While on the 11th of May, the day succeeding the capture of Camp Jackson, the frenzy evoked by that startling event had measurably passed away, it had been succeeded, in the minds of many of the disloyal, by a grim determination to take summary vengeance on the victorious Unionists. On that very day, at the evening twilight, the opportunity presented itself for carrying out their vindictive purpose. It was rumored that a regiment of Home Guards, made up largely of Germans, was about to return from the Arsenal, where it had just been armed. In some way a band of fiery secessionists ascertained the route that the regiment would take on its return march, and for the purpose of harassing and attacking it, hid themselves behind the pillars of a Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Fifth and Walnut Streets. In dwelling-houses opposite the church were some of their allies. They had planned to attack the regiment simultaneously on both flanks. And when in the gathering darkness, these newly armed men were peacefully passing westward along Walnut Street, their concealed foes at first jeered and hissed them. This was followed by unprovoked and dastardly attack. Missiles of various kinds, from both sides of the street, were hurled into the ranks of these new, undisciplined volunteers. A revolver was fired at them from behind the pillars of the church and a soldier fell dead. Two shots then rang out from the windows of the houses opposite the church. The soldiers in the van, now thoroughly demoralized, wheeled about and wildly fired down the street. The musket-balls flew in every direction. Some hit the church, some the houses opposite the church, while some were poured into their own ranks. When the firing ceased six men lay dead on the pavement: four of their own regiment, three of whom they themselves had killed, and two unarmed citizens; while several innocent passers-by were wounded.[30] This sad event stirred up much vengeful passion. There was crimination and recrimination. Feeling on both sides ran high. It was intense, bitter, hot. Portentous rumors filled the air. Apprehension of something awful pervaded many minds. Disaster seemed impending. On a city thus agitated and torn midnight darkness at last graciously fell. A merciful Providence had at least held the contending multitudes back from general riot.
Morning dawned. It was Sunday, the 12th of May. The heavens were partially overcast, and there was a chill in the air. Very few besides the newsboys were seen in the streets. The general silence seemed in some way to foretoken the near approach of some overwhelming calamity. Abject fear had taken possession of many minds. The doors of hundreds of dwelling-houses were shut and bolted, and the windows darkened by blinds and shades were securely fastened. No one passing along the nearly deserted thoroughfares could escape a certain weird influence that enwrapped him and all things about him. Objects the most familiar wore an unusual and an uncanny aspect. What power was this which, from enfolding shadows, reached out its formless yet mighty hand and grasped thousands in our city and held them quivering with terror in its relentless grip? This, for want of a better name, men have called a panic. How it comes no one has ever been able to tell; how it departs never to return is equally mysterious. But on that Sunday morning, so long ago, it had thrown its horrid spell over St. Louis. And while men according to their varied constitutions were differently affected, none wholly escaped its dread touch. Still, what it was, no one was astute enough to explain, but that it was an awful reality thousands in the evening of that day of inexplicable alarm could testify.
The day before, General Harney had returned from Washington and resumed his old command. Before the gray dawn of the day of panic, some prominent citizens, incited by fear of which they could give no rational explanation, implored the General to protect them against the murderous Dutch (Germans), who were about to kill them and loot and burn their houses. When Harney asked them for the evidence of their declarations they had nothing more substantial to offer than Dame Rumor. Still, wishing to quiet their fears, he decided to yield to their entreaties so far as he could do so with dignity. So he sent from the Arsenal detachments of soldiers to those parts of the city, represented to be most exposed to the incursions of what he himself believed to be purely imaginary foes. He also issued a proclamation and posted it up in all of the most frequented streets and public places, declaring to the people that he nowhere saw any evidence of special danger, and appealed to them to lay aside their groundless fear. These considerate acts of the General had exactly the opposite effect from what he intended; instead of quieting the people they excited them still more; instead of allaying, they intensified, their alarm. And such an outcome was altogether natural. Bodies of armed men marching hither and thither through the city and stationed at different points as guards, and a proclamation hurriedly issued on Sunday morning, seemed to them to be tangible proof of the existence of greater danger than they had supposed. And, as the hours of the morning wore away, the apprehension of some awful calamity about to fall upon the inhabitants of the city grew until a great multitude were filled with terror.
At the usual hour for morning service, I went to church. On my way thither, I saw but few going to the different houses of worship. My own congregation was about one third of its usual size. Most of the church officers were absent. At the close of the service, groups of the small audience exchanged with each other a few words, declaring that in their judgment there was no danger, that the general fright was baseless, and then evidently with some degree of anxiety quickly departed for their homes.
