As soon as Camp Jackson had been taken, and the panic which so closely followed it was over, a new spirit pervaded the entire community. Those who had been halting between Unionism and secession felt almost irresistibly impelled to decide with which party they would act. And those who from the start had quietly but firmly allied themselves with the one or the other, and for prudential reasons had refrained from declaring their political faith, now felt constrained to show their true colors. The process of open alignment was rapid. Society seemed to be suddenly transformed. We felt as though we had been transported in a state of unconsciousness to another world and when there had waked up in astonishment, gazing upon new and strange scenes. At first some thought that the celerity with which men were being converted to Unionism was marvellous; but in this they were deceived. There were, to be sure, many striking political conversions, but in the vast majority of cases, what amazed observers was not conversion, but a frank and open declaration of principles that up to that hour had been secretly held. Almost everybody seemed to be confessing his political faith. The star-spangled banner which, out of deference to the feelings of secession neighbors, had been so long concealed, began to be hung out from the balconies and windows of public buildings and private dwellings. It now waved from the cupolas of schoolhouses and even from the steeples of some of the churches. Union teamsters decked their mules and horses with it. Little children on their way to school, or playing in the streets, carried it. Just as sometimes in the spring the sudden coming of the warm sunshine and showers stars the cherry and apple trees all over with blossoms, so our city, so long bannerless, all at once bloomed with the Stars and Stripes. Badges made of strips of red, white and blue were also extensively worn both by men and women, while on every side, at morning, noon and night, could be heard the song born of the hour, “Hurrah! For the Red, White and Blue.” And the suddenness of this outburst of patriotism for a time threw those who had been struggling in doubt and gloom to prevent the secession of Missouri into a delirium of joy.

Nevertheless secessionism in St. Louis was neither dead nor hopeless. It was, to be sure, for the time being overawed; but it was in fact as tenacious and determined as ever. Our disloyal fellow-citizens were led to believe that the city would be at last captured by the rebel army, and both it and the State turned over to the Southern Confederacy. So, bating neither heart nor hope, they labored incessantly for the realization of this purpose. In secret they plotted to secure the secession of the State. Protected by United States troops, they harbored in their homes spies from the rebel army. Some of them themselves acted the part of spies and were arrested for their crime. Many of them contributed freely of their substance to help disrupt the Union and establish the Confederacy. But while they worked clandestinely,—as they were compelled to do if they worked at all,—most of them in social intercourse manfully declared their sentiments. In fact the time had at last come when true men on either side abhorred those sordid souls that sat on the fence, ready for the sake of self, at the opportune moment, to jump off upon the side of those who should chance to be victorious. The words of Dryden in his “Duke of Guise,” written concerning the Whigs and Tories of his day, slightly altered, fittingly depict them.

One of my own deacons, a true and brave man, at first hesitated as to the stand he ought to take. With him it was a matter of conscience. He was not swayed by any sordid motive. His associations had been largely with Southern and pro-slavery men. He regretted that I had felt impelled to speak from my pulpit for the Union. But when asked by some of his secession brethren to sign a petition to which I have already referred, asking me to resign my pastorate, he began earnestly to think what he ought to do. He said to those that solicited him to put his name to that petition, “I have never yet openly opposed any one of my pastors; and even now, while I regret that our present pastor publicly discussed a political question, I cannot sign this petition without careful consideration. I wish to take it home with me to-night, and pray over it, before I decide what to do in reference to it.” He prayed. He determined not to sign it. He began to think as never before. He now observed that all the newspapers and journals that came to his house were pro-slavery and secession; and he decided to secure for daily reading some that presented the opposite view. He at once subscribed for two Union papers. He looked over his library and did not find a book in it that was antagonistic to slavery. He went at once to a bookstore and bought three anti-slavery books, which he carefully read. Within a few days his mind was completely revolutionized. He had decided what to do. Every fibre of his being was for the Union. He soon called me into his office and said: “Pastor, you made one serious mistake. You ought to have preached against secession at least three months before you did.” And the good deacon was undoubtedly right. From that time all measures taken for the preservation of the Union seemed to him to be dilatory. He chafed because the President held back his emancipation proclamation. After the war was over, St. Louis sent him to Washington as one of its representatives. But we should not forget how much such a decision made in that time of political upheaval cost him. It may seem easy to us now, but it tried the soul then. It broke up old associations, and for a time at least made lifelong friends enemies.

