CHAPTER XX

CHARCOALS AND CLAYBANKS

In our hot fight for Missouri and the Union we unhappily split up into

factions. We not only contended against secession but against each

other. And the warring factions were significantly named Charcoals and

Claybanks. The Charcoals taken as a whole were uncompromising radicals,

while the Claybanks were the conservatives. Many of the Claybanks had

been born and educated in the North, while some of the blackest of the

Charcoals had been reared in the midst of slavery. They were recent

converts to Unionism and gloried in their new-found faith.

What gave birth to these party names no one can certainly tell.

Apparently, like Topsy, they “just growed.” The clay of Missouri is of a

decidedly neutral tint. Perhaps an extremist, indignant at a

conservative for his colorless views, called him a claybank; and since

the name was descriptive, fitting, and easily understood by Missourians,

it stuck. The conservative, stung by the epithet, may have warmly

retorted, “You are a charcoal.” And that name, equally descriptive and

fitting, also stuck. At all events each faction named the other, and

each adopted the name hostilely given and gloried in it. And for many

months these names bandied by the opposing factions played an important

part in the heated controversies of our State.

Both Charcoals and Claybanks were loyal to the Federal government. Upon

the main issue, the preservation of the Union, they agreed; but they

were at swords’ points upon the statement of the problem in hand and the

method of its solution. The Claybanks contended that the foremost

question was the maintenance of the Union. They were ready to preserve

it either with or without slavery. So their cry was: “Let us first save

the Union, and afterwards adjust the matter of slavery.”

On the other hand, the avowed object of the Charcoals was to save the

Union without slavery; and perhaps they were unduly impatient with those

who would save the Union with slavery, or even with those who would save

the Union with or without slavery. But they were always ready to give a

reason for the faith that was in them. They said: “Slavery is

unquestionably the cause of secession and of this bloody war. If we

preserve the Union and with it the cause of its present disruption,

then, at no distant day, the same cause will rend it again, and our soil

will be drenched with the blood of our children. We believe the doctrine

of our great President, that the nation cannot continue half slave and

half free. We therefore give ourselves to the extermination of the

fruitful cause of all our present distress. We fight and pray for the

restoration of the Union, but of the Union purged of human bondage.”

These opposing factions also radically disagreed as to the method of

dealing with the disloyal, or those suspected of disloyalty. The

Claybanks contended that in dealing with rebels or rebel-sympathizers

their previous surroundings and education should be taken into account,

and large allowance should be made for their inevitable prejudices; that

many slaveholders were Unionists and ought not to be driven into

hostility to the general government by needlessly severe measures; that

every day that they remained in our ranks their Unionism would grow

stronger; and that since they were with us on the main question of

Unionism, all other questions should be permitted to sink from sight.

But the shibboleth of the Charcoals was: “No quarter to slavery or

secession.” They maintained that since the war had been begun by

secessionists, in a mixed community like Missouri it was of the utmost

importance to find out who were really for the Union and who were

against it; and that the shortest road to such knowledge was through

uncompromising and drastic measures; and that in the long run such a

course of action, rigidly adhered to, would be productive of the least

suffering, and consequently most humane. So they urged that all aiders

and abetters of rebellion should be imprisoned or sent beyond the lines

of the Federal army, and their property confiscated.

But all Charcoals were not alike; some were much more extreme in their

views than others. At times they strenuously opposed one another, and

the more moderate among them held the more radical in check. A like

diversity of views was seen among Claybanks. But notwithstanding the

variety of views held by each of these factional parties, each, as we

have seen, unitedly and bitterly opposed the other, both in reference to

the aim of the war and the manner of conducting it.

[Illustration:

MAJ.-GEN. JOHN C. FREMONT MAJ.-GEN. HENRY W. HALLECK

MAJ.-GEN. JOHN MCA. SCHOFIELD MAJ.-GEN. WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS

HON. FRANK P. BLAIR, JR.

]

When our military commanders came to us one after another, they were

beset, not to say besieged, by the Charcoals and Claybanks in reference

to the conduct of the war in Missouri. Each faction tried to forestall

the other by getting the ear of the new general first, and telling him

just what he ought to do in order to achieve success. Each was

absolutely sure that only its way was right. Any other course than the

one suggested would lead to utter disaster. Each party was so dead in

earnest that when its views were discarded it cursed the idiot that had

not heeded them. To do his duty intelligently and fearlessly amid this

din of clashing opinions, a commander of the Department of Missouri

needed great clearness of thought, coolness of disposition, and firmness

of purpose. He did not lie on a bed of roses, but on bumblebees’ nests.

General Fremont, whose career among us I have already briefly

delineated, gave himself too much into the hands of the radicals. He did

this partly because he himself was naturally radical, and partly from

the influence of his environment. Our German fellow-citizens, whose

views were extreme, at the start got the ear of the general and held it

to the last. Mr. Blair, the leader of the Union men of St. Louis,

although at first very radical, soon drew away from the extremists, and

became a conservative. It was through his great personal influence that

Fremont had been put over the Department of the West, and by that same

influence he had been removed from his command. Among other reasons

urged as making his removal necessary was his radicalism, that had

offensively manifested itself when he exceeded his authority in

manumitting slaves.

His successor in command was quite as radical as he; but Halleck courted

information. He listened attentively to both Charcoals and Claybanks.

Having gotten the views of both factions, he discreetly kept his own

counsels. He was independent and fearless. His measures were often

startlingly radical; but his blows, which fell hard and fast, were

mainly directed against rebels, rebel-sympathizers, bushwhackers,

bridge-burners and spies. He did, to be sure, as we have seen, deliver a

batch of slaves from durance vile and put them on the road to freedom;

but in doing it he was very careful to keep strictly within the limits

of his authority. While he did not fully please any faction, his

administration taken as a whole was far more satisfactory to the

Charcoals than to the Claybanks.

General Samuel R. Curtis, Halleck’s successor, leaned decidedly to the

Charcoals; in fact he was a Charcoal himself. He and they evidently were

one in thought and sentiment. He carried out so far as he was able their

extreme views. Without possessing Halleck’s discretion, he continued the

policy of assessing wealthy secessionists. But this policy had gradually

taken on new features. What began in assessments had unfolded into

confiscation. During the last month of his administration, General

Curtis sent to the South, beyond the lines of the Union army, not a few

persons of means. Those having families were permitted to take with them

a thousand dollars; those without families two hundred dollars each. The

rest of their property was confiscated and used to meet the necessities

of sick and wounded soldiers.

While in some cases this mode of procedure was unquestionably

justifiable, still it was a policy specially liable to abuse. It was

deprecated by many of the staunchest Union men. They maintained that in

a heterogeneous community like ours, where there was every kind and

shade of political opinion, it could hardly fail to subject some good

men to the rankest injustice; that those who did not openly participate

in rebellion, whatever might be their political views or sympathies,

should be let alone. There were among us many good men who were born and

educated in the South, and while opposed to the folly of secession, they

nevertheless naturally sympathized with their kith and kin; and the

drastic policy of the extreme radicals and of their Charcoal general

greatly disturbed and disheartened them.

Take this as a representative case. There was in St. Louis a prominent

Presbyterian minister of Southern sympathies. He had been born and bred

in the midst of slavery. He hardly knew where he stood politically. He

swung uncertainly between Unionism and secessionism. Like all such

irresolute, hesitating mortals, he got into difficulty. The staunch

Union men of his church secured his removal from his pulpit by

ecclesiastical authority; and he now stood in fear lest the hand of

military power might be laid upon him. So he determined to leave the

State. One of his familiar acquaintances found him one morning boxing up

his household goods, on the sidewalk before his door, and in surprise

exclaimed: “Doctor, what’s up now?” He replied: “I am going to get out

of this State of Misery;[90] I can endure it no longer.” “Where are you

going?” asked his friend. He answered, “I am going to Kentucky.” “Why,”

said his neighbor, “that is a worse State than this.” “Then,” said the

doctor, “it must be a State of Despair.”

The extreme policy of General Curtis soon brought him into collision

with our conservative, provisional Governor. The sparks flew. The

Charcoals and Claybanks put on fresh war-paint. The one upheld the

general and his radical policy; the other the Governor and his more

moderate policy. While both parties were for the Union, they denounced

each other in the hottest terms. If we had believed what both factions

declared, we should have been forced to conclude that there was scarcely

a decent man among all the Unionists in the State. Each party again and

again appealed to the President for his support, but of course he could

not side with either. At last, worn out by this incessant strife, in

May, 1863, he removed General Curtis from his command and put General

Schofield in his place.

On May 24th, the new commander began his work. He was not a stranger to

us. Before the war he had been for several months professor of physics

in Washington University, which adorned our city, and was highly

esteemed by all who knew him. Nor was he unfamiliar with this military

department, having been put in command of it for a time by General

Halleck. During his brief administration at that time he did such

thorough and heroic work that we all expected of him wise, liberal,

patriotic service, and were not disappointed.

Three days after he had relieved General Curtis, the President wrote him

a letter, which is so quaint and so packed with good sense that we feel

impelled to reproduce it. It tersely portrays the difficult task that

confronted him.

“EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON,

“May 27, 1863.

“GENERAL J. M. SCHOFIELD:

“MY DEAR SIR:—Having relieved General Curtis and assigned you to the

command of the Department of Missouri, I think it may be of some

advantage for me to state to you why I did it. I did not relieve General

Curtis because of any full conviction that he had done wrong by

commission or omission. I did it because of a conviction in my mind that

the Union men of Missouri, constituting, when united, a vast majority of

the whole people, have entered into a pestilent factional quarrel among

themselves—General Curtis, perhaps not from choice, being the head of

one faction, and Governor Gamble that of the other. After months of

labor to reconcile the difficulty, it seemed to grow worse and worse,

until I felt it my duty to break it up somehow; and as I could not

remove Governor Gamble, I had to remove General Curtis. Now that you are

in the position, I wish you to undo nothing merely because General

Curtis or Governor Gamble did it, but to exercise your own judgment and

_do right_ for the public interest.

Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invader and

keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass and

persecute the people. It is a difficult rôle, and so much greater will

be the honor if you perform it well. If both factions, or neither, shall

abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by

one and praised by the other.

“Yours truly,

“A. LINCOLN.”

So the general was to begin his duties with a clean slate. But no sooner

had he taken firmly hold of his work than the extreme Charcoals began to

oppose him and Governor Gamble. Happily he and the Governor agreed in

policy and were united in action.

An act of the Governor first elicited the wrath of the extremists. The

policy of assessing well-to-do disunionists, begun in St. Louis, had

spread itself over the whole State. The dragons’ teeth sown by Halleck

were producing an abundant harvest. Just at this time the

Provost-marshal general was engaged in gathering assessments in

different parts of our commonwealth. Opposed as the Governor was to this

arbitrary method of dealing with supposed disloyalty, he commanded the

enrolled militia, that was under his immediate control, not to aid the

Marshal in collecting the assessments that he had made. For this, the

Charcoals poured the vials of their wrath upon his head.

But the Federal commander did not long escape their vituperation. That

border ruffian, Quantrell, and his lawless gang, made a raid into

Kansas, looted Lawrence and murdered many of its inhabitants. For this

dastardly outrage the extreme radicals unreasonably blamed General

Schofield. And when General Lane of Kansas and the men following his

lead wished to invade Missouri in order to make reprisals, Schofield, in

the interest of peace and good order, would not permit it. For this the

extreme Charcoals bitterly denounced him, and even called in question

his loyalty. They determined to down him. In their newspapers they

sharply criticized him and his methods. In return he fulminated an order

against the immoderate and lawless press, threatening to throttle it.

This was an unwise act on his part. It encouraged them in their

opposition. They had not toiled in vain. At least they had made the lion

roar. They went to reprehensible extremes. The general believed that

they tampered with some of the enrolled militia, that had been put by

the Governor under his command. He sent a regiment of militia to New

Madrid to relieve the 25th Missouri, and while on board the steamboat,

going down the Mississippi, they mutinied, landed, and went to their

homes. So if the general’s information was not at fault, faction began

to blossom into treason.

As late as October (1863) the radicals sent a communication to the War

Department complaining that General Schofield had enrolled rebels in the

militia of northwest Missouri, and disarmed Unionists. The general,

replying to this charge, declared that he had enrolled “twice as many

former rebels” as were named by his accusers, “amounting to from five to

ten per cent. of the whole” militia organization of that part of the

State, and that he was glad to make a repentant rebel of “more service

to the government than a man who never had any political sins to repent

of.” He also felt great satisfaction in putting men of that class to

“guard the property of their more loyal neighbors.”[91] So that the act

of which his enemies complained was evidently both wise and patriotic.

At last the extremists sent a large delegation to Washington to lay the

situation in Missouri, as they apprehended it, before the President, and

to urge him to remove General Schofield and appoint in his place General

Butler. Mr. Lincoln heard them patiently, and on the following day

replied to them in a strong, lucid paper. With marvellous insight he

analyzed the parties in our State, and pointed out their attitude

towards each other, and towards both the State and national government.

He also heartily sustained General Schofield. The members of the

delegation were of course disappointed, but returned wiser than when

they went. They had surveyed at a distance the factional strife of their

State. The perspective gave them a juster notion of its relative

importance. They had listened to the luminous analysis of it all by the

clear-headed President. They saw new light. From that day factional

strife began to subside. It lingered, but it was less virulent. Little

by little reason resumed its sway, and a larger charity found place in

the minds of those holding divergent views.