It was now between twelve and one. The clouds of the morning were gone. The sun shone brightly. But the few people venturing out into the streets seemed even more cheerless and terror-stricken than earlier in the day. Here and there a carriage, filled with anxious faces, was driven hurriedly along. Just after my dinner, about two o’clock, my landlord and next-door neighbor, a moderate secessionist, cautious, conservative, phlegmatic, called to see me. He asked, apparently with great coolness: “Do you think that we are in any special danger?” I answered, “No, I do not think we are. The Germans, who have inspired so many with alarm, have no ill will towards us. The fear, now agitating so many in the city, has not a particle of foundation.” “Well,” he replied, “that is just what I think, but”—and here he betrayed his suspicion that there might be some danger which did not appear on the surface—“do you think when General Harney declared this morning in his proclamation that there was no cause for alarm, he concealed anything from the public?” I assured him that I fully believed that the general was acting a truthful and honorable part. He said: “I think so too,” and bade me good day; but within thirty minutes, an open two-horse carriage drove up to his door; his family brought out satchels, bags and pillow-cases, hastily stuffed with necessary articles of clothing, threw them pell-mell into the vehicle, and unceremoniously clambering in after them, drove away at breakneck speed as though they were pursued by some invisible demon.
This led me to go out and walk hither and thither through the central part of the city. The scene presented to my view was surpassingly strange. Carriages and wagons filled with trunks, valises, hastily made bundles, and frightened men, women and children were flying along the streets towards every point of the compass. Some scared souls, unable to obtain a vehicle of any kind, were walking or running with breathless haste, carrying all sorts of bundles in their hands, under their arms or on their shoulders. All these were fleeing from imaginary danger. But the fancied conflagration and slaughter which they believed themselves to be escaping were to them awful realities, enacted, with all their attendant horrors, over and over again within their minds.
Some of the panic-stricken fled into the country and found shelter in outside villages and farmhouses. A gentleman, who lived several miles northwest of the city, told me that these frightened fugitives filled all his spare beds, and lay all over the floors of his upper and lower hall and parlor. He was a Union man and poked fun at his unexpected secession guests on their senseless terror, but finding them just then incapable of mirth, and seeing that they were still keenly suffering from imaginary horrors, he mercifully desisted.
The scene at this farmhouse was representative of many similar scenes on that night in all the country about St. Louis. But many of the fugitives crossed the river on the ferry-boats and sought refuge in black-Republican Illinois. A host of them also filled the steamers at the levee and went north to Alton and Quincy, and South to Cairo and Columbus, while some of them refused to land till they reached Memphis. It is difficult for any one not an eye-witness to believe that such a stupid stampede could ever have taken place.
But some of the terror-stricken, who did not flee, acted with equal folly. A secession acquaintance of mine, living but two squares from my door, early in the day transformed his house into a fortress. He invited under his roof a dozen or more of his southern friends. Among them they had sixteen guns of various kinds. They barricaded the door and windows of the house, leaving loop-holes through which they could shoot. And there behind these hastily constructed defences, during all that Sabbath day, they waited with shivering apprehension for the coming of the dreaded foe, determined, if they should be called to lay down their lives, to sell them dearly.
But evening came. During the day no one had been injured. Nothing had transpired to justify the abject fear of so many thousands of people. Yet many of the terrified, who still remained in the city, were apprehensive lest the expected blow might fall under the cover of the gathering darkness. At the hour of evening service I was, as usual, in my pulpit. Only about sixty or seventy were in the pews. Only one officer of the church was present. Three neighboring pastors of other denominations were there. My wife and my sister were the only women in the congregation. I preached without making the slightest reference to the events of the day, believing that to be the wisest course. When the last word was spoken, the little company quickly and quietly dispersed. I learned the next day that we were the only Protestant congregation in the city that publicly worshipped on that anxious evening, and that the most prominent men in my church and congregation, belonging as they did to the Home Guards, were absent because engaged in military duty. With their muskets they were endeavoring to protect their terrified fellow-citizens against imaginary foes.
