 While Nathaniel Lyon was leading troops to take Camp Jackson in St. Louis, the capital of Missouri was falling into chaos. Word reached the capital that Union troops were on the march, and the people of Jefferson City started to fear that they would be sent to take the state capital. Governor Claiborne Jackson sent 40 men to St. Louis, and they were given orders to burn the Gaskinade and Osage River bridges if they saw troops marching toward Jefferson City. 10 men were called out to take up arms to defend the city. By midnight, the entire city was at arms. Church bells were ringing out alarms, and the state legislators were carrying their own rifles, shotguns, pistols, or swords, whatever they had to arm themselves with. The legislature met in the capital building, armed to the teeth, with their own weapons strewn about on tables as they discussed the action they needed to take. Finally, Governor Jackson joined them. He informed the rest of the legislature that two regiments of Union soldiers were on their way. If the rest of the legislature didn't join him, Jackson said, they, quote, would all be prisoners in 24 hours, end quote. Keep in mind that Claiborne Jackson was a vocal advocate of secession, but the rest of the legislature had already twice rejected secession, though they did not approve of Lincoln's decision to mobilize troops and they wanted to stay neutral in the war. But Jackson saw an opportunity of his own when Nathaniel Lyon made the decision to brazenly march 7,000 Union soldiers through the streets of St. Louis, a majority Unionist city. So the legislature took a vote and they granted Governor Jackson near dictatorial powers and $1 million was put at his disposal to prepare the state's defense. The men sent on reconnaissance, of course, never found any evidence of Union troops marching toward Jefferson City. Claiborne Jackson had fabricated his claim that two regiments were on their way. The men burned part of the Osage River Bridge anyway so as to prevent any trains from being able to use it. On May 11th, state militia poured in to defend the capital. In St. Louis, people were taking their own revenge against the Union soldiers for the Camp Jackson affair. Many of the Union soldiers in the city, by the way, were German, which only fueled the hatred against them as they were not just Union soldiers, but they were foreigners. In the quiet of the night after the Camp Jackson affair, a handful of German soldiers were seized by angry citizens and killed in retribution for their participation in the attack on Camp Jackson. As I mentioned in the previous episode, Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon did more than even Lincoln, I think, to push the citizens of Missouri toward the Confederacy in their sympathies. On May 11th, the day after the Camp Jackson affair, Nathaniel Lyon was pushing troops through the middle of the city. As they passed the corner of Fifth and Walnut streets, a mob that had gathered at a nearby church started hurling rocks and yelling insults at them. The troops tried to ignore the rocks and the insults as they kept marching until a gunshot rang out and one of the soldiers fell. Then one more shot came and one more soldier fell. Pandemonium followed. This time the troops didn't keep marching. They stopped, turned their rifles at the mob following behind them, and fired point blank. Two more soldiers went down under friendly fire and several more sustained injuries, but the mob dispersed. When the smoke cleared, bodies of citizens who did not escape the bullets lay scattered in the streets. Only eight civilians were killed in all, but the incident had a significant effect on the people who witnessed the aftermath. Even after the troops moved on, people watched as dead carts, which only became increasingly common in St. Louis, were sent out to clear up the bodies. Think about the scene in Monty Python's Holy Grail where the guy is pushing a cart and yelling, bring out your dead, but without the comedy. And the people whose bodies were cleaned off the streets were known in the city. A cabinet maker, a man who collected donations for a German singing society, a wine dealer who had the misfortune of owning a shop on Walnut Street. A book peddler. The people of St. Louis didn't know the soldiers who were marching down the street, but they knew the people who were killed. They were members of the community. The incident became known as the Walnut Street Massacre. The citizens of St. Louis were becoming more aware that they were living under military occupation. The fears were exacerbated by rumors that the German soldiers were getting ready to take their revenge on the secessionists. People who learned of the pending attacks started running from house to house saying that General Harney, who had only just arrived back in the city to retake command, and Frank Blair had lost their control over the Dutch soldiers as they were referred. They were getting ready to burn the city of St. Louis to the ground. Upwards of 10,000 people simply fled the city. The price of a carriage ride out of the city skyrocketed to $25. People loaded up on boats to cross the Mississippi River. This was the fear that