But the view of these radicals which General Schofield presents in

Chapter V of his “Forty-Six Years in the Army,” seems to me to be

somewhat misleading. Admitting, as he claims, that some of them plotted

to overthrow the provisional State government, and to change the policy

of the national administration, and instigated to open mutiny a regiment

of enrolled militia, his declaration that “they are loyal only to their

radical theories, and so radical that they cannot possibly be loyal to

the government,” certainly was not true of the great mass of them. While

some of them, in their zeal for the extinction of slavery and secession,

were led into the advocacy of condemnable policies, the loyalty of most

of them was spotless. Many who clamored for the general’s removal did so

patriotically, believing that the highest interests of Missouri demanded

it. I believed then, as I do now, that they were in error, but they were

true as steel both to their honest convictions and, as they saw it, to

their country. And with the unswerving conviction that in the conflict

then raging slavery would perish, they fought right on. Never were men

more intensely in earnest. They won at last, as we shall see. Not the

Claybank, but the Charcoal triumphed, and in that triumph both were

equally blessed. And both contributed to the victory; the intensity of

the Charcoal made it possible; the conservatism of the Claybank made it

reasonable and most largely beneficent. But General Schofield came near

to achieving the position between the factions that the President craved

for him. While on the whole he was more satisfactory to the Claybanks

than to the Charcoals, he was not wholly satisfactory to either. Some of

the Claybanks were bitterly opposed to his policy of enlisting negro

troops. And when some loyal slaveholders found their chattels wearing

the uniform of United States soldiers, and claimed their property, they

were both amazed and wrathful when informed by the general that,

notwithstanding their loyalty, their slaves by their act of enlistment

had been made free. So it came to pass that some Claybanks and some

Charcoals approved him, some Claybanks and some Charcoals, for totally

different reasons, sharply condemned him. In a most delicate and

difficult position, he tactfully did what he believed to be right, and

won the approval of the best elements in both of the warring factions.

CHAPTER XXI

HOMES AND HOSPITALS[92]

When, in 1861, the war broke out in Missouri, and the battles of

Boonville, Carthage, Dug Spring and Wilson’s Creek were fought, and

collisions and skirmishes multiplied throughout the State, the demand

for greater hospital accommodations at St. Louis became imperative. The

New House of Refuge Hospital, two miles south of the city, proved to be

altogether inadequate; and when all the wards of the St. Louis Hospital,

kept by the Sisters of Charity, and of the City Hospital had been

filled, still more room was at once required.

To meet this urgent necessity something must be done immediately. In our

straits we appealed to General Fremont, who promptly came to our

aid,[93] and, on September 5th, issued an order, authorizing the Western

Sanitary Commission, under the medical director of the army, to select,

fit up, and furnish suitable buildings for “Army and Brigade Hospitals;”

to choose and appoint, under the authority of Miss Dorothea L. Dix,

general superintendent of the nurses of military hospitals in the United

States, female nurses; to cooperate with the surgeons of the army in

providing male nurses; to visit the various military camps, consult with

the commanding officers in reference to the sanitary condition of the

troops, and aid them in providing the best means for preventing

sickness, such as proper drainage, warm clothing and wholesome food.

Moreover the Commission was enjoined to use every available means for

the promotion of the social and moral welfare of the soldiers. To

satisfy the varied wants of those in camps and hospitals, the Commission

was directed to procure from the people at large such supplies as they

would freely contribute to supplement those furnished by the government.

But all this must be done in full and hearty cooperation with the

regular medical staff of the army, some members of which were jealous of

their honors and at times foolishly sensitive to innovations.

Finally, the general’s order declared that “This Sanitary Commission

will, for the present, consist of James E. Yeatman, Esq.; C. S. Greely,

Esq.; J. B. Johnson, M. D.; George Partridge, Esq.; and Rev. William G.

Eliot, D. D.” Two of these were broadminded, enterprising merchants; one

was a physician of high standing; while Mr. Yeatman was a retired

Tennessee planter. He had been a slaveholder; but, called to go down the

Mississippi River on business, he received from what he saw during his

trip such an impression of the enormity of slavery, that, when he

returned, he manumitted his slaves, sold his plantation, and thereafter

made St. Louis his home. He was a rare man. He was eminently just. He

saw clearly the fundamental elements of every problem presented to the

Commission for solution. He had large administrative ability, a sharp

eye for details, and, to crown all, a great heart. Few men in the nation

did more than he to bring the war to a successful issue.

Dr. Eliot, whose name stands last on this roll of honor, was the pastor

of the only Unitarian church in our city. By long and efficient

ministerial service he had endeared himself to all the people. His name

in St. Louis was a household word. But he was as noted for his skill and

efficiency in inaugurating and successfully conducting large public

enterprises, as for his wise and multifarious pastoral labors. He was

the founder of Washington University and of Mary Institute, and it was

through his personal efforts that these institutions, an ornament to our

city, were built up. In fact every beneficent enterprise in St. Louis

felt the stimulating touch of his hand and was indebted to him for his

thoughtful guidance. Among the ablest pastors of our city, he was

unquestionably best equipped for membership in this all-important

Sanitary Commission.

The Commission, thus organized and launched, at once began its labors.

It rented a five-story building at the corner of Fifth and Chestnut

Streets, and speedily fitted it up for hospital service. It was named

the “City General Hospital.” On September 10th, it was thrown open for

the reception of patients. A throng of sick and wounded men, who had

been anxiously waiting for accommodation and succor, quickly filled all

its rooms.

In this building the Sanitary Commission made its headquarters. Mr.

Yeatman was chosen president and gave his whole time to his duties,

while the other members of the Commission met with him every day, except

Sunday, for consultation. For this incessant, exacting toil no one of

them received any moneyed compensation. Without a thought of personal

gain they worked unremittingly and cheerfully for their country. The

only motive that impelled them was a glowing, self-sacrificing

patriotism. For a time, they employed only one man, and he acted as

storekeeper, porter and clerk for thirty dollars a month. And this

gratuitous, arduous service, beset at times with swarms of perplexities,

was continued to the close of the war.

The sick and wounded of the army multiplied so rapidly, and the demand

for medical aid became so insistent, that within two months after the

opening of the first hospital, the Commission, with almost incredible

energy, had added five more and all were filled to overflowing.

On April 6–7, 1862, the battle of Pittsburg Landing, or Shiloh, was

fought. On that field of carnage, one thousand seven hundred and

thirty-five Union soldiers were killed outright, and seven thousand

eight hundred and eighty-two were wounded. The latter were sent up to

St. Louis by boat-loads. They were carried on stretchers up through our

streets to the hospitals. The business men, merchants, clerks,

manufacturers, bankers and artisans of various crafts helped bear along

these ghastly burdens. Young men, the flower of the northwestern States,

had been maimed, crippled, shot to pieces in defence of the Union. We

were horror-stricken, and with a depth of emotion which we had not

before felt, pledged to the defence of our government “our lives, our

fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

We now found that we had not sufficient room for these suffering heroes.

Two large halls were immediately secured, transformed into hospitals,

filled with the wounded, and furnished with sanitary stores, nurses and

physicians. At last we had fifteen well-appointed hospitals in and

around our city, with accommodation for six thousand patients. The

largest was at Jefferson Barracks, which, within two years, received and

treated more than eleven thousand sick and wounded soldiers. So out of

necessity grew with ever accelerated pace this great work of

beneficence.

But the exigencies of the times called into being hospitals not only for

sick and wounded soldiers, but also for refugees; in fact, for any, who,

on account of the war, were rendered helpless. And in order by

association of ideas to give the greatest possible cheer to those

congregated in them, they were called Homes. This name was full of

tender suggestion, especially to all of English or Scandinavian blood.

The first Home established was for soldiers. It was on Walnut Street. It

was opened in March, 1862. It was designated as a temporary rest for

troops that had been discharged or furloughed. Since many of them had

little or no money they were here gratuitously furnished with food and

lodging. Those who were weak from sickness or wounds received the

ministrations of skilful physicians and experienced nurses. They were

also protected against sharpers, who, under the guise of friendship,

would collect what little money might be due these war-worn heroes, and

put it in their own pockets. Moreover, their intellectual, moral and

spiritual wants were met in the Home. A reading-room was put into it.

Many daily papers and religious journals came regularly to its table,

while hundreds of volumes of good books placed upon its shelves allured

the weary or convalescing soldiers to read.

No one can measure the good done through the manifold appliances of that

Home. During the war over seventy thousand soldiers enjoyed its

hospitality. There they were helped over rough places; their

difficulties that seemed to them like mountains vanished; they were

nursed into strength and took on new heart and hope; became in fact new

men, and very many of them went back into the ranks, courageously to

fight to the finish the battle for the preservation of the Union.

Early in 1862 the Sanitary Commission also opened a Home on Elm Street,

for refugees, of which we have already spoken in a previous chapter; and

still another in 1863. These Homes were conducted on the same general

principles as the Home for soldiers. A man of great excellence of

character, Mr. Cavender, out of his deep sympathy for the forlorn

refugees, voluntarily gave his entire time to the care of them. Thus the

demand for loving, self-sacrificing toil for others always seemed to be

met by some unselfish soul like his.

But the care of the needy among us was not for a moment left to chance

volunteers. Not long after the Commission began its work, the Ladies

Union Aid Society was formed. It was made up of the best and most

efficient women of the city. Social distinctions were for the time being

obliterated. The hearts of the rich and the poor were united by the

common danger and by a common love of country. Any one who could do some

useful service to suffering soldiers was welcomed by all. This society

enlisted women, in different parts of the city, who met regularly in

groups to prepare such comforts as were needed by our brave boys both in

camp and hospital. It had its ramifications in all the loyal churches.

Without a thought of denominational distinctions, patriotic women of all

creeds or of no creed met to work for the armed defenders of the Union.

They freely donated the material that they prepared for use. They

scraped lint, knit socks, made under-garments, furnished beds for the

sick in hospitals, and secured aid and employment for the wives of

soldiers.

Out from the ranks of these women came many of our most efficient

hospital nurses. Miss Dix, by whom, or by some deputy of hers, all

nurses must be approved, had appointed as her agent in St. Louis, Mr.

Yeatman, president of the Sanitary Commission. On account of his

position he had unusual opportunities for observing among volunteer

helpers those best qualified for stated and official service, and his

selections were eminently wise.

No one could be a candidate for this honor unless she was between

twenty-five and fifty years old, had good health, and was cheerful in

disposition, without frivolity. And her official entrance upon the work

of nursing hardly robbed her of the blessing of gratuitous patriotic

service, since the compensation was twelve dollars a month and her keep.

How does that strike a professional nurse of to-day?

But the spirit of helpfulness was not confined to special organizations;

it seemed quite universal. Separate households planned and carried out

benevolent enterprises to aid soldiers in the camps around the city.

These soldiers were generally intelligent; many of them were from our

academies and colleges. They were always glad to get good papers and

magazines. In many households all such reading matter was carefully

saved for them. At times when regiments of soldiers marched by our doors

it was handed to them. They received it with avidity and often answered

the attention bestowed upon them with hearty cheers.

But the distinctive classes of the needy gave rise to specialization on

their behalf. Some expended their energies in helping white refugees,

others in caring for the freedmen; the efforts of the latter resulted in

the organization of the Freedmen’s Relief Society, in 1863. But all

lines of special effort were generously aided by the Sanitary

Commission. It was the central, controlling energy, and directed by it,

the multiplied benevolent agencies worked in perfect harmony. They

simply divided the labor that it might be more thoroughly done. The work

was one, and behind all its multifarious details there was one spirit

and one purpose.

But, however tempting the subject may be, I must not undertake to write

even an outline history of the Western Sanitary Commission. This would

require a volume, and it would embrace much that does not distinctively

belong to our city. And yet we all bore some humble part in its

magnificent work, and that work was all wrought before our eyes. But the

country at large contributed to it, and the Federal government supported

it with a liberal hand. In illustration of this take a single example.

In opening the Home for the Refugees, the Commission expended three

thousand dollars, the general government two thousand dollars. This is a

fair specimen of the whole. All the generals of the Western Department

heartily sustained it. So did the Secretary of War, and also Grant and

Sherman.

I cannot refrain from giving a hint of the source, nature, and extent of

the contributions, which the people poured out to help the Commission in

its benevolent and patriotic work. Donations came from all the Northern

States, especially, as might have been anticipated, from Michigan and

the Northwest; but Philadelphia, New York, Providence and Boston were

specially lavish in their gifts. They contributed much money, but also

sent in boxes vast quantities of blankets, and bed-linen, of underwear

and all sorts of comforts for camps and hospitals. By January, 1864,

more than two hundred thousand dollars in cash had been received, of

which St. Louis and Missouri had donated more than half; while the

distant States of California and Massachusetts had each contributed

fifty thousand dollars. But one million five hundred thousand dollars

worth of sanitary supplies and hospital comforts had come to hand. From

first to last the Commission received and distributed three million five

hundred thousand dollars worth of useful articles, and almost a million

of money, gladly given by the people. Among the cities of the Republic,

the largest givers were Boston and St. Louis.

