Hampden Sydney College - Kaleidoscope Yearbook (Hampden Sydney, VA)

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Feb. 18, 1861. On Jan. 21, Kentucky adopted the Tennessee Resolutions, fiat- footed for secession. On Jan. 28, during the canvass for the Convention, the Ten- nessee Resolutions were in the main reaffirmed by the Missouri Assembly. In the canvass tl1e alignment was: Secessionists, Conditional Union Men, and Uncon- ditional Union Men. The machinery of the State was in the hands of the Scees- sionists. Among the Conditional Union 1ne11 were General Price, Hamilton R. Gamble Qborn in Virginiaj, Colonel Doniphan and ex-Governor Stewart, the St. Louis Republican. was the organ of this party. Frank Blair was the leader of the Unconditional Union men All of Blairls skill was needed in forming an alliance between the Conditionals and the Unconditionals. H I don't believe, said a Republican partisan, H in breaking up the Republican party just to please these tender-footed Unionists. I believe in sticking tothe party. Let us have a country first, answered Blair, 4' and then we can talk about parties. The election was a blank surprise to the Secessionists. - By a majority of over eighty thousand the people of Missouri decided against secession. Not a member of that party was returned to the Convention. The German population of St. Louis was large, Frank Blair had worked very hard, and doubtless there were many people in Missouri who were glad to have an opportunity to knife the Bourbons. The Convention met on Feb. 28 at Jefferson City. Of the ninety-nine members, fifty-five were natives either of Virginia or Kentucky. After electing General Price as president lover Nathaniel W. Watkins, ahalf brother of Henry Clayj the Convention adjourned to St. Louis, reassembling on March 4. There had been no deliberations as yet, but the prestige given the Union party by the recent elections was manifest. On March 5 the Southern members of the Legis- lature failed to pass a bill for arming the State. Of this check to the Secession- ists Colonel Snead says, the South sustained a defeat more disastrous than any which thereafter befel its independence down to the fall of Vicksburg. March 19, in the Convention, General Price cast a vote among the twenty-three yeas on an amendment to the Gamble Resolutions. The amendment, in brief, was that Missouri, if coerced, should follow the South. ,The Convention, instead of ad- journing finally, took a recess on March 31. 4' By adopting this course it was constructively still in existence, and so. long as this was the case, the question of the secession of Missouri was within its control, and the General Assembly was powerless to act in the matter. This was shrewd politics. There were still people i11 the State who believed that war might yet be averted, or who foolishly fancied that if war was the event Missouri might re- main neutral. Governor Jackson, Frank Blair and his friend Lyon were not of that number. Jackson did what he could but he was hampered. Blair's policy was thorough, and he found a11 efficient ally in Captain Lyon, commandant of the forces at the St. Louis arsenal, a man who was accustomed to style the Southern Rights men H traitorous slaveholdersl' When, on April 15, President 17