struck St. Louis after Camp Jackson, but the rumors were unfounded. Nonetheless, as I have often stressed throughout this podcast, the perception was real. The people in Jefferson City were genuinely afraid of troops marching on their capital. Even though Claiborne Jackson was acting opportunistically to take power, never let a good crisis go to waste, right? Even though he was fabricating information, the fear of Unionists taking Jefferson City probably wasn't irrational. And in St. Louis, even though the rumors were unfounded, Nathaniel Lyon marched his troops and his prisoners through the city of St. Louis for the express purpose of sending a message. The apparent overreaction of the people of St. Louis is not difficult to understand. This was, in their eyes, a foreign invasion and a military occupation. And that is exactly how Nathaniel Lyon saw it himself. I'm Chris Calton, and this is the Mises Institute podcast, Historical Controversies. In the previous episode, I told the story of Nathaniel Lyon and Frank Blair's effort to suppress any secessionist movement in Missouri, and Lyon's decision to take on the secessionist minority in the city of St. Louis, despite Missouri having twice rejected secession. If you haven't listened to the previous episode, it will be worth listening to it to have more context for the events that I'll be discussing today. We left off with Lyon marching his prisoners through the streets of St. Louis to make a show of what would happen to any disloyal citizens. The display of soldiers being forced to march through the city was an insult to many of the citizens. Like Maryland, even citizens that were otherwise more neutral started to shift to the anti-union side, seeing these forces as an occupying army rather than their own military. People started throwing everything they could at the Union soldiers. Rocks, dirt, clods, bricks, one drunk man, according to a witness, pushed through the crowd to fire his pistol at the troops. Then more civilians fired their own weapons as well. One of the officers, Captain Constantine Blundofsky, took a bullet that would eventually leave him dead. His men responded with bullets of their own. Rather than forcing the submission of St. Louis, Lyon's spectacle led to open warfare in the streets. One of the spectators was William Tecumseh Sherman, who actually brought his son out to watch the soldiers march the prisoners through the city. He later wrote about the bullets flying above his head and wrote about a citizen who tried to snatch the rifle from a soldier's hands only to take a bullet fall into a ditch and then climb back out of the ditch firing a pistol. Sherman took shelter in a nearby Gully. The riot was a mess with untrained troops and no concerted battle plan with the thousands of untrained soldiers. Many who took bullets were hit by mini balls from friendly fire. General Lyon tried to get the situation under control, but his orders were ignored. One citizen fired a revolver three times at one of the officers only to miss with every shot and while he was reloading his gun, he was taken out by the bayonet thrust of another soldier. One man who had the misfortune of stepping out of his home to see what all the commotion was about was immediately hidden in the head by a bullet and instantly killed. Another wealthy citizen of St. Louis rode up on his horse to find out what was going on and his arm was shattered by a mini ball and a second mini ball killed his horse while he was riding it. A streetcar conductor was hit by a stray bullet as he was trying to flee the chaos. Another 18-year-old boy was trying to flee when he was cut by a bayonet. The wound was small and the boy walked home, but it became infected and he died later the next night. A similar fate would befall many other citizens who took injuries that would not be very serious today. The prisoners were the most helpless. They couldn't run and they couldn't fight. They were basically sitting ducks and three of them were killed by crossfire. 28 civilians were killed and upwards of 75 more were wounded. Only two soldiers died, though many others were wounded as well. Throughout the fighting, the military band that was at the front of the march continued to play. So as I've pointed out before, if somebody ever adapts this for television, there's a detail that would make for good TV. Lyon made a public statement about the deaths of civilians the next day. He refused to accept any responsibility for the conduct of his men or his decision to brazenly flaunt his military authority in a union city. He said, quote, if innocent men, women, and children whose curiosity placed them in a dangerous position suffered with the guilty, it is no fault of the troops. End quote. After the state twice rejected secession, Lyon's actions in St. Louis likely did more to push Missourians into sympathy with the South and Lincoln himself. St. Louis was almost in a hysterical state after the Camp Jackson affair and the people flooded the streets to listen to speeches given by political figures criticizing the soldiers in the city. One man, Uriel Wright, had been one of the staunchest unionists in the city, but he changed his tune. If