But if possible, let us get a bird’s-eye view of the manner in which

these liberal donations were used. We have already seen how they made

possible the founding and equipment of the various hospitals and Homes

at St. Louis. But great as the work was there, it was still greater in

the regions beyond. As early as October, 1861, the Sanitary Commission,

under an order from General Fremont, fitted up two hospital cars, on the

Pacific Railroad, with berths, nurses and all necessary arrangements for

cooking. So far as I can discover, these were the first hospital cars in

the United States, and they proved to be exceedingly useful.

After the battle of Fort Donelson, in February, 1862, the Commission,

striking hands with the medical staff of the army, did all that they

could to succor the wounded, and to save the many who were ill from

exposure in the open field to a driving storm of snow and sleet. One of

the Commission, taking with him a large quantity of sanitary stores,

went down to Cairo and Paducah, accompanied by a delegation of

physicians, nurses and members of the Ladies’ Union Aid Society. At

Paducah, whither many of the sick and wounded had been sent, the

volunteer helpers from St. Louis were courteously received by Medical

Director Simmonds. He put at their disposal the steamboat, “Ben

Franklin,” and filled it with wounded soldiers to be carried to St.

Louis. On their way thither these suffering soldiers were tenderly

nursed. The steamer became a hospital. Out of this experience naturally

emerged a most practical and beneficent institution, the Floating

Hospital. The Western Sanitary Commission took up this new idea. They at

once purchased and fitted up the “City of Louisiana,” at a cost of three

thousand dollars. A year later the government purchased her, put into

her five hundred beds, and, in honor of the Assistant Surgeon General of

the United States Army, named her, the “R. C. Wood.” From time to time,

as new exigencies arose, the commission added other steamers to their

medical flotilla, until they had on the Mississippi four floating

hospitals. As our armies and gunboats moved down the river, these

floating asylums for the sick and wounded were always close at hand,

ready to receive and aid with all their resources those disabled by

disease or by shot and shell.

The Commission also devised the flying hospital, or hospital on wheels.

It was furnished with cots and medical stores. It could accompany an

army on the march and be always close at hand promptly to meet urgent

needs whenever any unlooked-for disaster might come. This hospital did

considerable service in Missouri, and was warmly commended by Assistant

Surgeon General Wood.

Nor must we fail to note the fact that the Commission not only planted

hospitals and homes in St. Louis, but, acting in concert with the

regular medical staff of the army, in all the principal cities captured

by our armies on or near the Mississippi River. They struck hands with

the United States Sanitary Commission in founding and equipping at

Memphis ten hospitals. They sent sanitary supplies as far as Little

Rock, the Red River, Nashville, Jackson, Miss., Chattanooga, Tenn., and

Texas. Wherever there was any pressing need, workers from St. Louis,

both men and women, were found.

Mr. Yeatman himself often went down the river to superintend in person

this ever-expanding work of benevolence. On one of his expeditions, he

took to Grant’s army, then engaged in the siege of Vicksburg, two

hundred and fifty tons of sanitary supplies. And during all that

protracted siege, the floating hospitals fitted out by the Commission

were just at hand.

But the Commission did not confine itself wholly to the West. During the

Peninsular Campaign by McClellan, they sent sanitary stores to

Washington; and from May 1st to November 1st, 1864, forwarded to

Sherman’s army, operating in Georgia, supplies “amounting to hundreds of

tons.” Nor did they forget the starving prisoners at Andersonville, but

sent them through General Sherman such stores as were imperatively

needed to alleviate their appalling miseries, although these gifts of

mercy never reached their destination. When, however, at a later day, a

goodly number of these prisoners were exchanged at Vicksburg, the same

supplies were then distributed among them, and when they saw on the

boxes the name of General Sherman, their joy was unbounded.

But in this meagre sketch of the magnificent work of the Sanitary

Commission, we wish in a few lines to give at least a hint of its

efforts to meet in some measure the necessities of the freedmen outside

of St. Louis. Between Cairo, Ill., and Natchez, Miss., at least forty

thousand of them were found that greatly needed help. That whole region

had been for months a battle-ground. Landowners had fled. Plantations

were broken up. Slaves, happy in their new-found freedom, had followed

our armies, looking upon them as their deliverers; yet bewildered as to

what they were to do. Some Union generals, impeded by them, and lacking

in humanity, treated them with cruelty. Especially was this true at

Helena and Memphis, where they compelled the freedmen to work hard

without compensation, while their families were left in extreme want.

This to Mr. Yeatman was like a trumpet blast. He took hold of this new

problem with marvellous energy. He appealed to the country for help.

There was benevolent response from almost every quarter. Massachusetts

especially sent in generous quantities both goods and money. Nor did St.

Louis lag behind in her gifts. The replenished Commission sent to the

hungry and ragged freedmen large supplies of both food and clothing;

established hospitals for them in different places; provided them with

physicians, nurses and medicines; put a stop to the tyranny of

inconsiderate or hard-hearted military officers; and established schools

for them in which they were taught to read, and write, to add and

substract, and to do properly the ordinary work of the kitchen and

field. Mr. Yeatman went over all the territory where the men and women,

sent out by the Commission, were working for the freedmen, and gave to

them such suggestions and directions as in his judgment would render

their work most beneficent and fruitful. He himself established for the

freedmen a system of work on plantations around Vicksburg, which, before

the close of the war, yielded the best results. On behalf of his project

he appealed to the public through the press; laid it personally before

the President and found for it an open ear and thus enlisted the

government on its behalf. He had the qualities needed for dealing with

an ignorant people just freed from bondage: sense, justice, and love.

Still our cursory survey of the work of the Commission would be quite

incomplete without casting a glance at what they did for the white

refugees in all that great region south of Missouri on both sides of the

Mississippi River. Great as the number of these refugees was in St.

Louis, it was far greater in that vast territory. There the Commission,

as exigencies arose, selected, one after another, ten central points,

each of which was made headquarters for all the region contiguous to it.

At these centres they founded temporary hospitals, and opened schools

for the refugees. They fed, clothed, taught and nursed them, and, so far

as practicable, put them to work. It takes but a moment to write this,

but these words are a symbol representing a prodigious amount of

patient, self-sacrificing toil.

Moreover, the Soldiers’ Home had proved itself to be so great a blessing

in St. Louis, that the Commission established five others in the States

to the south conquered by our armies. And up to December, 1865, all

these Homes, including the one in our city, had entertained without

charge four hundred and twenty-one thousand six hundred and sixteen

soldiers; furnished them nine hundred and eighty-two thousand five

hundred and ninety-two meals, and four hundred and ten thousand two

hundred and fifty-two lodgings.

In all this beneficent work the loyal inhabitants of St. Louis had a

large share. We liberally contributed to it goods, money and service.

But the demands upon us within our own gates were onerous and well nigh

exhausting. The time, strength and material resources of every one were

laid under tribute; tribute which, for the most part, was gladly paid.

All Christian pastors and priests worked much in camps and hospitals.

They conducted many public services, often preached, and incessantly

ministered to the sick and dying.

When volunteers began to gather in large numbers at St. Louis, in

connection with other pastors of the city, I preached, as I had time and

opportunity, in the camps. I was greeted by attentive, intelligent

audiences. Many regiments were made up largely of Christian men who,

while encamped, regularly maintained prayer meetings. There was one

regiment from Illinois, having in its ranks above a thousand young men,

more than half of whom read their Greek Testaments.

But we met them for religious services not only in camp, but also in

buildings in the city specially provided for that purpose.

In an empty store on Fourth Street, on the ground floor, there were long

tables. For many days, at the noon hour, soldiers passing through the

city or temporarily stopping there, marched in and sat down at those

tables for their midday meal. I was asked by Drs. Eliot and Post to take

my turn with them in preaching to these soldiers as they ate. To this I

consented, but found it a difficult task. I stood at the head of the

table and delivered my message, while the militant audience consumed

their rations of hardtack, bacon and coffee. They had tin plates, cups

and spoons, and cheap iron knives; and though they were always

respectful, and declared that they wanted and enjoyed the preaching, the

clatter of their metal dishes was so loud and incessant, that it

disturbed not a little my course of thought. But I did my best.

When the hospitals were opened I found in them the largest opportunities

to labor on behalf of the soldiers. For a time I worked a part of almost

every day in the Sisters’ Hospital. For years it had been cared for by

the Sisters of Charity; but for the time being it was thrown open for

the use of the government. Here I often found sick and wounded men from

both of the contending armies; Federal and Confederate soldiers, the

blue and the gray, here lay peacefully side by side. For the time at

least their animosity was gone. Suffering had made them kin. The heart

of the man in gray was touched, when he saw that he was as carefully

nursed as the man in blue.

In my ministrations to suffering Southerners, I carefully avoided all

allusion to the war, and our political differences. But, apparently

astonished at the kindness shown them, many of them would broach some

question concerning the national conflict, and when they did so, I

always answered their queries as best I could. On one point most of them

were set, and that was that the North began the war. I assured them that

in this they were altogether in error, and rehearsed to them the

historical facts. They said that they could hardly believe my statement,

since they had been often told the exact contrary.

I met in that hospital a Confederate soldier from one of the western

counties of Arkansas. His name was Anderson. He had small, shining black

eyes, peeping out from under black eyebrows; long, heavy, black

whiskers, unkempt and begrimed, needing the cleansing power of soap and

water; thick, shocky black hair that hung down to his shoulders, and was

as coarse as the hair on a horse’s tail. When I first saw him I had a

strong desire to have a talk with a man so peculiar and who bore my

surname. While he could neither read nor write, I found him intelligent

on all matters pertaining to his county, but about things outside of his

own immediate neighborhood, he knew next to nothing. He never had been

away from home before. Having been taken prisoner, he was compelled to

travel. Contrary to his will he had begun to see more of the world. But

he was absolutely sure that the “Yanks” had begun the “wicked war.” He

informed me, that the North first fired on the South. Nor could I

convince him of his error. He was ignorant, and a hot Southerner. His

under jaw was square and each ropy hair springing out of his tawny scalp

looked as though it were clinched on the inside of his skull. A face so

strange and strong, I can never forget.

A few days later, in the same hospital, I was urgently asked by a man

about thirty-five years of age to help him solve a question of

conscience. He was a Quaker by birth and conviction. He had imbibed with

his mother’s milk the notion that war was prohibited by the commandment,

“Thou shalt not kill.” By education it had been interwoven with all his

thinking. But having at the same time a great abhorrence of human

bondage, when, in his neighborhood, scores of men were enlisting to

fight a Confederacy, the corner-stone of which had been boastfully

declared to be African slavery, the doctrine that war was murder sank so

completely into the background that, for a time, he became quite

unconscious of it. Aflame with patriotism, along with his neighbors, he

volunteered to fight the enemies of the Union. Then came the long,

toilsome days of military drill, and the march southward to meet the foe

in battle. He had much time for thought. As he reflected, the conviction

that no war is justifiable, which, for a season, had been submerged,

came up out of the depths of his subconsciousness and reasserted itself.

He began to feel utterly out of place. He had taken a solemn oath to do

what his conscience utterly forbade. He was in deep distress. There was

no one to whom he could unbosom himself. He was among thousands of his

countrymen, but felt absolutely alone. His regiment was ordered into

battle. For hours with his comrades in arms he loaded and fired; but he

could not shoot at his fellow men, so he shot into the air above their

heads. But this was a violation of his oath. And after the battle was

over and he had been sent to this hospital, what he had done tortured

him. Conscience pierced him for having broken his oath as a soldier,

although that same conscience had driven him to break it. In his agony

of spirit he pitifully appealed to me. “What shall I do? What can I do?”

I dealt with him honestly. I told him that he had no moral right to

violate his conscience. But since his conscience had put him between two

fires, it was his duty to tell his story to the military authorities,

and ask to be discharged from the army. I assured him that they had no

wish to compel men to fight, who could not do so with a good conscience.

Still he seemed to be greatly distressed to think that, contrary to his

oath, he had shot into the air, during that battle. But he did as I

advised him to do, and a few days afterwards I heard that, on the ground

of his conscientious scruples, he had been honorably dismissed from his

regiment.

About this time, March, 1862, I was asked to take the oversight of the

religious work in the Fifth Street Hospital. It became my duty to supply

the sick and wounded there with religious papers and books. These were

freely contributed by loyal Christian families. A book from my own

library, “The Signet Ring,” was very popular among the soldiers. It is a

good book still, but scarcely known to the present generation. It was

also incumbent on me to provide for religious services in the hospital.

These were held in the different wards, but especially in those wards

where were gathered the convalescents, and those suffering from the

milder forms of disease. The services were very simple and brief. A few

words of Scripture were read, some joyful hymn was sung, and a prayer

was poured out from the heart. Then a short sermon followed, presenting

some truth that comforted and helped those that were in trouble. These

services were conducted sometimes by chaplains of regiments, often by

the different pastors of the city, and were frequently marked by unusual

fervor. The eagerness with which the sick and wounded men listened was

wonderful. They were reminded of their churches at home, of loved ones

with whom they had often met; their hearts were full and the

irrepressible tears started. At times during those moments of service

heaven and earth seemed to meet and blend.