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The four years from 1857 to 1861 General Price spent quietly at home. His platform was States' Rights within the Union. The year 1860 approached, when principles of that sort, in a border state like Missouri, were to be tested. In the election of 1860 Lincoln polled only 17,000 votes in Missouri, Douglas and Bell about 58,000 each, and Breekinridge 31,000 Although the Breck- inridge, or Southern Rights men, were in a minority in the State, even when com- pared with the supporters of Douglas, in the Legislature they outnumbered either ofthe other parties. Not being numerous enough, however, to effect an organi- zation by themselves, they united with the Douglas men, and by this means they secured the election of their candidate for speaker. l' Claiborne Jackson, the in- coming governor, was of their party as was also the lieutenant governor, Thomas C. Reynolds. With the executive, and the committees of both houses, of their complexion, the Southern party was strong. tt And but for the fact that they voluntarily relinquished their power into the hands of a Constitutional Conven- tion, it was possible for them to have given the course of legislation a very differ- 'ent direction from that which it was eventually made to take. Rhetorically, the issue was drawn for Missourians in December, 1860. The retiring governor, Robert M. Stewart, denounced the heresy of secession and took the ground thatno matter what the other slave states might do,it was Missouri's duty and her interest to remain within the Union. Governor Jackson Qborn in Kentucky of Virginia parent-agej in his inaugural address stated that Missouri 4' would best maintain her own interests and the interests of the whole country by a timely declam- tion of' her determination to stand by her sister slave-holding states. Stewart :and Jackson were at one up to the hypothetical point of' coercion by the North. Few people thought the issue would be actually drawn. Among those who did was Francis Preston Blair, son of Francis Preston Blair of Virginia. Governor Jackson had recommended that the state militia should be thoroughly organ- ized to resist aggression. Blair began at once to make ready for the part he in- tended to play in the drama which he felt would be bloody: his 4' Wideawakes, Union clubs formed in St. Louis during the campaign of 1860, were drilled regu- larly. Nevertheless it seems probable that Jackson might have seized the St. Louis arsenal at any time during the first three weeks of 1861. Instead, after the secession of the Cotton States, the Legislature passed a bill for a Constitutional Convention 'tto consider the relations between the government of the United States and the govermnent and people ofthe State of Missouri. The Southern party contented themselves with adopting a measure which not o11ly committed them to a course of delay when instant action was necessary to the success of their cause, but which involved on their part a relinquishment of the power of legislation upon the very question that was at issue. This fatal step might be 'termed the Third Missouri Compromise. Delegates to the convention, for or against secession, were to be elected on I6

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Lincoln sent Governor Jackson a requisition for four regiments from Missouri as her quota of the 75,000 men called for, Jacksoirs answer was, H Your requisition in my opinion, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its objects, in- human and diabolical, and cannot be complied with. What Blair did, with Lyon as the agent, was to spirit away the arsenal supplies up the river to Alton and thence to Springfield, Illinois. Although without authority to arm t-he State, Governor Jackson could as- semble the militia tor their animal manoeuvers. Orders were issued for a camp near St. Louis on May 6. Blair and Lyon were forehauded. They had already in the city a. force of more than tive hundred regulars, and five thousand well- armed volunteers, called German cut-throatsl' by the Southern party. April 30 orders, came from Washington to Captain Lyon of the Department ofthe West to raise ten thousand men, and, if necewary, to proclaim martial law in St. Louis. The papers bore the endorsement: 4' It is revolutionary times and there- foreil dotnot object to the irregularity of this. W. Sf, fWinIield Seottj. Col- onel Snead's trucnlent caption at this point is: tt Frank Blair rebels against the State. May 6 the militia assembled as directed, naming their camp in honor of Governor Jackson. Lyon drove t-hrough Camp Jackson on May 9, disguised as an old woman in a bombazine skirt, and inspected the ammunition ordered up by.President Davis. General Harney, in command of the Depart- ment ofthe West, was due to arrive. Lyon said that nobody knew what Harney Would do, and on May 10 Camp Jackson was forced to Slll'1'Blld61' to Brigadier General Lyon. Sherman, president of a street railway line in St. Louis, and Grant, in the city on business, saw all these things. The Legislature hurriedly passed resolutions condemning Blair and Lyon and authorizing the Governor to repel invasion or to put down rebellion, but unfortunately the Convention was only in recess. ' Best of all for the Southern party, General Price, Uunquestionably the most popular man in the State, tendered his services to Governor Jackson. 4' This is revolution, said General Price, H and I can't fight against the South. H On May 18 Price was appointed Major General of Missouri State Guards, and on May 21 he and General Harney attempted to settle matters on a gentlemanly basis: Price agreed to maintain order if Harney would permit no military movements within the Stale. This was the famous Price-Harney agreement, so offensive to the Radicals. Blair and Lyon at once wrote to President Lincoln that Harney was a dangerous man. A week later Lyon succeeded to the command of the Department of the West, headquarters St. Louis. Lyon had perhaps fifteen thousand men excellently equipped. General Price, at Jefferson City, could muster scarcely one thousand, with very poor equipment. Obviously the agreement was off, and Price an- nounced the fact to his eight brigadiers. On June 12 Governor Jackson issued a proclamation of war. The day before, at a very dramatic conference held in 18