Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various
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page 22 of 297 (07%)
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immediately telegraphed to the government, and Gen. Harney was relieved,
leaving Capt. Lyon in full command. This was the 23d of April. In a week four full regiments were mustered in, and occupied the arsenal. A memorial was prepared and sent to Washington by Frank Blair, now colonel of the first of these regiments, asking for the enrolment of five other regiments of Home Guards. Permission was given, and in another week these regiments also were organized and armed. The conflict was now at hand. Simultaneously with this arming on the part of the government for the protection of the arsenal, the order went forth for the assembling of the State troops in their camps of instruction. On Monday, the 6th of May, the First Brigade of Missouri militia, under Gen. D.M. Frost, was ordered by Gov. Jackson into camp at St. Louis, avowedly for purposes of drill and exercise. At the same time encampments were formed, by order of the governor, in other parts of the State. The governor's adherents in St. Louis intimated that the time for taking the arsenal had arrived, and the indiscreet young men who made up the First Brigade openly declared that they only awaited an order from Gov. Jackson--an order which they evidently had been led to expect--to attack the arsenal and possess it, in spite of the feeble opposition they calculated to meet from 'the Dutch' Home Guards enlisted to defend it. A few days previously, an agent of the governor had purchased at St. Louis several hundred kegs of gun-powder, and succeeded, by an adroit stratagem, in shipping it to Jefferson City. The encampment at St. Louis, 'Camp Jackson,' so called from the governor, was laid off by streets, to which were assigned the names 'Rue de Beauregard,' and others similarly significant; and when among the visitors whom curiosity soon began to bring to the camp a 'Black Republican' was discovered by the soldiers,--and this epithet was applied to all unconditional Unionists,--he was treated with unmistakable coldness, if not positive insult. If additional proof of the hostile designs entertained against |
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