There were in this hospital, as in all the rest, some professional women

nurses, and they were very efficient. They did their work not only with

technical skill, but they had that prime quality that must ever

characterize nurses of the highest order, heartfelt sympathy with those

whose sufferings they strove to alleviate. But in addition to these,

there were many volunteer nurses, women, who, by regular appointment,

were there at all hours of the day and night. They were ready to do any

service within their power. They worked under the direction of the

physicians and in harmony with the professional nurses. They often

brought with them, from their own household stores, such appetizing

foods as reminded the sick soldiers of the tender nursing that in homes

far away they had sometimes received from mother or sister. A little

gruel or soup, or fruit, or jelly, how grateful to the palate, and

cheering to the spirit! The very thought of it started many a sick

soldier boy on the road to health and further service in the field.

The tender sympathy which these women lavished on the suffering was

often more healing than medicine. And when, sitting by the bedside of

languishing heroes, sick it may be even unto death, they wrote letters

for them to the loved ones at home, these missives throbbed with a

mother’s love and were often wet with a mother’s tears.

An incident of that kind comes vividly to mind as I write. A young man

from Indiana lay on his death-bed. He was about twenty-two years old and

fully six feet in height. He was muscular and strong. But pneumonia had

seized upon him and had baffled the best skill of the surgeon. He had

been told that he could not live more than five or six hours longer. But

he was a Christian and had hope of a glorious immortality. In the final

arrangement of his affairs he was as calm in spirit as if he were going

out on dress parade. By his cot sat a young mother. He asked her to

write to his family and tell them what to do with his things. She wrote

as he suggested, her heart almost bursting with emotion. He gave one

thing to this sister, another to that brother, and last of all he said,

“I give Jeff. C. Davis to my youngest brother.” “But what is Jeff. C.

Davis?” asked the one who was writing for him his last letter, and there

were tears in her voice. He replied, a smile playing around his lips,

“It is my colt. I named him for General Davis, who is an Indianian and

very popular in our State.”

It was no formal letter which she penned in that sad hour. Into its

words and sentences went the glowing sympathy of a mother’s heart. But

it is only an example of thousands of others. When the letter was

finished, the face of the young man betokened the most perfect

satisfaction. His work was done. He was ready to depart. I prayed with

him. I left him with a smile on his face. He was so cheerful that I

began to think that the surgeon had made a mistake; but when I returned

a few hours afterwards, “he was not, for God took him.”

In addition to the above it is with no little pleasure that I give one

incident among many that vividly reveal the patriotic devotion of the

rank and file of our army. Near the beginning of the war, I was called

one night to marry a volunteer cavalry soldier. Immediately after, he

rode away under the command of Zagonyi, to Springfield, Missouri. In

entering that city a charge was made between two lines of Confederate

soldiers, and my friend was shot. For several hours he lay on the frosty

ground, slowly bleeding; and then, faint and exhausted, he was put into

an army wagon which went jolting over rough roads to Rolla, and from

there he was sent by the cars to St. Louis. I found him in the hospital,

so changed that I did not at once recognize him. But when all doubt as

to his identity was brushed away, he pathetically told me the story of

his suffering. He had been shot through the shoulder; the bone had been

shattered; pieces of it had protruded from the wound and had been

removed. He had preserved them. They were more precious to him than

diamonds. He kept them neatly wrapped in a paper under his pillow. With

his trembling, emaciated hand he took them out slowly and carefully

unwrapped them and showed them to me. Then wrapping them up again, he

put them back under his pillow, and looking up, his eye began to gleam

as he said: “The doctors say that I cannot recover. I think that they

are mistaken. I shall get well. You see that it is the left shoulder

that is wounded. When it heals it will be stiff, but I can still hold

the reins of my horse in my left hand; and then, sir,” with great

emphasis for an apparently dying man, he added, “I have one more

shoulder for my country.” He did live to fight many a hard battle

thereafter. But I could never forget those brave, burning words, words

instinct with self-sacrifice: “Then, sir, I have one more shoulder for

my country.”

In closing this inadequate sketch of our hospitals, I wish gratefully to

call attention to the fact that they were an immeasurable blessing to

St. Louis. They marvellously developed the benevolence of the city. By

them scores of men and women were lifted up out of their selfishness. In

ministering to those in need they forgot themselves. In spite of all the

evils of the war, it led more people in our city to live in some measure

the life of Christ than any other influence had ever before done. The

best exhibition of Christianity ever witnessed within our gates was that

band of devoted workers seen every day and night in the camps and

hospitals. Hundreds of women whose Christian activities had never before

gone beyond the family or the individual church, now like their divine

Lord went about doing good. Like the good Samaritan, they had compassion

upon all that they found in distress, irrespective of nationality or

creed.

CHAPTER XXII

THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY SANITARY FAIR

As the war went on, the demands on the Western Sanitary Commission

became enormous. At the close of 1863 and the beginning of 1864 the

Commission found its treasury well nigh empty. Something must be done to

replenish it. After careful deliberation, the Commission decided to hold

a fair, believing that thereby it could secure the funds required for

its vastly important work. So on February 1st, 1864, it inaugurated this

popular movement.

General William Starke Rosecrans, who, in January, had succeeded General

Schofield in command of the Department of Missouri, was made president

of the Fair. From the start the project was popular. In St. Louis the

people took hold of it with marked enthusiasm. They were ready to work

and give to make it a success. That thoroughness might characterize all

that was done they carefully organized their forces. They divided among

themselves the multifarious tasks to be performed. They appointed

committees to look after every important detail, and to report to the

central authority. So amid the multiplicity of things there was unity

and order. It was exhilarating to see a great community so stirred up in

the doing of a patriotic and benevolent work, that, for a time, all

conventionalities of society and distinctions of race or creed were

forgotten. Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile, Europeans and

Americans, whites and blacks met, and elbowed, and emulated each other

in working for the soldiers of the Union.

But a work so great could not be done by our city alone, however willing

and diligent we might be; so, the Commission appealed for help to the

people of other cities and States. The response was prompt and

exceedingly generous. Money and large consignments of useful articles to

be sold at the Fair came from Boston, Salem, Worcester, Providence, New

Bedford, New Haven, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Nevada (then a

remote mining territory), England and Germany. Other givers also in

justice should be mentioned, but we name these merely to show how

cosmopolitan the donations to the Fair were. Helping hands were

stretched across the sea to us. Wars on behalf of the oppressed are wars

of progress, and make kin the lovers of righteousness in all the

nations.

But among the givers St. Louis herself ranked with the first. Her

business men contributed large amounts of goods; her families, vast

numbers of salable articles made in their homes; her artists and lovers

of art, valuable paintings, etchings, and engravings; and some liberally

gave money.

When the Fair opened on May 17th, there was in its treasury two hundred

thousand dollars in cash, which had been contributed by men in St. Louis

and in different parts of the Union.

The building for the Fair was on Twelfth Street. It was five hundred

feet long and extended from St. Charles to Olive Street. It had wings on

Locust Street, each one hundred feet by fifty-four. In the centre of the

building was an octagon seventy-five feet in diameter and fifty feet

high. This octagon was lavishly decorated with mottoes, national

banners, battle trophies, such as flags and weapons captured from the

enemy, and arbors of evergreens and flowers.

The building was divided into various departments. One department was

devoted to the refugees. Since they were a special object of charity and

so much was needed adequately to meet their wants, and the sympathies of

so many were specially drawn out to them, it seemed quite necessary to

devote a generous space in the building to their particular benefit. The

same was true of the freedmen, and a department was assigned to those

who were especially interested in meeting their wants and promoting

their general welfare.

The Germans, being so large a part of our population, and so ardently

devoted to the maintenance of the Union, were given a large space in the

building, where they patriotically sold lager beer, and a host of people

patriotically drank it. Very many connected with the Fair strongly

objected to this, but being in the minority were unable to prevent it.

During the days of preparation for the Fair a committee was appointed to

meet a delegation from our German fellow-citizens and if possible

persuade them to give up the project of selling beer at the Fair. I was

chairman, and presented as well as I could the earnest desire of the

temperance people. The German, who was the spokesman of his delegation,

understood English quite perfectly, but could not speak it very well. He

had not been at all persuaded by the considerations that I had

presented, and among other things that he vehemently urged in reply was

this: “Zhentelmen,” said he, “lager peer vill not make men trunk; it

vill not, _it vill not_. Zhentelmen, and ef any one gets trunk, we have

already, zhentelmen, engaged the police to take him to de calaboose.” So

this, and every effort that we put forth to rid the Fair of lager beer,

proved abortive; and it was sold, innumerable kegs of it, to alleviate

the sufferings of our soldiers. But in justice it ought to be added that

no one became so intoxicated that it was necessary to take him to the

calaboose.

But we can only name the multiplied departments and varied attractions

of this famous Fair. It had its curiosity shop, and skating park; its

floral park and gallery of fine arts; its counters on which all kinds of

merchandise were offered for sale; its separate rooms for war trophies,

agricultural implements, sewing machines, for the sale of works of art,

and for the exhibition of gold and silver bars from Nevada. There were

also refreshment saloons or restaurants, the New England, and the

Holland kitchen, where patriotic women cooked and washed dishes for the

Union and where the hungry ate for the same lofty purpose. And then

there were confectioners’ counters, a café, and an improvised theatre,

where were presented various dramas and other public amusements.

Patriotism, the underlying motive of it, lifted up and glorified all the

drudgery and all the innocent pastimes connected with it.

The evenings at the Fair were made specially attractive. Then the men

that had been absorbed in business during the day came with their

families. The great building was lighted as brilliantly as it could be

with gas. Electric lights had not yet appeared. In the gallery trained

bands skilfully discoursed patriotic music. Often the commanding general

with his staff, in their brightest uniform, was present. It is wonderful

how the crowd is charmed by military clothes! The names of the Union

generals together with the names of the battles that they had fought

were blazoned on the walls, and the Stars and Stripes hung out

everywhere, while women from the first families of the city were busy

selling all sorts of useful articles. No one who shared in those

festivities, who saw and heard and drank in the spirit of that patriotic

throng can ever forget it.

One feature was specially novel. The colored soldiers, enlisted and

drilled under the direction of General Schofield, during the Fair

constantly did guard duty. They also distinguished themselves, and

greatly commended themselves to all right-minded people, by liberally

contributing from their meagre wages to aid the refugees and freedmen.

Colored people also freely visited the Fair and made purchases. It

looked like a revolution when we saw, in a slave State, white women of

high social standing, without complaint or a murmur, sell articles to

colored purchasers. Once or twice indeed some whites took offence at

this radical and apparently abrupt change from the old order of things,

but on the whole the sentiment toward the colored people was humane,

reasonable, and liberal.

The Fair proved a great financial success. Its net proceeds were five

hundred and fifty-four thousand five hundred and ninety-one dollars, at

least three dollars and fifty cents for each inhabitant of our city; but

the result was largely due to contributors beyond our borders;

nevertheless it can be said of St. Louis that she did the work which

made this great success possible, and at the same time liberally gave to

the Fair both merchandise and money. The large amount of money realized,

together with other donations, enabled the Sanitary Commission to

complete its great work. In addition to the sums of money that it

directly disbursed to aid our armies, it appropriated to the Ladies’

Union Aid Society fifty thousand dollars for hospital work and the

assistance of soldiers’ families. It also devoted one thousand dollars

per month to the aid of the freedmen, and established at Webster, ten

miles west of the city, a Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home, at a cost from first

to last of over forty thousand dollars. The Home accommodated one

hundred and fifty fatherless children.

But the Fair was a blessing not only to refugees and freedmen, to the

sick and wounded in hospitals, to the widows and orphans of our slain

heroes, but it was also a measureless boon to St. Louis. It was one more

mighty agency for curing us of our selfishness. For a time at least it

broke in upon our commercialism, and led us to think of others and to do

something for their welfare.

CHAPTER XXIII

A DARK PLOT THWARTED

When Major-General Rosecrans, on January 30th, 1864, assumed command of

the Department of Missouri, he delivered to his predecessor, General

Schofield, a complimentary farewell address. He warmly commended him for

what he had done in our State, and congratulated him that he was about

to take part in great campaigns. It was no flattery, but a candid,

sincere utterance of which the recipient was altogether worthy. It was

an honor both to him who uttered it and to him on whom it was bestowed.

General Rosecrans himself came to us from active campaigning, where he

had rendered the most patriotic and arduous service, but had failed in

attaining the highest success. At the eleventh hour he had lost the

great and hotly contested battle of Chickamauga by giving a blundering

order to one of his subordinate generals.[94] His intimate friends

thought that ever after he carried in his face the sadness of that

defeat. But his spirit was not soured. He was still ready to serve his

country in any way that he could, and in any position to which he might

be called. So he could heartily congratulate one, then subordinate in

rank, upon entering the service that he had been compelled to abandon,

while he himself cheerfully took up the military administration of the

most distracted region in the Union.

We have already seen him filling the office of president of the

Mississippi Valley Sanitary Fair, and doing all that he could to promote

its interests by being present evenings with his staff. To those who did

not, or could not, look below the surface, the battle in Missouri for

the Union seemed to have been fought out. So, I am sure, most of the

loyal in St. Louis at that time regarded it. But the general, and a few

of the inner circle, already had an inkling of a deep-laid plot to

promote the rebellion of the Southern States and if possible to make it

successful. They were persuaded that the surface of things was

deceptive; that beneath the dead ashes there were smouldering fires that

might suddenly burst out into flame; that there never had been a more

urgent demand for diligence than at that hour of superficial quiet.