unionism means such atrocious deeds as I have witnessed in St. Louis, he said, I am no longer a union man. This was the state that St. Louis was in when General Harney arrived back in the city on May 11th. Like before, Harney was caught between his personal opinion of Lyon, which was negative, and his professional obligation as a union officer for a country at war. He gave public approval of Lyon's actions, although he personally did not think Lyon's actions were wise. He agreed with the dispersal of Camp Jackson and the claim that its members were guilty of treason, but Lyon had been far too harsh in the way he went about it. Not in the sense that Harney was necessarily kinder to traitors as he saw them, but in that Lyon's behavior had quite clearly created an even greater degree of tumult in St. Louis. That could hardly be denied. Harney wanted to restore peace to St. Louis, but Lyon had pretty much made that impossible. This was a city under occupation and everybody except the most rampant unionists saw it that way. In the eyes of far too many people in Missouri, Lyon had only proven the threats of northern coercion to be genuine. Fortunately for Lyon, President Lincoln deferred to Frank Blair to give the account of the Camp Jackson affair, which meant that the president heard the story from the man who was the most solidly on Lyon's side. Montgomery Blair drafted a note that once again removed Harney from command and officially promoted Nathaniel Lyon to Brigadier General. The previous title of Brigadier General was only applicable to the Missouri Militia when it was granted by Blair. Before signing the note, Lincoln sent the order to General Scott for his opinion on the matter, but Scott actually mistakenly took the note as a special order from the president and immediately made it official. When Lincoln found out about this, he was taken aback, but he stood by the decision so he wouldn't seem like he was vacillating on the matter. The prisoners that Nathaniel Lyon took back to the arsenal were released on parole pretty quickly. They just spent the night locked up in the arsenal, but one prisoner, Emmett McDonald, refused to accept his release. He actually sued for a writ of habeas corpus and when it was going to be delivered, the union officials in the city decided to smuggle him across the river to Illinois. McDonald was escorted by soldiers down to the banks of the Mississippi River and he was about to be loaded onto a small boat when a band of McDonald's secessionist friends rushed in to rescue him. But McDonald had no desire to be rescued and he told his friends as much. After his rescuers backed off, he calmly allowed himself to be loaded into the boat, only to have the current take the boat in the wrong direction and then spring a leak and start to sink. Finally, after taking refuge on a small river island, they were picked up by another boat and they did make it to Illinois. When McDonald's escorts returned to St. Louis, the writ of habeas corpus had already been served to General Harney. But Harney denied holding McDonald, which was technically true, since they smuggled him out to Illinois and passed him into the hands of Colonel John MacArthur there, though Harney didn't mention this. So a new writ was issued and served to Nathaniel Lyon who also claimed he was not holding McDonald. So this is mostly interesting because it was the first habeas corpus case that came up during the Civil War, taking place before the issue with the John Merriman that I talked about a few episodes ago. But habeas corpus wasn't denied for McDonald. Harney and Lyon had just smuggled him to another state so that the writ couldn't be honored and in their denials that they were holding him, they held up the issuing judge for two weeks on the matter. But McDonald was treated like an honored guest by Colonel MacArthur in Illinois and he earned a celebrity status for himself in St. Louis. Finally the writ was issued to Colonel MacArthur who argued that McDonald was guilty of treason and he did not relinquish his prisoner slash honored guest until General George McClellan ordered him to put McDonald before a court where he was able to give a speech. So McDonald was trying to intentionally be the subject for the legal dispute over habeas corpus that ultimately would fall on the shoulders of John Merriman in Maryland and the legal process was actually upheld in McDonald's case but it was significant at the time because McDonald's challenge received a great deal of attention in the west. But General Harney and Nathaniel Lyon were taking action against the secessionists not just in St. Louis but in other areas of the state as well. On May 15th Nathaniel Lyon sent a detachment of soldiers to the town of Potosi 65 miles southwest of St. Louis to arrest a group of secessionists there. One man there John Dean owned a lead manufacturer in the town. He was a secessionist but not a militia member and he was filling orders for the state militia for ammunition. On May 16th he was seized by Lyon's men and imprisoned at the arsenal. While this was taking place a full sweep of the city of St. Louis was being conducted to search for hidden weapons owned by secessionists. Several