he lacked magnetism. His whole effort seemed somewhat studied and a
bit mechanical. When pronouncing a given phrase he stretched out his arm
and from the palm of his hand extended one finger; when uttering
another, he extended two fingers; when enunciating another, three
fingers; and now and then in making a full-arm gesture he opened the
whole hand. One could not help thinking that before appearing in public
he had carefully drilled himself before a looking-glass.
His audience listened intently, but was not much moved. He appealed to
the head far more strongly than to the heart. Still to sit at the feet
of so distinguished an orator was to us all a rare treat.
He was not only gathering funds to complete the Washington monument at
the national capital, but was still endeavoring, through the love borne
to Washington by the people both of the North and South, to unite a
divided and warring nation. Amid the clash of arms he was eloquently
pleading for peace. His purpose was noble, but his effort was futile.
The ears of contending hosts, seething with the passions of war, were
deaf to all appeals for peace. One might as well have undertaken to put
out the fires of a conflagration by a speech, as to stay the bloody
national conflict then raging by an oration on Washington.
Fiercer war soon followed this eloquent pleading for good will and
harmony. When, in April, General Halleck departed for Corinth,
Mississippi, he left General Schofield in command of the greater part of
our State, and on the 1st of June he put him in temporary command of the
entire Department of Missouri. General Schofield now sent all the
soldiers that could possibly be spared from St. Louis and Missouri to
swell the ranks of the army in Mississippi. The ever watchful enemy
learned from spies among us that we were largely denuded of national
troops, and determined to put forth one more vigorous effort to secure
the secession of Missouri.
Their hostile campaign had been manifestly skilfully planned. Their open
and aggressive movement began in the latter part of June. All at once
guerrillas swarmed in every part of the State. It is estimated that
there were full ten thousand of them.[89] They were first in northeast,
then in central and western, Missouri; now here, now there, they looted
and burned the houses of Union men; plundered farms and villages; tore
up railroad tracks; destroyed bridges; attacked different detachments of
militia; were by turns victorious and defeated; but on August 13th,
having massed their forces, they won a signal victory over the Union
troops at Independence, and two days later ambushed eight hundred of
them in Jackson County. No one now cares for the rebel Colonels Porter,
Quantrell, Cobb, Poindexter, Coffee, McBride and Hughes; but they were
then the chief figures in these scenes of desolation. But when they were
at the height of their success, the scale turned. General Blunt from
Kansas appeared with a small but well-appointed army and drove them with
their ill-gotten plunder into Arkansas.
But as flies when brushed away at once return again, so they appeared
again in September, in northeast Missouri, and so effective were their
movements that for the time being they took possession of that part of
the State, except posts adequately garrisoned by United States troops.
But during this period of turmoil General Schofield was wide awake. On
June 22d, very soon after these devastating raids began, he issued an
order in which he held “rebels and rebel-sympathizers responsible in
their property, and, if need be, in their persons, for damages
thereafter committed by guerrillas or marauding parties.” And while this
had no immediate effect the order was not in vain. It was the precursor
of energetic action. On the 22d of July, Governor Gamble authorized the
general to organize the entire militia of the State, and to order so
much of it into active service, as he should deem necessary to put down
all marauders, and to defend the peaceable citizens of the commonwealth.
On the same day, Schofield commanded the immediate organization of the
militia “for the purpose of exterminating the guerrillas infesting the
State.” This difficult work was pushed with great rapidity and was soon
effected.
In September, Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas were made a single military
district, and over it was put in command General Curtis, with
headquarters at St. Louis. General Schofield now took the field. It is
important that each army have a name, and the one that he led, made up
largely of State militia, was quite appropriately called the “Army of
the Frontier.” He moved his forces wisely, and with great energy. He
vanquished his enemies in battle, and by October 10th had cleared
southwest Missouri of them, and driven them into Arkansas, which was a
refuge for rebels worsted in our State. By the close of the month, two
able Union colonels had driven all rebel guerrillas from southeast
Missouri into the same haven. So ended that memorable guerrilla
uprising, and for a season our State was quite generally free from the
turmoil of war.
Now we in St. Louis were bound up, as in one bundle, with all that
transpired in the State. We learned by manifold experiences that there
was a depth of meaning in the phrase, “body politic.” The sensation from
a stinging blow on toe or finger is no more certainly conveyed to the
brain, than were the distresses in the State quickly felt in our city.
When any part of our commonwealth suffered, we suffered. So we realized
with ever-increasing clearness that our destiny was one with that of the
State at large. Whatever our differences might be, together we should
stay in the Union, or together go out of it. So when in June came the
unexpected guerrilla uprising, that seemed simultaneously to burst out
of the earth in all parts of the commonwealth, it put all St. Louis in
an attitude of defence. Most of the army that had been our protection
were in the field far to the south. For many months we had had an
organization of Home Guards, and now with fresh zeal they gave
themselves to military drill. Many hitherto supine joined them. One
regiment was made up of old men. To see them in uniform and under arms
was an inspiration. Their ranks were full. They marched along the
streets with firm, determined tread, their gray hair and white beards
speaking eloquently of their devotion and patriotism.
New regiments were formed. I joined one of them. We were drilled on the
ground floor of a defunct brewery. There we marched and countermarched
and went through with the manual of arms, so that if the city should be
attacked we might defend it with some degree of efficiency.
But stirring us up to make more complete preparation for the defence of
the city was not the sole outcome of the guerrilla uprising; the
devastation wrought by it in the State sent flying to us for succor
another swarm of refugees. Fortunately, many of them could care for
themselves, still a large contingent were dependent on the government
and on private charity for the necessaries of life.
But the saddest result of the ruthless guerrilla campaign was the
shutting up for many months of the common schools in nearly every county
of the State. Such a calamity was measureless. And while our city
schools were undisturbed, we keenly sympathized with our fellow-citizens
in the State, and learned anew that, in what was of highest worth, we
were kin.