Having found a clue to the furtive foe, the general, through wisely

chosen and trusted lieutenants, followed it up. He discreetly kept his

own counsels. He was sleeplessly persistent. His adroit agents or spies

wormed themselves into the confidence of the clandestine enemies of the

Republic, joined their secret organization and learned all their plots;

at the same time they kept constantly in touch with their chief, by whom

they were directed. They reported to him each startling fact that they

unearthed. One discovery quickly led to another. To be sure the

existence of a hostile secret organization had been hazily known for

many months, but through the efforts of General Rosecrans its extensive

ramifications were traced out, and its treasonable designs were laid

bare. It proved to be the most formidable secret political organization

that probably ever existed in America; it was conceived in treason; its

avowed object was the dismemberment of the Union, the overthrow of the

government of the United States. Its members were bound by oath to

effect this nefarious purpose. They were to hesitate at no crime in

order to reach their end. Rather than fail in it, they swore that they

would commit perjury, arson, pillage, assassination. The penalty for

disobedience of any command, even one that demanded the committing of

these diabolical crimes, was death.

The organization, while one brotherhood, bore in different localities

different names: the most notorious of which were: “The Knights of the

Golden Circle,” “The Order of American Knights,” “The Order of the

Star,” and “The Sons of Liberty.”[95]

Its ramifications were found both north and south of Mason and Dixon’s

line. It claimed in Missouri twenty-five thousand members; in Illinois

one hundred and forty thousand; in Indiana one hundred thousand; in Ohio

eighty thousand; in Kentucky seventy thousand; and some in New York,

Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. Vallandigham of Ohio was supreme

commander of the northern wing of this secret organization, while

General Sterling Price was the supreme commander of the southern wing.

The northern wing for many months had done what it could to supply the

rebels with provisions and war material; it had also done for them the

work of spying, keeping them informed as to what was transpiring in the

North. It was still committing these treasonable acts, and even a few

officers in our army were suspected of lending a hand to help on this

villainous work. And, in that summer of 1864, the northern part of this

oath-bound society had planned to put forth a united and desperate

effort to aid the rebels in invading and revolutionizing the northern

States of the Middle West[96].

Now all this our general had quietly ferreted out. The knowledge

acquired by his skilful manipulation was of vast importance not only to

our city and State, but also to the general government. All the evidence

pertaining to this secret organization was carefully written out and

transmitted to President Lincoln. It covered one thousand pages of

foolscap.

But at first only a very few of the loyal of St. Louis, and, in fact, of

the nation, had any definite knowledge of the existence of this secret,

insidious foe. The great mass of our fellow-citizens stood in blissful

ignorance over a destructive mine, that might at any moment be exploded.

But thanks to our general, the President and his counsellors knew it

more perfectly than heretofore. He made known what he had recently

discovered to a few in our city in whom he reposed special confidence.

He also revealed it to his most trusted lieutenants. And what was

all-important to us, he knew the facts of the whole case probably more

thoroughly than any loyal man in the nation. And this knowledge shaped

every order that he issued and inspired his most weighty acts.

It was still necessary to garrison all parts of the State. Those in

command of the garrisons were instructed to keep the sharpest possible

watch of all whose loyalty was suspected; to break up all rendezvous of

such men wherever found; to permit no illicit gatherings of

secessionists, and to deprive of arms all who expressed sympathy with

the rebellion. Thus the general laid a strong, repressive hand upon “The

Knights of the Golden Circle” in our State. And before our story ends we

shall see how wise such action was.

Evidently with his eye on this secret fraternity of the disloyal, that a

little later he so fully unearthed, on March 1st, he forbade any one to

take negroes from the State, but demanded that by every legitimate

method they should be encouraged to enlist as soldiers. He declared that

in all such enlistments the property rights of the master would be

guarded; the government would compensate him for his chattels, but the

slaves by their enlistment would become freemen. The general felt that

he should soon need, to circumvent any threatened disloyal uprising, as

many soldiers as he could secure, whether they were white or black.

To diminish as far as possible the incitement of the secretly disloyal

to open rebellion, on the 26th of March, he prohibited the circulation,

in the Department of Missouri, of the _Metropolitan Record_. This was a

bitter rebel sheet published in New York. It professed to be a Catholic

family newspaper. On that account it was specially offensive to the

general, who was a devout Catholic. He felt that by it not only was his

country betrayed, but also his church was greatly misrepresented and

traduced. He declared it to be “without ecclesiastical sanction,” and so

“traitorous” that it could not be tolerated even by the most liberal

interpretation of the freedom of the press.[97] Nor did he relish the

fact that such a journal found so many eager readers in St. Louis and in

the State at large. It was an alarming symptom of what was going on

hidden from the public view.

He also wisely and firmly corrected all illegal assumption of power on

the part of his subordinates. Some district commanders had assumed the

right of forming sub-provost-marshal districts, and of appointing

assistant provost marshals. They were true, patriotic men.

Unquestionably they meant to do exactly right. But unwittingly they had

transcended their powers. So by an order issued April 9th, the general

called their attention to this unwarrantable usurpation of authority,

and put a stop to it.[98] He knew that he was called to cope with a foe

burrowing in every part of the State, and so far as possible must know

every subordinate officer, and must hold firmly in his own hand all the

lines of authority. He felt that such unification of power alone could

preserve the State from the grasp of a secret, ubiquitous foe.

While the great mass of our fellow-citizens were not acquainted with the

facts that were already in possession of our commander, rumors of a

secret organization of the disloyal began to get abroad. This was just

enough to fire the popular imagination, and to keep the people standing

on tiptoe and craning their necks for news. And while filled with

apprehension, they were not a little disturbed by seeing the troops that

had been faithfully guarding our city sent elsewhere. The masterful

campaign of Grant in Virginia had begun. The general-in-chief and his

great lieutenants, Sherman and Canby, were all clamorous for soldiers,

and each in turn urgently pressed General Rosecrans to send them

regiments from our State and city. He generously responded to these

calls, until he had sent them nearly all of the troops in and around St.

Louis.[99] When still further pressed for recruits by the generals in

the field, knowing, as they did not, the powerful hostile secret

organization intrenched in every part of our State, he pathetically

pleaded that he could not safely spare any more; that he must not

abandon, but must protect, the loyal citizens in the various counties of

our commonwealth, who remained unflinchingly true to the Union while

confronted with manifold perils. Grant, underestimating our dangers and

needs, and intent on his great work, accused Rosecrans of acting in

violation of orders; but later he softened his accusation by merely

declaring that in his judgment Rosecrans might have granted what he

asked without so much correspondence.[100] One marked fault of our

general was his great proneness to irritating disputation. Nevertheless

both of these patriotic generals were doing their level best. But we

must bear in mind this denuding our city of troops, if we would justly

appreciate the administration of General Rosecrans, and fully understand

the events that soon followed.

As early as March ugly rumors were flying about the city that small

roving bands of guerrillas and bushwhackers had begun to appear in

various parts of the State. Information concerning this daily became

more definite. On the 3d of April, a lieutenant-colonel of the 61st

enrolled Missouri militia reported from Columbia that rebel officers and

guerrillas had been coming into that region from the South and that they

were re-enforced from Illinois. That patriotic Illinois was taking a

hand in this clandestine, hostile invasion seemed to the uninitiated

incredible. But the announcement was unequivocal, and the invaders were

reported as operating in small squads, robbing and pillaging in all

directions. The disloyal in that part of the State, stirred to wrath on

account of the enlistment of negroes in the army and the prospect of a

draft, were receiving these desperadoes hospitably. And along with these

specific reports of devastation there was a persistent rumor that Price

was coming with a large army.[101]

In the latter part of April it was declared that the rebels had planned

to send into northern Missouri two brigades of cavalry and two of

mounted infantry; and into the region about Rolla in the southern part

of the State a column of guerrillas, together with the Confederate

Seventh Missouri Regiment, to act in conjunction with some conspirators’

organization[102] of whose existence and character the public at large

had received only an inkling. At the same time it was reported that

three Confederate colonels, with over a hundred armed men, were on their

way to northern Missouri and that most of these men were recruiting

officers of the rebel army.[103] We began to apprehend that the quietude

that we had felt and in which we had prematurely rejoiced was only the

stillness that precedes the fierce tornado. On the last day of April it

was announced that rebel raids from the South into the central part of

the State had begun, and that many of the citizens of Boonville, alarmed

by these reports, were fleeing from their homes. Four days after,

companies of Confederate cavalry, numbering from one to three hundred,

were reported as advancing towards our State from the southwest, and,

what was still more astounding and bewildering, it was rumored that

there were rebel organizations in Illinois, and that Quantrell, with

eight hundred men, was below Quincy between the Illinois and Mississippi

Rivers. Of the truth of this, Rosecrans was convinced, because he

declared that he hoped to bring “these conspirators and raiders to

grief.”[104] On the 4th of May from eight to twelve hundred rebels were

seen on Grand River, west of Neosho.[105] Rumors multiplied. Marmaduke

with eleven hundred men was observed going toward Missouri.[106]

Officers of the army on watch in the interior were persuaded that the

State would be soon invaded by a powerful force.[107] Before the middle

of June this became clear to all. Reports of guerrillas drifting in from

the South came from all parts of the State,[108] coupled with the rumor

that Price and his veteran host would soon be upon us.

And what in the meantime were these invaders doing? They were

endeavoring with but scant success to secure recruits for the

Confederate army. Their campaign had been shrewdly planned. They were in

all parts of the commonwealth. They made their appeal to every one in

sympathy with the rebellion. Every able-bodied man disloyal at heart had

a chance now to show his colors, to come out into the open and enlist in

the Confederate army.

But at this supreme moment most of them thought it imprudent so to do.

The Federal officers had never been so alert as now. Every concerted

rebel movement in their respective districts was unerringly detected by

them and at once checkmated. Every nest of secessionists was broken up.

In every place the disloyal seemed to be in the grasp of an iron hand.

They did not know that Rosecrans had in his possession all the facts in

reference to their secret conspiracy, and that through his able and

efficient subordinates, he was succeeding even beyond his expectations

in holding it in check.

Still, his success was not complete; for while most of the disloyal of

the State refused to enroll themselves as Confederate soldiers, they

struck hands with their friends from the South in gathering commissary

stores for the rebel army and especially for that part of it which was

expected soon to appear within our borders. They regarded the property

of Union men as legitimate plunder; so they gave themselves to pillage.

Since these marauders were scattered in small bands all over the State

beyond the immediate vicinity of St. Louis, it was impossible for our

soldiers, however vigilant and alert, to defend against them the

property of all Unionists. So they robbed here and plundered there,[109]

and in each case were quickly gone, no one knew where. Many of them, to

be sure, came to grief. Some were taken prisoners; some were shot or

hung; but most of them escaped to rob the defenceless, and to make night

lurid with burning farmhouses and barns.

If the depredators had confined themselves to plunder and arson, this

orgy of lawlessness would happily have lacked its darkest colors. But

they were joined by bushwhackers. These by birth or adoption were

Missourians. They knew every Union man in their respective

neighborhoods. They piloted the invaders to the homes of the loyal, that

they might seize upon what they considered their rightful prey. Many of

them wore the uniform of United States soldiers,[110] that they might

deceive the Unionists. They had many grudges that they determined to

feed fat. So to robbery was often added murder, cold-blooded, dastardly

murder. All over Missouri, wherever these assassins, clothed in the

loyal blue, dared to go, they shot down Union men. Many of these

atrocities were unspeakably revolting. A bushwhacker rode up to the door

of a peaceable old man, and asked for a drink of water. Whether the man

regarded the thirsty traveller as a friend or enemy was never known; at

all events, he brought him a cup of cold water, which he drank and then,

handing back the cup, shot his benefactor dead. Not because he had

previously injured him or any one else, but solely because amid many

perils he had been a true Union man.

The leader of a band of guerrillas, by the name of Anderson, ordered his

gang to shoot into, and stop, a train of cars on the North Missouri

Railroad. In one of the coaches he found twenty-two unarmed United

States soldiers that, on account of sickness, had been furloughed. They

were on their way to their homes and loved ones. He ordered them all out

of the car, robbed them, stood them in a row and shot them. Some of the

bodies he scalped, others he put across the track and ran the engine

over them. He afterwards attacked a hundred and twenty men of the 39th

Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and having stampeded their horses, shot

every one of them in cold blood. A few days later he was recognized by

General Price as a Confederate captain, and with the gentle admonition

that he must behave himself, was sent out to destroy railroads.[111]

But this carnage went on. It was the culmination of horrors in Missouri.

All the barbarism that had gone before was now eclipsed. No other State

of the South was so harried by lawless, irresponsible armed men. They

did not wage war, and were entitled to none of the amenities of war as

conducted by civilized nations.

In St. Louis we were as yet safe. But we breakfasted and supped on

horrors. Our hearts bled for our suffering brethren in the State. We did

what we could to help them; but we were able to effect very little. The

persistent rumors that a large army of invaders would soon sweep into

our State from the South made us apprehensive that there might at no

distant day be fighting at our own gates.