hundred rifles were confiscated from the state tobacco warehouse and the central police station. On the 18th of May more troops were sent through the cities of Hillsborough and Ironton and they took more prisoners and confiscated more munitions. All of this served to only further rile up otherwise apathetic citizens of Missouri. Included among the citizens who were upset by Lyon's behavior was the former governor Sterling Price who had opposed secession in the first state convention which he oversaw. But after Camp Jackson Price abandoned his conservatism and offered his services to Claiborne Jackson as commander of the Missouri State Guard. So again while I have stressed that the first wave of secession was motivated predominantly by slavery it is important to understand how the war actions by the union drove many people who were apathetic to it or outright against secession into the secessionist camp. Governor Jackson believed that peaceful secession was no longer possible thanks to Lincoln nationally and Nathaniel Lyon in Missouri. But Lyon's aggressive behavior required him to move quickly. He wanted to get support from the Confederacy but he needed more time and General Harney was more open to some kind of conciliation so he thought he might be able to get Harney to come to a neutrality agreement. This would give Jackson more time to prepare his defense of the state. So Jackson sent offers to disband the state guard if Harney would agree to end the hostilities. Though to be clear Governor Jackson had absolutely zero intention of honoring this agreement. While Jackson was doing this another secessionist Thomas Reynolds left for Richmond Virginia to seek military assistance from the Confederacy. General Harney responded by sending Governor Jackson an invitation to meet in St. Louis. Jackson agreed to the meeting but sent Sterling Price the previous governor and now commander of the state forces to act on his behalf. Jackson was probably worried about a double cross and this was not entirely unfounded as warrants were drawn up for Jackson's arrest. Though the U.S. Attorney who drew up the arrest warrant had decided to hold off on the arrest until after the meeting regardless. But of course Jackson was aware of none of this and he was simply being cautious. So Sterling Price and General Harney met at Harney's office on May 21st. The two men got a long while during the meeting and both agreed that coercion was not the best policy for the state. They drew up an agreement that stated that the state of Missouri would assume responsibility for maintaining order and in return General Harney would not use military force that could potentially provoke further hostilities between state and federal forces. Both men were pleased with this agreement. But if you remember from the last episode word had been sent from Washington that officially made Nathaniel Lyon a Brigadier General and giving Blair the authority to dismiss Harney from command. Frank Blair received the message on the same day that Harney and Price were meeting and while Nathaniel Lyon was visiting Blair in his office. But Frank Blair did not want to immediately dismiss General Harney because despite his criticisms of the man he thought he was accomplishing some good in the state. On May 22nd newspapers published the Harney-Price Agreement. Frank Blair only learned about the Harney-Price Agreement by reading about it in the newspaper and he was sickened by it. Harney he thought was being soft and was cowardly bowing to the secessionists. Lyon responded by demanding that Blair serve General Harney the notice for his removal immediately. But Lyon wanted Harney removed before the agreement. Harney had been keeping him in check. Recently, Harney ordered Lyon to stop all searches of citizens in riverboats and he also made Lyon release the boat that Lyon had sieved for delivering weapons to Camp Jackson. But even though Blair agreed with Lyon, Lincoln's orders about the dismissal of Blair said that Blair should only remove him if he thought it was necessary. Frank Blair respected Lincoln and wanted to take him seriously so he did not want to give the image that he was removing Harney too readily. He reasoned that he at least needed to give Harney time to see if his agreement would successfully pacify the state. But within a week it became clear that the agreement was not having the intended effect. Telegrams flooded into union officials claiming that secessionists were taking up arms all over the state. Others talked about invasions from Arkansas and the Indian territory. These were rumors but that didn't matter. Other telegrams made claims that were closer to the truth saying that the Harney price agreement was only meant to give Jackson time to arm the state and resist the federal troops. Finally, on the 26th of May, Harney made a decision that was the last straw for Blair. A company of Zwoves, these being soldiers adopting infantry tactics modeled after the original French Zwoves in North Africa, offered their services to Harney. After speaking with their officers briefly, Harney said that he already had more troops than he needed and told them they may as well go home. Instead, the