"illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, and
diabolical"; and thereafter did his best to make Missouri join
the South. But Blair and Lyon were too quick for him. Blair
organized the Home Guards, whom Lyon armed from the arsenal. Lyon
then sent all the surplus arms and stores across the river into
Illinois, while he occupied the most commanding position near the
arsenal with his own troops, thus forestalling the Confederates,
under Brigadier-General D. M. Frost, who was now forced to
establish Camp Jackson in a far less favorable place. So
vigorously had Blair and Lyon worked that they had armed
thousands while Frost had only armed hundreds. But when Frost
received siege guns and mortars from farther south Lyon felt the
time had come for action.

Lyon was a born leader, though Grant and Sherman (then in St.
Louis as junior ex-officers, quite unknown to fame) were almost
the only men, apart from Blair, to see any signs of preeminence
in this fiery little redheaded, weather-beaten captain, who kept
dashing about the arsenal, with his pockets full of papers,
making sure of every detail connected with the handful of
regulars and the thousands of Home Guards.

On the ninth of May Lyon borrowed an old dress from Blair's
mother-in-law, completing the disguise with a thickly veiled
sunbonnet, and drove through Camp Jackson. That night he and
Blair attended a council of war, at which, overcoming all
opposition, answering all objections, and making all
arrangements, they laid their plans for the morrow. When Lyon's
seven thousand surrounded Frost's seven hundred the Confederates
surrendered at discretion and were marched as prisoners through