At last these rumors of invasion were followed by the ingress of a

veteran rebel force under the command of General Price. They came up

from Arkansas. On the 24th of September, General Shelby, one of Price’s

division commanders, with five thousand men and several pieces of

artillery, was reported as just south of Pilot Knob, about eighty-five

miles from St. Louis. It was the vanguard of an army of at least fifteen

thousand men.

Excitement ran high among us. We had no force at all adequate to our

protection. As we have already seen, most of the soldiers in and around

St. Louis had been sent to the front. Of this state of things, the rebel

general had undoubtedly been informed. He expected to capture our city,

and, comparatively defenceless as we were, we thought that his

expectation would probably be realized; at all events, we could not see

why it should not be. Still we all deeply felt that we must do our

utmost to save that for which we had so successfully contended for more

than three years.

Days before, when rumors of this invasion filled the air, and evidences

multiplied that rumor would soon be transmuted into reality, at the

earnest solicitation of our general, the military authorities at

Washington had halted at Cairo, General A. J. Smith, with about four

thousand five hundred infantry, when on his way to join General Sherman,

and ordered him to turn back and assist Rosecrans in defending Missouri

against the hostile forces of Price. To our great relief he came up to

St. Louis, knowing full well that our city was the coveted prize and the

objective point of the invading army. He wisely determined to stand,

with his brave soldiers, between our comparatively defenceless city and

the invaders when they should appear on our soil.

But he was not our only defence. When the invading rebels were reported

as being in the southern part of the State all the Home Guards of St.

Louis were called out. Their whole strength was from four to five

thousand men, none of whom had ever been under fire. Under the best

officers that could be secured they were daily drilled. Moreover, some

one hundred days’ volunteers, then in Illinois, who had more than served

out their time, with great alacrity and generosity came to our support,

but refused under the circumstances to go beyond the city. They were

willing to fight there on the defensive, but were unwilling to join in

an offensive campaign, which might require long and perhaps forced

marches. We could not blame them, and were glad that they stood ready

with us to defend our city if it should be attacked.

Now, with such force as was at hand the defensive campaign began.

General Ewing was sent with about fifteen hundred men, half of whom were

raw recruits, to Pilot Knob. He was ordered to hold that position until

he found out as nearly as possible the number of the invading army. He

was an able, gallant soldier, and we knew that he would do his utmost to

carry out the command of his chief.

At the same time, General Smith marched with his division of infantry in

the direction of Pilot Knob. His movement was noted by Price, who,

wishing to prevent him from uniting his force with that of General

Ewing, sent General Shelby to oppose him and if possible check his

advance. General Smith, having discovered that the enemy was moving west

and north, was ordered to keep between the rebel force and St. Louis; so

he retired behind the Meramec, a little river a few miles south of our

city.

In the meantime, full of anxiety, we at St. Louis waited for tidings

from General Ewing. Hours seemed to be days, and days weeks. At last the

thrilling news came. Ewing, after using part of his troops to guard a

portion of the Iron Mountain Railroad, with a thousand men took his

stand at Fort Davidson, a small field work in a valley surrounded by

hills. It commanded the opening between the mountains through which

Price had determined to pass. Throughout the whole of September 27th, he

was terrifically assaulted by the invaders. While half of his thousand

troops were undisciplined volunteers, he pluckily held his ground,

repulsing the attacking army and killing and wounding fifteen hundred of

them; while his own loss in killed, wounded and missing was only two

hundred and fifty. A part of this number in the desperate fighting of

the day had been taken prisoners and soon after were paroled. The

general had triumphantly accomplished his object. He had developed the

fact that the whole of Price’s army was in the State, and for a whole

day he had confronted and fought all of it except Shelby’s division.

The enemy, towards evening, had gained the slopes of the adjacent

mountains and were planting batteries there which would command the fort

that Ewing had so tenaciously and gallantly held. Fully eight thousand

five hundred men with ten pieces of artillery were prepared to attack

him in the morning. His position was no longer tenable. He therefore

spiked his big guns, blew up his magazine, destroyed as far as he was

able the supplies that he could not carry away, and with his field

battery and what remained of his command retreated under the cover of

darkness toward the Meramec valley. When his absence was discovered, the

enemy pursued and greatly harassed him and his small intrepid army. The

only wonder is that his whole command was not captured or destroyed; but

he got upon a ridge of land between two creeks, and so was able, as he

marched rapidly on, to repulse again and again the pursuing forces. He

reached at last Harrison Station, a little more than a day’s march from

our city. Here he hastily occupied and extended some earthworks that had

been thrown up by a regiment of militia, and with his raw troops, now

become a Spartan band, withstood the assaulting army for thirty-six

hours, when he was re-enforced by a detachment of cavalry. The enemy now

withdrew. Ewing and his brave men escaped to Rolla.

We were soon in possession of all the facts. A great burden was lifted

from our hearts. The well-earned fame of Ewing and his dauntless little

army floated on the lips of the multitude. But why Price did not take

St. Louis was to us all an inscrutable mystery. He could have done so.

He came for that very purpose, and yet passed by us to the west and

north. He was a cautious general; as we have before observed, he never

wished to attack unless he felt quite sure of victory. And like most

overcautious commanders, he overestimated the strength of his enemy. We

know now, what we did not then, that he sent a spy to our city, one in

whose judgment he placed the utmost confidence, who reported to him that

we had for our defence two soldiers to his one. How that spy could have

been so deceived is still an unsolved riddle. Price had almost two

soldiers to our one. His soldiers were veterans; ours to a great extent

were raw and undisciplined. With a little resolute, hard fighting he

could have seized the prize which he and his troops so intensely

coveted. But the God of nations and battles, who holds in his hand the

hearts of kings and generals, had graciously decreed otherwise.

It would be aside from my object to present in detail the events which

belong to this invasion of our State. When we saw that the rebel general

had evidently abandoned the purpose of attacking St. Louis, its loyal

inhabitants felt the intensest satisfaction. We now saw with increasing

delight that the distance between the invaders and our city was daily

growing greater; that General Price, overestimating the number of Union

troops at Jefferson City, just as he had at St. Louis, passed on to the

west and north, leaving the State capital unharmed. Soon the scattered

detachments of Federal troops began to concentrate in his rear, and he

hastened his march. Near the western border of the State, Union troops

from Kansas joined in the pursuit. Now in every battle the rebel forces

met with defeat, and were soon driven from southwest Missouri into

Arkansas, never more to return. This was the last invasion of our State.

But in this invasion the rebel general was in some ways largely

successful. He killed and wounded very many of our troops. During this

campaign, though it lasted only a few days, there were more than forty

skirmishes and about fifteen battles, some of them of considerable

dimensions. Many places, either utterly without defence, or inadequately

defended, were temporarily occupied, and plundered. Houses of Union men

were burned. Railroad tracks were torn up, and the rails twisted and

destroyed. Bridges, depots and warehouses were reduced to ashes. Horses,

mules and wagons in large numbers were carried away. Vast quantities of

commissary stores were ruthlessly gathered for the Confederate army.

Price, in his report of this campaign, claims that he destroyed full ten

million dollars worth of property. Perhaps that is an exaggeration; but

he marched by a circuitous route from one end of our State to the other,

devastating a strip of territory about twenty miles wide.

He, to be sure, lost heavily. Ten pieces of his artillery, two stand of

colors, large numbers of wagons, mules and small arms, and nearly two

thousand prisoners were captured by the Federals. Many of his men were

slain in battle. He had also been compelled in his flight to burn very

many of the wagons that he had confiscated, and to destroy much of his

ill-gotten plunder.

Moreover, he had utterly failed, politically. He anticipated the

uprising of the “Order of American Knights,” fully twenty-five thousand

in number, and that most of them would join his army; he also expected

to take St. Louis and swing our State into the Southern Confederacy;

march into Illinois, where, re-enforced by the one hundred fifty

thousand Knights of that State, and greeted by the Knights from Indiana

and Ohio, with Vallandigham at their head, he hoped to establish a

Northwestern Confederacy and put a stop to the war, which was being

waged for the maintenance of the Union. But divine Providence had

decreed that this audacious scheme of rebels and copperheads should

never be realized. The effort to make the airy fabric of that dream a

reality had been attended with devastation, misery and blood, and had

ended in inglorious defeat.

But one sad outcome of the devastating march of Price’s army was patent

to every eye. Before it Union men with their families fled for their

lives. Many of them hastily left their homes at night, lighted on their

way by their flaming houses. Avoiding their pillaging foes, they made

their way to St. Louis. They came in great numbers, and like the

refugees that preceded them, were kindly received and abundantly cared

for.[112]

CHAPTER XXIV

NEGRO SCHOOLS

Before the last invasion of our State by Price, a few of us became

deeply interested in the education of the colored children of our city.

No public school was open to them. Although the negroes of St. Louis

owned taxable property, assessed year by year at a valuation of hundreds

of thousands of dollars, and had long paid annually no inconsiderable

school tax, it had been used for the education of white children alone.

This rank injustice, one of the many shameful wrongs of chattel slavery,

led the colored people to establish in different parts of the city a few

private schools for the education of their own children. By the flocking

of contrabands into St. Louis the demand for colored schools had

steadily grown more imperative. But these schools, founded and conducted

by colored teachers, were of a very low grade. They were worthy of

hearty commendation, as earnest efforts on the part of those who, though

brought up in ignorance, desired better things for their children than

they themselves had known. This ignorance yearning for knowledge, this

stretching out of black hands toward the light, was an appeal too

eloquent to be resisted. A goodly company of us determined to do what we

could to lay the foundation for the future education of our colored

population. It was already pretty clear that they were to be

enfranchised citizens, and would need greater intelligence to enable

them to discharge creditably their obligations to the community and the

State.

We saw at a glance what they needed was better schools and more of them.

Larger and more cleanly rooms, more and better elementary books, and

above all more thoroughly trained teachers were absolutely necessary in

order to secure results even moderately satisfactory. To accomplish

this, two things were demanded, money and self-sacrificing workers. The

first could not be obtained from the public treasury. While the law

compelled thrifty blacks to pay a school tax, it forbade the use of a

cent of it in educating black children. We and they had to bow before

the majesty of the law. The only resort left us was private charity. But

this did not fail us. The negro property holders not only cheerfully

paid the school tax for the education of white children, but also

generously contributed from their limited incomes to sustain the private

schools for colored children. And loyal whites, who, from the beginning

of the war, had nobly responded to a multitude of appeals for charity,

by their bountiful gifts helped on this new educational enterprise,

while a company of men and women came forward with alacrity to do the

necessary work involved in this philanthropic project. They met with and

counselled the colored school board; solicited and collected money;

secured the donation of the necessary furnishings for the schoolrooms

and the books and simple apparatus required; encouraged pupils to attend

the schools and inspirited teachers when in their new and difficult work

their hearts began to fail them.

I was chosen to examine the colored applicants for positions as

teachers. In the months of September and October, I spent six half days

in the work of examination. It was a difficult task. These aspirants for

the responsible office of teacher knew accurately very little. The

superintendent of our city schools furnished me with the questions to be

asked. But these questions were framed for white teachers of larger

knowledge and greater discipline and were quite unfit for my purpose;

however, being required to use them, I did my best in Saul’s armor.

During the war the price of gold in New York was quoted in every daily

paper. It was one dollar and forty cents or one dollar and seventy-five

cents or two dollars and twenty-five cents, that is, it took so much in

paper currency to buy one dollar in gold. One of the questions

designated for these examinations was: “What is the leading industry of

New York?” referring of course to the State of New York. It was a rather

difficult question for any one to answer. I gave it to a bright-looking

colored girl, as a part of her examination. Her answer was, “Buying and

selling gold.”

Out of the fourteen that I examined, male and female, I found four that

showed that they were tolerably well-prepared for their duties as

primary teachers and they acquitted themselves very well in the

schoolroom.

Our schools flourished. Most of the pupils learned rapidly. The number

of them multiplied. Soon our room was insufficient. From time to time we

added other schools, and succeeded with small means in doing a great,

beneficent work.

We finally carried our case to the School Board of the city. We went

with faint hearts. In a community accustomed to slave laws, which public

opinion had heartily sustained, we were to ask the great boon of public

schools for those who by legislative enactment had been long kept in

ignorance. Moreover, the character of the men before whom we were to

plead the cause of the negro made us hesitate. Most of them were what

were then called Bourbon Democrats, who, it was declared, never learned

anything nor forgot anything, and a majority of the Board were Roman

Catholics. What could we expect men of that kind to do for the servile

and despised race among us? We were ushered into their presence. With

warm hearts we began to state our case. We criminated nobody. We spoke

earnestly and tenderly for the wronged and neglected. We were

wonderfully cheered when we saw that those whom we addressed were all

eye and all ear. They intently looked us in the face, they seemed

unwilling to lose a single word that fell from our lips. The injustice

that we pointed out was so rank that all their hearts were touched.

Without a dissenting voice they declared that the great wrong must be

righted; that the children of the men who paid a school tax must share

in its benefits.

But, just as we expected, they affirmed that they could do nothing for

the colored children under the existing law; but unsolicited they

pledged themselves to petition the next legislature for a law that would

enable them to provide school buildings, books, apparatus, and teachers

for the black children, and to support these schools, just as the

schools for white children are maintained, by the public school funds.