In my own neighborhood there lived a most excellent Christian family. It consisted of husband and wife and four or five children. The children, I should judge, were from twelve to eighteen years of age. But the father and mother were divided on the great national issue. He was decidedly for the Union, she just as decidedly for the Southern Confederacy. At the dinner hour almost every day, in the presence of their children, they hotly discussed the question on which they were divided. This procedure at last menaced the union of the household. But with good sense, the father, before his whole family, proposed to the mother that, for the sake of peace in their home, they declare a truce until the close of the war. The wife and mother acceded to this timely proposal. The national question was never thereafter mooted under that roof; but when the war ended I noticed that the wife as well as the husband was for the Union. Silence and events had prevailed. But this divided household was not an isolated case. There were scores of families in the city made discordant and unhappy over the burning issue of the hour.

In those days of decision there was a distinguished judge of one of our courts who was a Southerner by birth and education. He was pro-slavery in sentiment, but a decisive, ardent Union man. One morning he met an old Southern friend at the Post-office, whither in those days we all went for our mail. As usual they cordially greeted each other. Then the judge said to him: “I understand from others that you are an enemy of the Old Flag?” He replied that he was. Then responded the judge, “You are my enemy. Never recognize me again by look or word.” That decision was positive and irreversible; the division was sharp and irreconcilable.

Living on the same square with myself was a man of Southern birth. He was a pleasant, agreeable gentleman. I held him in high esteem. I had been called by him to minister in his household in a time of sickness and death. Tenderness of feeling had marked our intercourse in those sad days. He and I had never exchanged a word on the subject of secession. Still, one morning as I met him and as usual saluted him, he did not, as he had been wont to do, return my salutation. I concluded that, absorbed in something else, he did not see me. I could not believe that his seeming discourtesy was intended. Two or three days after, I greeted him again, but obtained from him no sign of recognition. I determined not to give up my friend without one more effort. A week later I met him on the sidewalk near his own door, stood within four feet of him, looked him straight in the face, and said, “Good morning,” calling him by name; but he made no response either by word or look. He was no longer my friend, but my enemy. Why? He had learned from others that I was for the Union,—that was the explanation of his rudeness. During all the war we frequently met, but passed each other as though we were walking, insensate posts. I always felt a strong impulse to speak once more, but I checked it, lest speaking might give to my dumb neighbor useless offence. Such experiences as this were peculiar to those who lived in a border city during the war of the rebellion.

But the open alignment of men and women in our city for or against the Union, disturbed, if it did not destroy, in many of our churches the Christian fellowship that had hitherto existed. Where the membership of a church was politically very largely of the same mind, the friction arising from the few in opposition, while deplorable, did not very seriously interfere with its general harmony. In such a case the small minority either remained and held its peace, or else withdrew noisily or quietly, while the main body of the church, freed from irritation and unified, continued its legitimate work with increased power and efficiency. But where the members of a church were about equally divided on the great national issue their contention sometimes became acrimonious. When such conflict was waged, brotherly love was overwhelmed, and the very existence of the church itself was imperilled. I well knew one such church. It occupied, in the northern part of our city, a very important field for aggressive Christian work, but by its internal dissensions its influence for good was neutralized. It was of course no wonder that they were absorbed in the gigantic national battle then being waged. Not only the most vital political interests were at stake, but a great moral question was submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. These Christian men and women were irresistibly impelled to take sides. Some of them were fighting for the Union and against slavery; others against the Union and for slavery. They were all honest and intensely earnest. The government of their church was democratic, and they were continually counting noses. Each party sharply watched the other lest in some unexpected exigency it should be outvoted. Their pastor, worn out by their belligerency, resigned and quit the city. All real Christian work in that church was now at a standstill. Something must be done to prevent the church itself from being blotted out. The case was desperate and called for heroic treatment.