On Monday one of them gave me a detailed account of the movement of the Home Guards the night before. Early in the evening they threw a line of scouts across the city from east to west. Each soldier in the line was a square from his fellow. They then began to feel their way cautiously toward the southern part of the city, where most of the Germans lived, who were supposed to be so bloodthirsty. As they reached each street, running east and west, the scouts halted until word was passed from one to another along the whole extended line; then they crept on again toward that awful, invisible enemy. Nobody was abroad on the streets. The city was almost as still as a churchyard. The very stillness added to the general terror and made the flesh of the timid creep. A little before midnight these doughty scouts as they slowly moved southward, carefully scanning every street, alley and house for some lurking foe, saw before them armed men coming towards them from the south. They hailed each other. Word was passed along the whole of their respective lines; at last they were all gathered together. They were not enemies but friends, all equally intent on keeping the peace. Each man eagerly told what had been transpiring during the day in the part of the city to which he belonged. These scouts that had gone southward said that hosts of American-born citizens, living in the central part of the city, heard and fully believed that the Germans were coming up in force to loot and burn their houses and put them to the sword. On the other hand, the armed Germans said that the southern part of the city, where they lived, had all day been filled with terror, because a baseless rumor was firmly believed that the American-born citizens to the north of them were coming down to loot and burn their dwellings and kill them. Having thus told of the mutual fears of those whom they represented, and found their fancied foes to be their ardent friends, gloom gave way to merriment and joy. The whole day with all its fantastic scenes inspired by abject fear seemed now a huge joke. All anxiety gone, these mutual guardians of the peace shook hands with each other and shook their sides with laughter. Proud of the city in which they lived and grateful for its continued safety, they gave three cheers for her. The sound of those ringing cheers at midnight carried assurance and quietude to many that heard.
The next morning the lethargy of the city was as profound as the excitement of the preceding day had been intense. Before nine o’clock very few were astir. Here and there a pedestrian passed along on some necessary errand. On some streets market-wagons lumbered by. The morning markets, usually so full of life, were half deserted. However, as the day wore on, signs of returning activity multiplied; but when men met each other, they made scant allusion to the scenes of yesterday. There was evidently a good deal of thinking, but there certainly was very little talking. Many appeared to be ashamed of themselves. Those who had been terrorized manifestly desired to cover up and forget their folly; those who had not been much moved by the general alarm, in kindness restrained themselves from saying, “I told you so.” This was cheering. It showed that neighborly kindness and true manhood had not perished in the panic; that what was noblest and best in those who disagreed so radically on great questions of state policy, stretched itself over all their differences like a rainbow on the clouds of a passing storm.
But hundreds of our fellow-citizens were still in the places to which they had so hurriedly fled. On Monday most of them heard that no ruthless enemy had wrapped their dwellings in flames and slaughtered the defenceless; that the current of affairs in their beloved city was flowing on unimpeded and unruffled. By Tuesday a large number of them had quietly returned to their homes, and by the end of the week even those that sought refuge in distant cities shamefacedly came back. Unannoyed they resumed their duties. Few made any curious inquiries, or even alluded to their strange and groundless terror and ludicrous flight. No event so startling and unique was apparently so soon and utterly forgotten.
However, to make this portrayal of the panic adequate and just, one more thing must be specially noted. While but few could wholly escape its subtle and awful influence, I knew of no Unionist, nor heard of one, that through fear fled from the city. They did not for a moment believe that the loyal Germans intended violence to anybody. They therefore looked upon the scene of terror enacted before them with both amusement and amazement; but most of them learned, probably for the first time, how terribly real to frightened men and women imaginary evils can be, and so for their returning secession neighbors they had only kindly greetings.
Other stirring events soon claimed our attention and absorbed our thoughts. As soon as the panic was over, General Harney, in a vigorous proclamation, sustained the act of Lyon in taking Camp Jackson, enumerating the evidences that the camp was hostile to the general government; denounced the military bill recently passed by the legislature as an indirect secession ordinance, a nullity and not at all to be obeyed by the people of the State; declared that all the power of the United States would be used to maintain its supreme authority, and that “no subterfuges, whether in the form of legislative acts or otherwise, can be permitted to harass or oppress the good and law-abiding people of Missouri.”
