Capt. Lyon did not ask or wait for instructions. He wrote at once to Gov. Dick Yates, of Illinois, to obtain authority to hold in readiness for service in St. Louis the six regiments which Illinois was called upon to furnish. Gov. Yates acted promptly, and received authority to send two or three regiments "to support the garrison of the St. Louis Arsenal." Lyon received orders to equip these troops, and to issue 10,000 additional stands of arms to the agent of the Governor of Illinois.

Mr. Blair reached St. Louis from Washington, April 17, and at once began acting with the boldness and foresight that the situation demanded. By his advice Col. Pritchard and other Union officers of the Militia resigned. He procured from the War Department an order placing 5,000 stands of arms at the disposal of Lyon for arming "the loyal citizens"—the Home Guards—and requested orders by telegraph for Capt. Lyon to muster men into the service to fill Missouri's requisition, and to have Hagner removed.

Lyon, determined not to be taken by surprise, had the streets leading to the Arsenal nightly patrolled and pickets stationed outside the walls. Gov. Jackson's Police Board complained that this was a violation of the City ordinances and in direct interference with their duties. They demanded that he should obey the law, but he refused. When they appealed to Harney, he at once ordered Lyon to quarter his men in the Arsenal and forbade him to issue arms to anyone without Harney's sanction. This brought Blair and Lyon to a parting of the ways with Harney. They demanded his removal, and April 21 Harney was removed from the command, and ordered to repair to Washington and report to the General-in-Chief.

On the same day Capt. Lyon was instructed to immediately execute the order previously given to "arm loyal citizens." He was also ordered to muster into the service four regiments, which the Governor had refused to furnish. As the men had long been in waiting, Lyon quickly organized the four regiments, which elected him their Brigadier-General. Some of the field officers of these regiments were notable men, and were to have brilliant careers during the war. The Colonel of the 1st Regiment was F. P. Blair, afterwards to become Major-General commanding a corps; the Lieutenant-Colonel was George L. Andrews, afterwards to be a Colonel in the Regular Army; the Major was John M. Schofield, later to be Major-General commanding the Twenty-third Corps, and still later Lieutenant-General commanding the Army of the United States. The Colonel of the 3d Regiment was Franz Sigel, afterwards Major-General commanding the Eleventh Corps and the Army of the Shenandoah.

The four regiments having been filled to the maximum, there were large numbers yet demanding muster. From these a fifth regiment of Missouri Volunteers and five regiments of "United States Reserves" were formed. The most notable among the field officers of these were John McNeil, Colonel of the 3d Regiment, who afterwards became a Brigadier-General, and B. Gratz Brown, Colonel of the 4th U. S. Reserves, afterwards Vice Presidential nominee on the Greeley ticket. These additional regiments formed another brigade, and elected Capt. Sweeny their Brigadier-General. After arming these 10,000 men Lyon secured the balance of the stores from all danger of treachery or capture by transferring them to Alton, Ill.., where they would be under the guardianship of loyal men.

Thus, in a few, swift weeks after the inauguration of President Lincoln, Blair and Lyon, bold even to temerity, and even more sagacious than bold, had snatched away from the sanguine Secessionists the great Arsenal, with its momentous contents, which were placed at the service of the Union.

More than 10,000 loyal men of Missouri were standing, arms in hand, on her soil to confront their enemies.

Above all, the Government showed that it would no longer tamely submit to being throttled and stabbed, but would fight, then, there, and everywhere, for its life.

There seemed to be something of this in Gen. Frost's carrying out his idea of establishing a camp ostensibly for the instruction of his Militia, on the hills near the Arsenal, which he did May 3. It is hard to reconcile this with any clear purpose. If he intended to assault and capture the Arsenal, the force that he gathered was absurdly inadequate, in view of what he must have known Lyon had to oppose him. Accounts differ as to the highest number he ever had assembled, but it must have been less than 2,000.

His camp, which was in a beautiful grove, then in the first flush of the charms of early Springtime, was quite an attractive place for the "knightly" young Southerners who, filled with the chivalrous ideas of Sir Walter Scott's novels, then the prevalent romantic literature of the South, had made much ado before their "ladye loves" of "going off to the warres," and the aforesaid "ladye loves," decorated with Secession rosettes and the red-white-and-red colors then emblematic of Secession, followed their "true-loves" to the camp, and made Lindell Grove bright with the gaily-contrasting hues in bonnets and gowns. There were music and parades, presentations, flags and banners, dancing and feasting, and all the charming accessories of a military picnic. But some how the material for common soldiers did not flock to the Camp as the Secessionists had hoped. Possibly the stern uprising of the loyal people of the North in response to the firing upon Fort Sumter, and the mustering of solid battalions in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, immediately around the Missouri borders, had a repressing effect upon those who had at first thought of going with a light heart into Secession. It began to look as if there were going to be something more serious than a Fourth of July barbecue about this work of breaking up the Union.