men went to speak with Lyon. Lyon said, quote, you are a fine-looking body of men and no doubt ought to be accepted, but General Harney has the power. I have not. Had I the authority, I would take you and all others presenting themselves. I'd finish this business up at once by putting the traders in such a position they could not organize, end quote. Lyon then told the Zwoves to write a letter to the Secretary of War to give Lyon the authority to accept them into service. The power plate worked. On May 30th, word came to General Harney officially removing him from command of the Department of the West. Harney was shocked. He felt that his agreement with Sterling Price had worked, as things had been relatively peaceful in Missouri for the past week and a half. Angry about the decision by President Lincoln, Harney tore up the note and retired to his farm in Jefferson County to await his next orders, which never came. After all his work to try to keep the peace in Missouri, his home state, while staying loyal to the Union, Harney would watch as Missouri would be plunged into war. The decision was not well received in Missouri though. Although Claiborne Jackson was trying to bring Missouri into the Confederacy, most of the citizens wanted the same thing that Harney wanted, peace. They believed that Harney was genuinely working to achieve that while Lyon had been flaunting his military power over a majority Unionist city. When the people learned of Harney's removal, they did not believe it boated well for the state. One Missourian wrote, quote, Uncle Abe will begin to see that politics and war are two different things. They have thrown overboard good officers such as Harney to make room for a set of political pop guns, end quote. Another Missourian was even more outraged by Lyon's promotion. He wrote, quote, A captain goes out with 8,000 Hessians, this being German troops, surrounded and captures without bloodshed, less than 700 men, more than 10 to 1, his Hessians shoot down and bayonets some 30 men, women and children, and presto. He has made a brigadier general for his brave and gallant exploits. It is disgusting, nauseating, end quote. But the more adamant Unionists in the state received the news more warmly, so the state continued to be divided though the more neutral citizens and conservative Unionists continued to gravitate toward Confederate sympathy. By June 1st, Lyon had a total of nearly 11,000 troops under his command and he was actively working to recruit more. He was even enlisting men for three-year terms of service. At this point, enlistment was still done for 90 days only as nobody was yet expecting a prolonged conflict. Lyon and Blair met with Jackson and Price on June 11th. He made it clear that unlike Harney, he would not be conciliatory. Lyon compared his obligation in handling Missouri to be the same as Lincoln had exercised in Maryland. As far as he was concerned, as the commanding officer of Union troops in the state, he was the absolute authority. He had no obligation or desire to make peace with secessionist traitors. His job was to exact punishment. The party argued for four tense hours. Finally, Lyon took his cigar and put it out, indicating that he was about to give his final word on the matter. He spoke with deliberation, quote, Governor Jackson, no man in the state of Missouri has been more desirous of preserving peace than myself. Here, too, for Missouri has only felt the fostering care of the federal government, which has raised her from the condition of a feeble French colony to that of an empire state. Now, however, from a failure on the part of the chief executive to comply with constitutional requirements, I feel she will be made to feel its power. Then Lyon stood up and stared directly at Governor Jackson before continuing. Better, sir, far better, that the blood of every man, woman, and child within the limits of the state should flow than that she should defy the federal government. This means war. End quote. After declaring war on a union state without authority, Nathaniel Lyon left the room while the rest of the men sat flabbergasted. Even Frank Blair seemed taken aback. Finally, the rest of the men shook hands and the meeting adjourned. Governor Jackson and Sterling Price took Lyon's statement seriously and they moved quickly to prepare for war. They spent the rest of the night writing out their account of the meeting, warning about the federal occupation of the state, and calling for 50,000 volunteers to defend Missouri. It hit the press the next morning. They also sent a company of men to burn the Gaskinade River Bridge and cut the telegraph wires. Lyon was making his own plans to conquer the state. The plan that he settled on was to lead one group of union soldiers to Jefferson City to scatter the secessionists and take control of the river cities in the state. Then he would move south toward Springfield and at the same time a second column of union forces would take a train to the city of Rolla where he would secure the southern branch of the Pacific Railroad. Then they would march toward Springfield as well. Rolla's south of Jefferson City and Springfield is southwest of both cities so