This manifesto of the commanding general was a genuine surprise both to the secessionists and Unionists. Up to this time the former had regarded him as a moderate Unionist, whose hesitancy and vacillation enabled them to plot almost unmolested against the general government; while the latter had at times even doubted his loyalty to the Union. But now both parties saw the real sentiment of his heart. On account of it the secessionists were quite dispirited. The Missouri Republican, a semi-secession, Democrat paper, the next morning gave voice to their disappointment by saying, “We are bound hand and foot; chained down by a merciless tyranny; are subjected and shackled.”[31]
But on all sides men were now asking, “Will the general by act make good the words of his proclamation?” He did not leave them long in doubt. His conclusive reasoning evidently was that if, for the protection of loyal citizens, it was necessary to capture Camp Jackson, it was equally necessary to break up all other places where the disloyal were gathering means which, at the opportune moment, they might use to secure the secession of the State. So, on the 17th of May, just five days after the panic, in order “to preserve the peace of St. Louis and promote the tranquillity of Missouri,” warrants were issued by the Federal Court for the search of all places within our city suspected of harboring articles contraband of war. With these warrants in hand, United States Marshal Rawlings, accompanied by a squad of Federal soldiers, under the command of Captain Sweeney, proceeded to the State Tobacco Warehouse on Washington Avenue, and to the Central Metropolitan Police Station on Chestnut Street.[32] Both of these places were dominated and controlled by secessionists. In the latter gathered those police commissioners, who were appointed by the Governor, and reflected his notions and policies. At the Warehouse were found several hundred rifles, muskets, cavalry pistols, holsters, and small boxes of ammunition; and at the Police Station two pieces of cannon and many rifles. The marshal took possession of this war material, and the accompanying soldiers captured all the aiders and abettors of treason found in these nests of disloyalty. We all now saw that General Harney was acting up to his brave and true words, and that the judges and officers of the United States courts were intent on recovering, so far as possible, the stolen property of the general government; that both the civil and military powers were joining hands in enforcing the law and in suppressing secession and revolt.
But very soon after this exhibition of energy and loyalty on the part of Harney, anxious to preserve the peace of his beloved Missouri, on the 21st of May, just four days after the search and seizure narrated above, he entered into a formal agreement with Price,[33] then the major-general of the Missouri militia, in which he committed the whole military care of the State to the latter, binding himself not to use United States troops in Missouri for the suppression of disorder or the defence of any of its inhabitants, unless asked to do so by the State authorities. In short he covenanted to abandon utterly all initiative in military operations within our commonwealth, and to subject himself to the lead of the commander of the State militia. This agreement pledged the Federal government to uphold in the most practical fashion the doctrine of State sovereignty; it sustained the very thing which the United States was marshalling its armies to oppose and if possible to crush out forever. Over this ill-starred covenant with our enemies, every Unionist of St. Louis and Missouri was sick at heart. Such an agreement carried out would have been the death-blow to all loyalty throughout the State. The Unionists of St. Louis wondered how a general, who had been so outspoken against disunionism a few days before, could be so hoodwinked as to enter into a solemn compact by which he permitted the enemy of his country to bind him hand and foot. As he ought to have expected, the government which he had so utterly misrepresented in this strange compact with Price promptly removed him from his command, and put in his place Lyon, who a few days before had been made brigadier-general.
Lyon took hold of his new duties with a will. In the latter part of May, by his order, the steamer “J. C. Swan” was seized at Harlow’s Landing, about thirty miles below the city, and brought up to the St. Louis Arsenal.[34] This was the boat that surreptitiously brought from Baton Rouge the arms that were captured at Camp Jackson. By due process of law she was confiscated and put into the service of the Union. But nothing escaped the eagle eye of the Yankee general at the Arsenal. He seemed intuitively to apprehend the designs and movements of the Confederates. So while with one hand he seized this recreant steamer, with the other he intercepted at Ironton, on the Iron Mountain Railroad, several tons of lead en route for the South. A party of secessionists resisted the military force sent to make this capture, some shots were fired, but happily no blood was shed. That lead was diverted from the Southern Confederacy. Lyon saw to it that it was shot not at Union men, but by them at the enemies of the Union.
The exportation of lead from Missouri was one of the cherished plans of the Southern malcontents. As early as May 1st, 1861, Samuel Tate, writing from Charleston, South Carolina, to the Hon. A. M. Clayton of Montgomery, Alabama, pressed upon his attention the importance of keeping Missouri under the control of the Confederacy. Without her, he urged, the last hope would be cut off “for a full supply of provisions and lead.”[35] He said, “Governor Jackson is with us. His people are with us, except at St. Louis, where they are divided. The first thing we know, we shall be out of powder, lead and percussion caps.” So, early in the war, one clear-headed man, south of Mason and Dixon’s line, understood our Governor, and saw what an important storehouse for the rebel armies Missouri would be, and insisted that no effort should be spared to unite her destiny with that of the Confederacy. But Lyon had otherwise determined; and during that ever memorable month of May, mainly through his initiative and under his direction, the most startling events followed each other in rapid succession. Camp Jackson was taken; the rebel flags were lowered; nests of secessionists were broken up and their arms, gathered with hostile intent, were captured; a treacherous steamboat was seized and confiscated; a train of cars laden with lead for the Southern Confederacy was intercepted. At that early stage of the war, all these things were surpassingly strange to us, and by them for weeks the whole city was kept bubbling with excitement.