Certainly, recruits had not come to Camp Jackson, which Frost had so named in honor of the Governor of the State, as they had flocked into similar camps farther South. Nor had they come in the numbers which were assembled around Lyon and Blair, appealing for arms. Still, the men in Camp Jackson had a resolute purpose, under all the frivolity and merry-making of the gay camp, and presently Capts. Colton Greene and Basil Duke returned with the cheering news that their mission to Jefferson Davis had been entirely successful. Heavy artillery would be furnished with which to batter down the walls of the Arsenal, and force the Home Guards to fight or surrender. They brought with them the following encouraging letter from the President of the Southern Confederacy:

This promise was at once made good by a letter to the Governor of Louisiana to deliver the required war material from the stores in the lately-captured arsenal at Baton Rouge. These, carefully disguised as marble, ale, and other innocent stores, were shipped upon the steamboat J. C. Swan, and consigned to a well-known Union firm in St. Louis, with private marks to identify them to the Secessionists, who, on the watch for them, had them at once loaded on drays and taken to Camp Jackson. Their movements, however, were made known to Blair and the Committee of Safety by their spies, and Capt. Lyon was urged to seize the stores upon their arrival at the wharf, but he preferred to allow them to reach their destination, where they would serve to fix the purpose of the camp upon those commanding the garrison.

Lyon, who as a soldier had naturally chafed under the insulting presence on the hills of a force hardly concealing its hostility under a thin vail of professed loyalty, at once resolved upon the capture of the camp. The more cautious of the Union men tried to restrain him. They argued that the camp would expire by legal limitation within a few days. To this Lyon opposed the probability that the Legislature would pass the military bill in some form and make the camp a permanent one.

Then, those timorous ones insisted that the forms of the law should be employed, and that the United States Marshal, armed with a writ of replevin to recover United States property, should precede the attack upon the camp. Lyon fretted under this; The writ of replevin was a tiresome formality to men who talked of fighting and were ready to fight; furthermore, if served and recognized, Frost might put off the Marshal with some trumpery stuff of no value. Still further came the news that Harney, with Gen. Scott's assistance, had reinstated himself in favor at Washington, and would return the following Sunday. It was now Wednesday, the 8th of May.

Above all, Lyon saw with a clearer insight than the strict law-abiders the immense moral effect of his contemplated action. Heretofore all the initiativeness, all the aggressiveness, all the audacity, had been on the side of the Secessionists. They were everywhere taking daring steps to the confusion and overthrow of the conservative Unionists, and so dragging with them hosts of the wavering. He longed to strike a quick, sharp blow to teach the enemies of the Government that they could no longer proceed with impunity, but must expect a return blow for every one they gave, and probably more.

On Wednesday evening, May 8, Capt. Lyon requested Mr. J. J. Witzig, one of the Committee of Safety, to meet him at 2 o'clock the next day with a horse and buggy. At the appointed hour Witzig went to Lyon's quarters and inquired for the "General," by which title Lyon was known after his election as Brigadier-General of the Missouri Militia. As he entered Lyon's room, Witzig saw a lady seated near the door, vailed and evidently waiting for some one. He inquired if she was waiting for the General to come in, and seating himself near the window awaited the coming of Lyon. A few minutes later the lady arose, lifted her vail, and astonished Mr. Witzig with the very unfeminine features of Lyon himself. Mrs. Alexander had loaned him the clothes, and succeeded in attiring him so that the deception was complete. Taking a couple of heavy revolvers, Gen. Lyon entered a barouche belonging to the loyal Franklin Dick, and was driven by Mr. Dick's servant leisurely out to Camp Jackson, followed by Mr. Witzig in a buggy. Lyon saw everything in the camp that he wished to see; noticed that the streets were named Davis Avenue, Beauregard Avenue, and the like; took in the lay of the ground, and returning toward the Arsenal, stopped and directed Witzig to summon the other members of the Committee of Safety to immediately meet him at the Arsenal.

He stated to them, when they gathered, the necessity of at once capturing the camp, and his determination to do so and hold all in it as prisoners of war. Blair and Witzig warmly approved this; Filley and Broadhead finally acquiesced, while How and Glover were opposed to both the manner and time and wanted a writ of replevin served by the United States Marshal. If Gen. Frost refused to respect this, Lyon could then go to his assistance.