the columns would be converging on each other to conquer the entire southwest part of the state. But Jackson had only been able to gather about 120 troops to defend Jefferson City and Lyon learned of this. I think this is actually worth thinking about in the context of Lyon's actions in Occupy in Missouri and that it seems quite clear that his actions were entirely unnecessary to accomplish his stated goal of preventing secession which there never was any legitimate fear of and he was acting vindictively and that's not my commentary by the way but it's the narrative that I find from very standard pro-union historians. Nathaniel Lyon is not written about kindly by many people regardless of their overall feelings of the war. So Governor Jackson and many other pro-southern members of the state legislature fled to the capital and went upriver to Boonville where Sterling Price ordered the militia to organize. There thousands of troops were rumored to be building defenses of the river bluffs. In reality there were only a few hundred. More volunteers were arriving constantly but nonetheless they were untrained and poorly armed. Many of them only had squirrel rifles and shotguns which would not be very effective in a military confrontation. Lyon moved into Jefferson City and took the capital without resistance and then upon learning of the flight to Boonville he decided to move there after letting his men rest for the night in Jefferson City. He left three companies of men in the capital and then took the other 1700 toward Boonville on the 16th of June moving up the Missouri River. At 6 a.m. on June 17th Lyon prepared for his attack. He received word of the defenses being erected at Boonville so he left one company of infantry on a ship they were using the McDowell along with a howitzer with orders to bombard the rebel camp. Lyon led the rest of the men up the river road that led to Boonville. After he learned about Lyon's approaching force Governor Jackson ordered the leader of the largest regiment John Marmaduke who was also Jackson's nephew to move his men forward to engage the Union soldiers. Marmaduke sent a small group of men to initiate some fighting with Lyon's troops but they didn't keep it up for long before dispersing. The Union soldiers stopped about 300 yards from the state guard's main line of defense which was set up on the other side of a valley that would be dangerous for advancing soldiers to cross without getting picked off. Ready to pick them off were sharpshooters stationed in nearby houses. Lyon ordered his men to move forward but despite the disadvantages they faced with the terrain the Union soldiers had the advantage of numbers and they also had a line of artillery that they were able to use to lob shells at the men on the other side of the valley. The state guard was inexperienced to not have the best equipment for picking the soldiers off either. The cannonballs were more than enough to scatter the sharpshooters holed up in the houses and the Union soldiers pressed forward under a hell of gunfire. 20 minutes after the advance started the state guard was in full retreat back to Boonville. One member of the state guard gave his opinion on the defeat in full phonetic spelling of a Missouri accent, quote, this here business of a fireman and a loaden while a layman on the ground asked what whooped us, end quote. But while the lack of training may have made it harder to reload and continue firing while trying to stay low probably didn't help matters it was the artillery that really won the day for the Union forces. Each side suffered two men killed and only a handful wounded. For his small victory Lyon was able to capture the entire supply of the malicious shoes, weapons, blankets, and even two pieces of artillery that were left behind when they fled. Governor Jackson and the rest of the forces were moving on to the southwest corner of the state to regroup. Lyon's victory for the Union was praised in the press. Lyon now controlled the capital of the state, the largest and most important city of the state in both important rivers, the Mississippi and the Missouri. But he wasn't satisfied. As I mentioned before, his goal was not to secure the state for the Union. It was to punish the secessionists. And those are his words, not mine. He said that quote, no punishment was too great, end quote. For the crime of secession, according to one newspaper correspondent who was covering the campaign and his desire to see the traders punished would drive him to chase Jackson and Price to the border of Arkansas, eventually leading to the second large-scale battle of the war, the Battle of Wilson's Creek, also known as the Battle of Oak Hills. We will continue the story leading up to the battle in the next episode. Historical Controversies is a production of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. If you would like to support the show, please subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or Stitcher and leave a positive review. You can also support the show financially by donating at Mises.org slash support H.C. If you would like to explore the rest of our content, please visit Mises.org. That's M-I-S-E-S dot O-R-G.