They were as good as their word. The legislature to which they appealed

was mainly made up of men of radical, progressive views, and what was

asked was enthusiastically granted. The school buildings for colored

children were put up and all that could make these schools most highly

efficient was liberally provided. The negro question for Missouri was

solved in this high-minded, philanthropic way, and the solution was

unstained by partisanship or demagogism; and in it we saw the grand

fruition of our toil on behalf of a few private negro schools.

CHAPTER XXV

AFTER DARKNESS LIGHT

In the beginning of the autumn of 1864 the Unionists of St. Louis were

sadly disheartened. They had not been so hopeless since the war began.

Men were unable to give any rational explanation of their

discouragement. It probably arose from a combination of untoward events.

Grant and Sherman had begun their great campaigns in Virginia and

Georgia. Some hard battles had been fought but no very decisive

victories had yet been gained. Mr. Lincoln had been renominated for the

Presidency, but without the triumph of our arms his election seemed to

us somewhat doubtful. For the opposing candidate the Democrats had

nominated General McClellan, who had many enthusiastic followers. In

their platform they had declared the war a failure. The existence of

“The Knights of the Golden Circle,” their great numbers in several

States of the Middle West and their ardent support of the Democratic

candidate had become quite generally known. Such an array of

antagonistic forces seemed to many of the loyal in our city, wearied

with the long and costly conflict for the Union, to betoken possible

defeat.

In this too general gloom I could not share. With other optimistic souls

I felt sure of ultimate victory. It was my duty, therefore, to impart so

far as possible my confidence to others; so I preached to a full house

from the text: “Think not that I came to send peace on the earth; I came

not to send peace, but a sword.” The press asked for my sermon and gave

it to a far greater number than those who heard it. Its closing passage

enshrines the spirit and stress of that day.

“There are those, however, who cry out for peace. Who does not desire

it? Have we not had enough of fratricidal strife? Yes, verily. Has not

enough blood been shed? Yes, a thousand fold more than ought to have

flowed. Have we not had enough of lamentation and tears? Let the Rachels

who weep for their children, and refuse to be comforted, answer. He has

a stone for a heart who, looking on the desolations of war, does not

sigh for peace. But peace at what price? At the price of truth? Shall we

for the sake of peace give up the principle that good government must be

obeyed? Shall we tamely abandon the truth that all men are equal in

God’s sight, and have a right to the product of their own labor? Shall

we timidly assent to the tyrannical doctrine that the normal condition

of a portion of our race is slavery? We cannot purchase peace at so

great cost. God giving us strength, we never will. Let our wives be

widows and our children orphans; let them beg their bread from door to

door; let them die without care in almshouses, and be buried uncoffined

in the potter’s field; yea, ‘let a general conflagration sweep over the

land, and let an earthquake sink it,’ before we yield one rood of our

territory to those who, without cause, lifted up the red hand of

rebellion against the government of our fathers in the interest of

slavery. And why all this? Because the truth for which we contend is

worth more than your life or mine—or more than the lives of a generation

of men. When peace shall be obtained which is based in righteousness,

which flows forth from justice established and exalted in the midst of

the nation, which grants to all classes of men their inalienable rights,

we will sing pæans of joy over it; but if we are to have a peace based

on a compromise with iniquity, which will be as deceptive as the apples

of Sodom, involving our children in disasters more dire than those which

have befallen us, every lover of truth, and justice, and good government

will hang his head in shame. O, God, save us in mercy, from such a

peace! Give us anything rather than it. Grant us an eighty years’ war

like that waged by the Netherlands, rather than pour into our cup such

an insidious curse.

“Brethren, be of good cheer. God now goes before us to battle, and

grants us victories. This is no time for fear and faltering. We must

quit ourselves like men, like Christian freemen. This conflict is not

anomalous. There have been many such. Christ, the Prince of Peace,

anticipated it, and His words coming across the centuries shall cheer us

till the last blow is struck, truth vindicated and righteousness

immovably established.”

As we approached November the tide of public opinion turned in favor of

the election of Mr. Lincoln for a second term. The invasion of Missouri

had failed of its object. St. Louis was no longer threatened by her

foes; she was now secure and serene. The great secret political

organization, which aspired to destroy the Union and defeat the second

election of the President, had become innocuous; the fangs of the

copperhead had been drawn; Grant with the hammer of Thor, over

grass-covered fortifications, was steadily pounding his way towards

Richmond. Sherman had achieved brilliant success in Georgia. All things

for the cause of the Union were propitious. Lincoln’s election was

triumphant. Great patient soul, he now knew that he was enthroned in the

hearts of the people to whom he was so ardently devoted.

In Missouri many were kept from voting because they could not take the

prescribed oath of allegiance. On that account the result of the

election was not the real expression of the judgment of the whole

people; but it gave the most intense satisfaction to all radical Union

men of our city and State. The President received over forty thousand

majority; the unconditional Union candidate for Governor, Thomas C.

Fletcher, received a still heavier vote. The people, by more than

thirty-seven thousand majority, declared themselves in favor of another

Convention and at the same time elected the members of it, more than

three fourths of whom were Charcoals. The entire radical ticket for

State officers was chosen, and the legislature was heavily radical in

both its branches. Eight of the nine candidates elected to Congress were

radicals. In eighty of the one hundred and fourteen counties of the

State the radical ticket prevailed. The loyal of our city celebrated

this triumph of unconditional Unionism with unbounded joy. They rang the

bells; kindled bonfires; marched with torches to martial music; sang

patriotic songs; and almost split their throats and the welkin with

their huzzas. Well they might do all this. Every plot against the Union

had been thwarted; they held at last firmly within their grasp the prize

for which they had so long and patiently struggled. The darkness had

fled; the light shone.

CHAPTER XXVI

RADICALS IN CONVENTION[113]

The radicals for many months had been deeply dissatisfied with the

conservatism of the old Convention. While recognizing its inestimable

service in keeping Missouri in the Union, they were strongly opposed to

its policy of gradual, compensated emancipation. They clamored for a new

Convention to which this, and other vitally important questions, should

be submitted. So many in the State adopted and advocated their views

that the legislature in February, 1864, passed an act creating and

calling a new Convention to meet in St. Louis on January 6th, 1865, “to

consider, first, such amendments to the Constitution of the State as may

be by them deemed necessary for the emancipation of slaves; second, such

amendments to the Constitution of the State as may be by them deemed

necessary to preserve in purity the elective franchise to loyal

citizens; and such other amendments as may be by them deemed essential

to the promotion of the public good.”

At the election in November, the people, as we have already noted, by a

decisive majority, declared for a new Convention and elected delegates

to it most of whom were radicals. The Charcoals were at last in the

saddle. The conservatives were dispirited; and even the more moderate

radicals held their breath in fear of measures too extreme and

impracticable. But, whatever drawbacks there were, on the whole the

radical triumph was a healthful onward movement.

On January 6th, 1865, the Convention met in the small Mercantile Library

Hall. There were sixty-nine delegates. More than half of them had been

born and bred in slave States. Twenty-three were natives of the free

States, while ten were immigrants from Europe, chiefly from Germany.

Some of those who were natives of the South had recently been converted

from their pro-slavery notions and were intent on magnifying their new

faith. They were uncompromising radicals.

Unlike the old Convention, there were in this more farmers than lawyers,

while the medical profession was as numerously represented as the legal;

almost one-fifth of the Convention were physicians. There were also

twelve merchants, mostly from small towns whose business had never been

large. Editors, clerks, a mechanic, a railroad agent, a law student, a

nurseryman, a surveyor, a schoolmaster, and a major of Missouri

volunteers made up the rest.

In the main the delegates were young. More than a third of them were

under forty, and more than two-thirds under fifty; none of them were

enfeebled by age. But a single glance at them convinced any intelligent

beholder that, taken as a whole, they were in capacity mediocre; and

most of them by their occupations had not been fitted to grapple with

questions that pertained to the fundamental law of the State. The people

who chose them had evidently not kept clearly in view the delicate and

difficult work that they would be called upon to perform. To a large

extent passion and prejudice born of the hour had controlled the voters

in their choice of delegates. In their anxiety to elect men who were

uncompromisingly in favor of immediate emancipation, they had not been

sufficiently careful in demanding that they should also be men qualified

to do their part intelligently in reconstructing the organic law of the

commonwealth.

Moreover, the Convention did not fairly represent the whole body of

loyal men in the State. Ruling out all downright rebels as justly

debarred from voting, the conservative anti-slavery element secured at

the best but a very small representation in this deliberative assembly.

The stringent oath of allegiance, framed by the old Convention and

rigidly required of every voter, kept many from making any attempt to

deposit their ballots; not because they were not, even under such a

severe test, legal voters, but because they shrank from the catechizing

to which they would be subjected at the polls by men who looked with

suspicion upon any one with conservative views.

Now when the Convention made up mainly of men holding ultra notions came

together and organized for work, choosing, at its second session, for

president, Arnold Krekel of St. Charles, a native of Prussia, an able

lawyer, but an extremist of the most pronounced type, all St. Louis was

agog. This first important act of the Convention unmistakably revealed

its radical drift, and showed how potent in it were the ultra political

notions of our German fellow-citizens. It proceeded at once to the

paramount business for which it had been created and called together,

the emancipation of the slaves of Missouri. On the fifth day after its

organization it passed, with only four votes in the negative, the

following ordinance:

“Be it ordained by the People of the State of Missouri, in Convention

assembled:

“That hereafter, in this State, there shall be neither slavery nor

involuntary servitude, except in punishment of crime, whereof the party

shall have been duly convicted; and all persons held to service or labor

as slaves are hereby declared free.”

The hall was packed with spectators; and when the almost unanimous vote

for this ordinance was announced by the president they broke out into

loud applause; they swung hats, waved handkerchiefs, stamped, clapped

their hands and cheered. The president cried, “Order, order,” pounded

with his gavel and called on the sergeant-at-arms to suppress the

exultant uproar; but every effort was futile; he might as well have

attempted to still a hurricane by pounding on a board with a gavel and

by threatening it with an attack by one man armed. And how foolish it

was to try. For many years men in that shouting crowd had longed for

that hour; they had often feared that they should die without the sight.

And now that it had come in such unexpected ways their joy must have

vent. And in spite of all efforts to quiet them they continued to cheer

until they were exhausted. No wonder. The event that excited them was

great and significant. More than a hundred thousand slaves were in a

moment made freemen and the greatest obstacle to the progress of

Missouri was swept out of the way.

When at last the glad cries of the onlooking throng died away, Dr. Eliot

was called upon to voice the gratitude of all present by returning

thanks to Almighty God. He came to the president’s desk and from a full

heart poured out in tremulous tones this fitting petition:

“Most merciful God, before whom we are all equal, we look up to thee who

hast declared thyself our Father and our helper and our strong defence,

to thank thee that thou art no respecter of persons, to thank thee that

thou didst send Jesus Christ into the world to redeem the world from

sin, and that he was the friend of the poor, that he came to break the

manacles of the slaves, ‘that the oppressed might go free.’ We thank

thee that this day the people of this State have had grace given them to

do as they would be done by. We pray that thy blessing may rest upon the

proceedings of this Convention, that no evil may come to this State from

the wrong position of those who do not agree with the action of to-day,

but that we, all of us, may be united to sustain this which is the law

of the land. We pray, O God! but our hearts are too full to express our

thanksgiving! Thanks be to God for this day that light has now come out

of darkness, that all things are now promising a future of peace and

quietness to our distracted State. Grant that this voice may go over the

whole land until the Ordinance of Emancipation is made perfect

throughout the States. We ask it through the name of our dear Lord and

Redeemer. Amen.”

This prayer was followed by some moments of reverent silence; the hearts

of all present had been deeply touched. Then the hush that had fallen

alike on delegates and spectators was reluctantly broken. In subdued

tones a motion was offered that the Ordinance of Emancipation be

engrossed on parchment, attested by the secretary and signed by the

members of the Convention. This was unanimously adopted.

Without a moment’s delay, it was moved and carried that a duly

authenticated copy of the Ordinance be sent by special messenger to the

Governor of the State, at Jefferson City, and that he be requested to

issue a proclamation to the people of the commonwealth, apprising them

that, “by the irrevocable action of the Convention, slavery is abolished

in the State of Missouri, now and forever.”

The Convention, being in no mood to take up other business, adjourned

till the next day. But the report of what they had done had already

spread through the whole city. It outran the newsboys who were soon

vociferously hawking on every street the extras that had been quickly

sent forth from the newspaper presses. All business for the rest of the

day was suspended. The joyful peal of bells from tower and steeple

struck every ear. Crowds spontaneously gathered on the streets. They

eagerly rehearsed and animatedly discussed what the Convention had done.

Most approved it; a few condemned it. Public buildings and most private

dwellings quickly hung out in profusion the national banner, and when

night came hundreds of buildings were illuminated. There was a carnival

of joy.

The negroes filled their churches, sang songs of deliverance, and poured

out their quaint thanksgiving to God that the day for which they had so

long sighed had come. As their leaders prayed, those in the pews,

swaying their bodies back and forth, cried: “Bress de Lawd, Amen, Glory,

Hal’luah, We’s free.” To them it was the day of days. Their year of

jubilee had come. They shouted, and sang their touching melodies till

long after midnight.

