THE CRISIS

By Winston Churchill

BOOK III


Volume 6.



CHAPTER I

INTRODUCING A CAPITALIST

A cordon of blue regiments surrounded the city at first from Carondelet
to North St. Louis, like an open fan. The crowds liked best to go to
Compton Heights, where the tents of the German citizen-soldiers were
spread out like so many slices of white cake on the green beside the
city's reservoir. Thence the eye stretched across the town, catching the
dome of the Court House and the spire of St. John's. Away to the west, on
the line of the Pacific railroad that led halfway across the state, was
another camp. Then another, and another, on the circle of the fan, until
the river was reached to the northward, far above the bend. Within was a
peace that passed understanding,--the peace of martial law.

Without the city, in the great state beyond, an irate governor had
gathered his forces from the east and from the west. Letters came and
went between Jefferson City and Jefferson Davis, their purport being that
the Governor was to work out his own salvation, for a while at least.