Lyon yielded so far as to allow Glover to get out the writ of replevin, but he was not disposed to dally long with that subterfuge, and his line of battle would not be far behind the Marshal. Even before he went out to the camp he had sent an Aid to procure 36 horses for his batteries from the leading livery stables in the city, because he feared that Maj. McKinstry, the Chief Quartermaster of the Department, could not be trusted; a doubt which seems to have been well founded, for Maj. McKinstry afterwards refused to pay for the horses until he was compelled to do so by a peremptory order from Lyon. The Secessionist spies were as vigilant and successful as those of the Unionists, and Gen. Frost was promptly informed of the designs upon him, whereupon on the morning of the fateful May 10 he dispatched Col. Bowen, his Chief of Staff, with the following letter to Gen. Lyon:

It is an almost impossible task for the historian to reconcile this extraordinary letter with Gen. Frost's standing as an officer and a gentleman. It certainly passes the limits of deception allowable in war, and has no place in the ethics of civil life.

The camp was located where it was for the generally understood purpose of attacking the Arsenal, and this purpose had been recommended to the Governor of the State by Gen. Frost himself. Every Secessionist, North and South, understood and boasted of it. Jefferson Davis approved of this, and he sent artillery with which to attack the Arsenal, which was then in Frost's camp. Gen. Lyon refused to receive the letter. He was busily engaged in preparations to carry its answer himself. He had under arms almost his entire force. Two regiments of Home Guards were left on duty protecting the Arsenal, and to be ready for any outbreak in the city, and a majority of the Regulars were also so employed.

Gen. Lyon was a thorough organizer, and had his work well in hand with every one of his subordinates fully instructed as to his part. The previous military training of the Germans here came into good play, and regiments formed quickly and moved promptly. Col. Blair, with his regiment and a battalion of Regulars, marched to a position on the west of the camp. Col. Schuttner with his regiment went up Market street; Col. Sigel led his column up Olive street; Col. Brown went up Morgan street; and Col. McNeil up Clark avenue. A battery of six pieces went with a Regular battalion, at the head of which rode Gen. Lyon. The news of the movement rapidly diffused through the city; everybody was excited and eagerly expectant; and the roofs of the houses were black with people watching events. Not the least important, factor were the Secessionist belles of the city, whose lovers and brothers were in Camp Jackson, and who, with that inconsequence which is so charming in the young feminine mind, were breathlessly expectant of their young heroes each surrounding himself with a group of "Dutch myrmidons," slain by his red right hand.

So admirably had Lyon planned that the heads of all his columns appeared at their designated places almost simultaneously, and Gen. Frost found his camp entirely surrounded in the most soldierly way. The six light pieces galloped into position to entirely command the camp. With a glance of satisfaction at the success of his arrangements, Gen. Lyon rode up to Sweeny, his second in command, and said:

"Sweeny, if their batteries open on you, deploy your leading company as skirmishers, charge on the nearest battery, and take it."

Sweeny turned to the next two companies to him, and ordered them to move their cartridge-boxes to the front, to prepare for action. Lyon then sent Maj. B. G. Farrar with the following letter to Gen. Frost:

There were a few anxious minutes following this, but it must be said to Frost's credit as a soldier that he promptly recognized the situation and acted upon it. Soon a horseman rode out from the camp, and approaching Lyon handed him the following note:

Lyon read it, turned to his second in command and remarked: "Sweeny, they surrender."

Sweeny turned to his men with the order to replace their cartridge-boxes, which they did with an air of disappointment. There had been so much talk during the weeks and months of preparation about fighting and such irritating threatenings, that the Union troops were anxious to "take a fall" out of their opponents, and see what would be the result. Lyon dismounted, and unfortunately the fractious horse of one of his Aids at that instant kicked him in the stomach, knocking him senseless. While in this condition, Wm. D. Wood, Frost's Adjutant-General, rode up and inquired for Gen. Lyon. Gen. Sweeny, desiring to conceal Lyon's condition from the enemy, replied that he would receive any message intended for the General. Col. Wood then said:

Sweeny replied affirmatively, when Wood rode off and Sweeney returned to Lyon, to find him slowly recovering. Lyon approved of Sweeny's answer, and directed Sweeny to take possession of the camp with two companies of Regulars. Frost's men stacked arms and marched off through a lane formed by the 1st Mo., which faced inward. Up to this time everything had gone on peacefully. The surrendered Militia, without any special protest or demonstration, took their places quietly under guard. Not so with the immense mob which had gathered, expecting to see the Militia make sanguinary havoc of their assailants. These were deeply chagrined at the tame issue of the affair, and after exhausting all the vile epithets at their command, began throwing stones, brickbats, and other missiles, which the soldiers received as patiently as they did the contumely, when the bolder of the mob began firing with revolvers. Presently one of Co. F, 3d Mo., commanded by Capt. C. Blandowski, was shot dead, several severely wounded, and the Captain himself fell with a bullet through his leg. As he fell he ordered his men to fire, which resulted in about 20 of the rioters dropping under a volley from the soldiers' muskets. The mob fled in dismay, and Gen. Lyon ordered his troops to cease firing.