But our picture would be far from complete without a glance at the

capital of the State. Before the special messenger, bearing the

Ordinance of Emancipation, had reached Jefferson City, the telegraph had

anticipated both him and his message. The legislature was in session. On

receipt of the news, business was at once suspended and the members of

both houses, with rare exceptions, gave themselves up to rejoicing. By a

resolution enthusiastically adopted, Colonel Jameson of St. Louis, Mr.

Kützner of Hannibal, and Mr. Doan of Grundy were invited to sing “John

Brown.” Standing in front of the speaker’s desk they sang it amid hearty

applause, the members of the legislature joining in the chorus, “Glory,

glory Hallelujah.” When the legislature adjourned, there were several

spontaneous gatherings of the citizens of Jefferson City. These meetings

were addressed by the ablest speakers residing at the capital; also by

some members of the legislature, and by the Congressman of the district.

National banners were run up on all public buildings, and out from the

windows of most of the private houses; bells rang, bands played, and in

the evening tar barrels were burned in the streets, while every

window-pane of the Capitol seemed to be illuminated. The trees and the

neighboring hills caught up the light and seemed to rejoice with the

city; reminding many of the rapt words of the prophet; “The mountains

and the hills shall break forth before you into singing and all the

trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

On the same day, January 11th, as “requested” by the Convention,

Governor Fletcher, reciting the Ordinance of Emancipation, proclaimed to

all the inhabitants of the commonwealth “that henceforth and forever no

person within the jurisdiction of this State shall be subject to any

abridgement of liberty, except such as the law may prescribe for the

common good, or know any master but God.”

And so the curtain fell on the first and greatest act of the Convention.

If, after eliminating from the Constitution of the State all that

pertained to involuntary servitude, thus making it consonant with the

Ordinance of Emancipation, the Convention had adjourned _sine die_, it

would have covered itself with imperishable glory. But the act of the

legislature by which it was created gave to it almost unlimited powers.

It was especially called upon so to amend the Constitution that the

elective franchise should be preserved in its purity to all loyal

citizens, and to make such other amendments as it might think “essential

to the public good.” Under this last clause apparently there was nothing

that they might not legally do, and in their remaining work they went to

the full limit of their powers. Instead of simply revising the old

Constitution they in fact made a new one, and in spots it was admirable.

It contained the most progressive doctrines of popular government; but

in prescribing who should be legal voters their enactments were so

extreme that they appear to us now quite ludicrous. To justify this

statement we venture to give in full sections 3 and 6 of article II of

the Constitution, together with the prescribed oath, believing that any

intelligent reader who begins the perusal of them will proceed with

increasing interest to the last line.

“SEC. 3. At any election held by the people under this Constitution, or

in pursuance of any law of this State, or under any ordinance or by-law

of any municipal corporation, no person shall be deemed a qualified

voter, who has ever been in armed hostility to the United States, or to

the lawful authorities thereof, or to the Government of this State; or

has ever given aid, comfort, countenance, or support to persons engaged

in any such hostility; or has ever, in any manner, adhered to the

enemies, foreign or domestic, of the United States, either by

contributing to them, or by unlawfully sending within their lines,

money, goods, letters, or information; or has ever disloyally held

communication with such enemies; or has ever advised or aided any person

to enter the service of such enemies; or has ever, by act or word,

manifested his adherence to the cause of such enemies, or his desire for

their triumph over the arms of the United States, or his sympathy with

those engaged in exciting or carrying on rebellion against the United

States; or has ever, except under overpowering compulsion, submitted to

the authority, or been in the service, of the so-called ‘Confederate

States of America;’ or has left this State, and gone within the lines of

the armies of the so-called ‘Confederate States of America,’ with the

purpose of adhering to said States or armies; or has ever been a member

of, or connected with, any order, society, or organization, inimical to

the Government of the United States, or to the Government of this State;

or has ever been engaged in guerrilla warfare against loyal inhabitants

of the United States, or in that description of marauding commonly known

as ‘bushwhacking;’ or has ever knowingly and willingly harbored, aided,

or countenanced, any person so engaged; or has ever come into or left

this State for the purpose of avoiding enrollment for or draft into the

military service of the United States; or has ever, with a view to avoid

enrollment in the militia of this State, or to escape the performance of

duty therein, or for any other purpose, enrolled himself, or authorized

himself to be enrolled, by or before any officer, as disloyal, or as a

Southern sympathizer, or in any other terms indicating his disaffection

to the Government of the United States in its contest with rebellion, or

his sympathy with those engaged in such rebellion; or, having ever voted

at any election by the people in this State, or in any other of the

United States, or in any of their Territories, or held office in this

State, or in any other of the United States, or in any of their

Territories, or under the United States, shall thereafter have sought or

received, under claim of alienage, the protection of any foreign

government, through any consul or other officer thereof, in order to

secure exemption from military duty in the militia of this State, or in

the army of the United States; nor shall any such person be capable of

holding, in this State, any office of honor, trust, or profit, under its

authority; or of being an officer, councilman, director, trustee, or

other manager of any corporation, public or private, now existing or

hereafter established by its authority; or of acting as a professor or

teacher in any educational institution, or in any common or other

school; or of holding any real estate, or other property, in trust for

the use of any church, religious society, or congregation. But the

foregoing provisions in relation to acts done against the United States

shall not apply to any person not a citizen thereof, who shall have

committed such acts while in the service of some foreign country at war

with the United States, and who has, since such acts, been naturalized,

or may hereafter be naturalized, under the laws of the United States;

and the oath of loyalty hereinafter prescribed, when taken by such

person, shall be considered as taken in such sense.”

“SEC. 6. The oath to be taken as aforesaid shall be known as the Oath of

Loyalty, and shall be in the following terms:

“‘I, A. B., do solemnly swear, that I am well acquainted with the terms

of the third section of the second Article of the Constitution of the

State of Missouri, adopted in the year eighteen hundred and sixty-five,

and have carefully considered the same; that I have never, directly or

indirectly, done any of the acts in said section specified; that I have

always been truly and loyally on the side of the United States against

all enemies thereof, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith

and allegiance to the United States, and will support the Constitution

and laws thereof, as the supreme law of the land, any law or ordinance

of any State to the contrary notwithstanding; that I will, to the best

of my ability, protect and defend the Union of the United States, and

not allow the same to be broken up and dissolved, or the Government

thereof to be destroyed or overthrown, under any circumstances, if in my

power to prevent it; that I will support the Constitution of the State

of Missouri; and that I make this oath without any mental reservation or

evasion, and hold it to be binding on me.’”

We see from this how intensely in earnest were the delegates of this

Convention. But this oath was not wholly a creation of theirs. It had a

gradual growth. We have seen with what imperativeness General Halleck

demanded an oath of allegiance of all officers of the State, county and

city, without which they were not permitted to exercise their functions.

The generals of the department that came after him rigorously maintained

the same policy. The first sovereign Convention adopted it and

strenuously enforced it by the sword. This Convention, receiving it from

the first, with wonderful genius for probing the conscience, elaborated

it. Under its manipulation the oath became retrospective, introspective

and prospective. No man could take it without perjury, who by word or

act had been in the past, was in the present, or should be in the

future, disloyal to the government of the United States. It not only

prohibited one who could not subscribe to it from voting, but also from

holding any government office of whatever grade, teaching in any school

or preaching the gospel. And to make sure that the fountains of justice

should be freed from every suspicion of disloyalty, the Convention

vacated the offices of the judges of the Supreme Court, circuit and

county courts, and special courts of record throughout the State, and of

all clerks of courts, county recorders, and circuit attorneys and their

assistants, and “empowered and directed” the Governor of the State to

fill these offices so vacated by his appointment. Since most judges and

subordinate officers of the courts were unable to subscribe to the oath

of loyalty without perjury, the Convention was determined that court

officials should be appointed that could. And thinking it unsafe to wait

for the slow process of a popular election and probably fearing, if they

should, that the elections might not go according to their liking, they

took a short cut to clean the Augean stables. It looked like revolution.

At all events the Convention went to the full limit, if not beyond the

limit, of its powers. The judges of the Supreme Court resisted what they

regarded a gross usurpation of authority; but their resistance was vain.

They were arrested and tried before the City Recorder as disturbers of

the peace, and so sank from public view.

While the Convention designated the oath the “Oath of Loyalty;” the

people, seizing upon its exact intent, called it the Test Oath. Its

object was to test the loyalty of those who were required to take it.

But the oath was too indiscriminate. It did not sufficiently recognize

different degrees of guilt. Many in our city and State who were at first

swept by the excitement of the hour into the ranks of the secessionists,

soon saw their error and thereafter loyally supported the Federal

government. Others had at times expressed their sympathy with

secessionism, but in all their overt acts had been faithful to the

Union. It would naturally have been expected that ordinarily wise and

humane legislators would have provided for the full, unconditional

pardon of such men. But no; this oath of loyalty was pitiless. It made

not the slightest provision for the penitent. The majority of the

Convention seem to have proceeded on the assumption that men who had

been guilty of rebellion in any degree, if they had but expressed a

sympathetic emotion in its behalf, were unfit either to vote or teach or

preach.

And, for a decade, the most genuine and heartfelt repentance would be

altogether vain; since the Convention provided, in the 25th section of

the second article of the Constitution, that the General Assembly of the

State might repeal the provisions of the oath, so far as they affected

voters, after 1871, but so far as they pertained to lawyers, school

teachers and ministers not till after 1875. Therefore irrespective of

the degree of his guilt, to the attorney, the pedagogue or the preacher,

these astute constitution-makers, with a scent for disloyalty keener

than that of a hound, for ten long years, granted “no place of

repentance,” even though he should seek it “diligently with tears.”

It would, however, be unjust to overlook the fact that there was in the

Convention a conservative minority, who steadily and sturdily fought

this extreme legislation. They contended that it was unjust to many in

the State; that, especially since the end of the war must be near, the

true policy was that of forgiveness and reconciliation; that those who

in spite of their Southern birth and education had, through bitter

experiences, become loyal, should not have their new-born faith crushed

out of them by this merciless oath; that the oath was a political

blunder since it would give all the enemies of the new Constitution some

just ground for their opposition to it. The debate was long and sharp.

Dr. Linton, a physician of our city, who had been a member of the first

Convention, while loyal to the core, distinguished himself by his strong

opposition to the oath. He had a genius for cogent, laconic speech. And

since Charles D. Drake, a Southerner by birth, was the pre-eminent

advocate of the oath and the author of most of its details, with grim

sarcasm he called it “the Draconian oath.” But the faithful minority

could not stem the tide of radicalism in the Convention and this

notorious oath became a part of the new Constitution of Missouri.

But we must cordially recognize the fact that the authors of it, and all

in the Convention who voted to make it part and parcel of the ground law

of the State, were genuinely patriotic. They sought not primarily party

ends, but the highest good of their commonwealth and of the entire

Republic. While they no longer doubted the favorable issue of the

terrible grapple of the Northern and Southern armies at Petersburg and

the Weldon Railroad, they clearly saw that this battle of blood would be

followed by a desperate political contest; that what disunionists should

fail to gain by the sword, they would endeavor to achieve by statecraft.

They were firmly persuaded that Missouri now faced her greatest peril;

that her future destiny trembled in the balance. If her old, corrupt

politicians, who, through necessity and with a sigh, had relinquished

their hold on slavery, should at once gain political ascendency, much,

if not all, that had been wrought out on the field of carnage, would be

hopelessly lost. The leaders of the Convention, with an accurate

knowledge of the situation, shaped its legislation effectively to meet,

if possible, the emergency. They framed this searching test oath to hold

in check the rebellious, pro-slavery element of the commonwealth, until

the new order of things should be thoroughly established. They were

firmly resolved that those who had striven with savage might to force

Missouri into secession, and link her to a Confederacy founded on

slavery, should not shape her future political character; that since God

had preserved the people in their passage through a sea of blood, the

taskmaster should not now lead them back to a worse than Egyptian

bondage. Whether the acts of the Convention were wise or unwise, the

whole drift of the Constitution framed by it clearly shows that this was

its sole and commendable object.

But after the Emancipation Act was passed, the Convention, having,

against the earnest protest of some of its own members, doggedly set

itself to the work of making a new Constitution, lost, to a large

extent, the confidence of many of the best loyal men of the State. Even

a goodly number of the delegates that composed it became to the extent

of their power obstructionists. Absenteeism grew apace, and only by the

rigid enforcement of the rules could the Convention be saved from

disastrous disintegration. Some of its members fell into a vein of

ridicule and one of them offered a string of satirical resolutions,

which, though unmitigated balderdash, the Convention complacently spread

on its minutes.

Most of the constituents of the Convention, while generously recognizing

the great merit of much of its work, were often ashamed of what it did

and said. In fact its debates were never published, beyond the brief and

imperfect reports of them in the daily papers. In explanation of this

curious fact, it was hinted that the leaders of the Convention were so

mortified by them, that they managed to suppress the whole, both good

and bad together.

The Convention, after dragging drearily on for seventy-eight days,

completed its work. It submitted the new Constitution which it had

wrought out to the suffrages of the people, that it might be by them

adopted or rejected. On the sixth of June it was ratified at the polls

by less than two thousand majority. This slender majority was in part

accounted for when, on analyzing the vote, it was found that the saner

radicals either stayed at home on election day or voted with the

opposition.