One of the leaders of the mob had deliberately fired three times at Capt. Saxton, of the Regulars, and had laid his revolver across his arm for a fourth more deliberate shot, when one of Capt. Saxton's men bayoneted while another shot him. When the smoke cleared away, it was found that 15 had been killed. Three of these were prisoners from Camp Jackson, and two were women whose morbid curiosity, or worse, had led them to mingle with the mob, One was a child.

Capt. Blandowski died of his wounds the next day.

At 6 o'clock the troops and prisoners marched back to the Arsenal, leaving Gen. Sweeny with his Regulars in charge of Camp Jackson. On the way rioters thronged the line of march and vilely abused the soldiers, but Lyon was vigilant in restraining his men, and prevented their making any return by firing upon their assailants.

During the night and the next day the prisoners were all released, the privates taking an oath not to serve in any capacity against the Government during the war, and the officers giving a parole not to serve in any military capacity against the United States. It was provided that the parole should be returned upon anyone surrendering himself as a prisoner of war, and was accompanied with a protest against the justice of executing it. One exception, Capt. Emmett MacDonald, who had been efficient in bringing the Irishmen into opposition to the "Dutch," refused to accept the parole on the ground taken by all the others that they had done nothing wrong, and finally secured his release through a writ of habeas corpus.

The excitement that night in St. Louis was fearful, with the Secessionists raging. It is to the credit, however, of James McDonough, whom Governor Jackson's Secessionist Police Commissioners had appointed Chief of Police, that, whatever his sympathies, he did not allow them to interfere with his official duties, and exerted himself to the utmost to preserve the municipal peace. The violent Secessionists started to mob the offices of the Republican papers, and to attack the residences of Union leaders, but were everywhere met by squads of police backed up by an armed force of Home Guards, which, with the appeals of the conservative men of influence on both sides, managed to stay the storm.

McDonough could not, however, prevent a number of outrages, and several of the Home Guards caught alone were killed by the rowdies that night and the next day—Saturday. This incensed the Germans terribly, and stories reached the Secession parts of the city that they contemplated fearful revenge, which they could wreak, having arms in their own hands, while the "natural protectors" of the people—Frost's military companies—were prisoners of war and disarmed.

The Mayor issued a proclamation to quiet the people, and requested all keepers of drinking places to at once close and remain closed during the excitement. All minors were ordered to remain in doors for three days, and all good citizens were requested to remain in doors after nightfall and to avoid gatherings and meetings.

As was usual, a good many people who meant no evil obeyed this proclamation, while the mobites, who meant a great deal of harm, paid no attention to it. Saturday afternoon, the 5th Regiment of United States Reserves, under the command of Lieut-Col. Robert White, attempted to go to their barracks, when they were assailed by a mob with stones, brickbats and pistol shots. The patience of the soldiers finally gave way, and they fired into the crowd, killing several persons—and wounding many others.

The panic at once resumed its former proportions, and Gen. Harney found it necessary to issue a proclamation, in which he said that the public peace must and would be preserved, and the lives and property of the people protected, but he trusted that he would not be compelled to resort to martial law. He would avoid all cause of irritation and excitement whenever called upon to aid the local authorities by using in preference the Regular troops. Therefore he began by restricting the Home Guards to the German parts of the city, while he moved about 250 Regulars, under the command of Capts. Totten and Sweeny and Lieuts. Saxton and Lothrop, with four pieces of artillery, into a central position, where they went into quarters, to the great relief of everybody.

It will be perceived that a remarkable change had come over the people since a few weeks before, when the arrival of a little squad of Regulars at the Sub-Treasury to protect its gold had thrown the city in the wildest excitement over "the attempt to overawe and cow the people of Missouri."

Confidence was restored, and quiet ensued. Gen. Frost lodged a protest with Gen. Harney, in which he recited the circumstances of Lyon's attack upon him, claimed that every officer and soldier in his command had taken, with uplifted hand, the following oath:

A casual inspection shows how cunningly this was framed. It will be perceived that every one solemnly swore to "serve the State of Missouri against all her enemies," and to "obey the orders of the officers" placed over him, while he was merely enjoined to do his utmost to sustain the Constitution and laws of the United States and this State against all violence.

It is easy to see how such an obligation would be construed.

Gen. Frost recited again that he had offered to help Gen. Lyon protect the United States property with his whole force, and if necessary with that of Missouri, and appealed to Gen. Harney not to require the indignity of a parole, but to order the restoration of all the officers and men to liberty, and of all the property of the State and of private individuals. The language of this protest did as little to enhance the reputation of Gen. Frost as his letter to Gen. Lyon.

It was an intense disappointment to the Secessionists everywhere that he made no show of a fight before surrendering. It would have been the greatest satisfaction to all of them had he chosen to make Camp Jackson a Thermopylae or an Alamo. Such a sacrifice would have been of priceless worth in firing the Southern heart, and placing him high among the world's heroes. Somehow the idea of martyrdom did not appeal to him, as it has not to millions of other men placed in critical positions. The wonder to the calm student of history is that, having made such a bold bluff at Lyon, he did not "fill his hand" better, to use a sporting phrase, and prevent Lyon from "calling" him so effectually. The frost which was in his name settled on this "young Napoleon" thereafter—the country was filled with young Napoleons at that time—and though he commanded a brigade in the Confederate army for some two years or more, his name is only "mentioned" afterward in the Rebellion Records.

Lyon's decisive act did not meet with the unanimous approval of the Union men of the State. There began then that unhappy division between the "Conservative Union men" and the "Radicals" which led to so many collisions, and sorely distracted President Lincoln. The "Radicals" who fell under the lead of F. P. Blair, and had their representative in the Cabinet at Washington in the shape of Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster-General, dubbed their opponents "Claybanks," while the latter, whose representative in the Cabinet was Edward Bates, the Attorney-General, tainted with the name of "Charcoals" their opponents. The "Conservatives," who represented a very large portion of the wealth and education of the State, had for leaders such men as Hamilton R. Gamble, Robert Campbell, James E. Yeatman, H. S. Turner, Washington King, N. J. Eaton, and James H. Lucas. They at once sent a delegation to Washington to represent to Mr. Lincoln that Lyon, while undoubtedly "a loyal and brave soldier," was "rash," "imprudent," and "indiscreet." This representation carried great weight, for they were all men of the highest character and standing, and at their instance Gen. Harney was pushed further to the front again.

The "Old Dragoon" now asserted itself in Harney, as it was likely to when there was the smell of gunpowder in the air. Lyon's course was, in spite of the intense influence of Harney's Secession convives, very much to the taste of the old fighter. He wrote to Gen. Scott that he approved Lyon's action, and replied to the Judge in the habeas corpus writ of Capt. McDonald, that the man had been properly arrested. May 14 he issued a proclamation in which he said:

These were certainly "brave words, my masters," and had great influence upon the people of Missouri. Unhappily there was reason to think afterwards that Gen. Harney was not quite living up to them.

When the account of stock of the capture of Camp Jackson came to be taken, the invoice was as follows:

Three 32-pounders.

Three mortar-beds.

A large quantity of balls and bombs in ale barrels.

Artillery pieces, in boxes of heavy plank, the boxes marked "Marble," "Tamaroa, care of Greeley & Gale, St Louis—Iron Mountain Railroad."

Twelve hundred rifles, of late model, United States manufacture.

Tents and camp equipage.

Six brass field pieces.

Twenty-five kegs of powder.

Ninety-six 10-Inch bombshells.

Three hundred six-inch bombshells. ..

Six brass mortars, six inches diameter.

One iron mortar, 10 inches.

Three iron cannon, six inches.

Five boxes of canister shot.

Fifty artillery swords.

Two hundred and twenty-seven spades.

Thirty-eight hatchets.

Eleven mallets.

One hundred and ninety-one axes.

Forty horses.

Several boxes of new muskets.

A very large number of musket stocks and musket barrels; together with lots of bayonets, bayonet scabbards, etc.

One thousand one hundred and ten enlisted men were taken prisoners, besides from 50 to 75 officers.

Nothing legislates so firmly and finally as a successful sword-blow for the right. Gen. Lyon's capture of Camp Jackson was an epoch-making incident. In spite of the protests of the wealthy and respectable Messrs. Gamble, Yeatman, and others, it was the right thing, done at the right time, to stay the surging sweep of the waves of Secession. It destroyed the captivating aggressiveness of the "Disunionists," and threw their leaders upon the defensive. Other people than they had wants and desires which must be listened to, or the Loyalists would find a way to compel attention. The Secessionists must now plead at their bar; not they in the court of those who would destroy the Government.