The remedy was forthcoming. A neighboring pastor, who had at heart both the highest good of his country and of the kingdom of God, persuaded two of his brethren to take their letters from his church and to unite with that. They did so, and that gave those there who were loyal to their country a majority. With them he considered a series of measures, which both he and they believed to be for the highest good of that contentious and divided Christian body. A meeting was called to consider them. Some of these measures were very distasteful to the secession party in the church; so they were long and hotly debated. That memorable meeting began at eight o’clock in the evening and did not adjourn until two o’clock the next morning. A little after one in the morning a measure long and stubbornly resisted by the secessionists passed by a bare majority; in their resentment a half dozen of them asked for letters of dismission; these were of course promptly granted; when they discovered that by their spiteful withdrawal they had given their opponents an assured majority, they requested to be restored to membership again, but their request was ignored. And now for a time pandemonium seemed to have broken loose. A half dozen of either party were on their feet at once, each in loud tones addressing the moderator, while he pounded with his gavel and cried, “Order! Order!” At last the tempest subsided. The discomfited left. The remaining projected measures were quickly passed, and the meeting adjourned. Both the victors and the vanquished were all good brethren. But both did what, under soberer circumstances, they would not approve. Nevertheless, after that stormy business meeting prosperity came to that church. Their house of worship, which had been only half constructed, was soon after finished. A strong, level-headed pastor was called, and a Sunday-school of more than a thousand pupils met there every Lord’s day.

The divisive work, which we are endeavoring to set forth, went on through almost the whole period of the war. As late as January 9th, 1862, it appeared in the Chamber of Commerce. A number of Union business men applied for membership. The secession members of the Chamber were bitterly opposed to their admission, and by the ballots which they controlled secured their defeat. This insulting and unbusiness-like act split the Chamber of Commerce in twain. The Union members withdrew and established the Union Chamber of Commerce. Thus at the very centre of trade in our city corrupt politics overruled legitimate business. For a time the eternal laws of exchange gave place to scheming policies of secession. In that border city, men who did not believe in the Union and in free labor refused for awhile even to barter with those who did. Every human association seemed to be rent asunder. But this unjust and short-sighted action of the secessionists in the Chamber of Commerce stirred up much bad feeling throughout the city. It was vehemently denounced. Very few outside the extreme disunionists rose up to defend it. It was folly so unmitigated that it soon reacted on its authors; what they attempted to make a stronghold of secession soon ceased even to exist, and the Union Chamber of Commerce remained without a rival; and there every worthy business man was welcomed irrespective of his political opinions.

But notable events, in swift succession, were now casting new light on the problems over which armed hosts were contending and for the solution of which they were freely pouring out their blood. The views of receptive souls were rapidly becoming broader and more national. Some original secessionists under the increasing illumination joined the Unionists, and did it at great personal self-sacrifice. Their Southern friends looked upon them as traitors to the Southern Confederacy, and scorned them. They cut them on the street; they socially ostracized them. It required great moral courage in one born and bred in the South, to become, in that border city, an out and out, patriotic nationalist. But no inconsiderable number were equal to the demand. For the sake of an undivided country they gave up tender social relations and the amenities of life and boldly proclaimed their change of heart.

In illustration of this I wish briefly to call attention to one of the many converts to Unionism. Just before the war there was a slave auction on the steps of the Court-house. An artist, Mr. Thomas S. Noble, made sketches of the impressive and shameful scene. He was a Southerner, but from a child had been opposed to the system of slavery. He then and there determined from the sketches which he had made to depict on canvas that sale of men and women under the hammer of the auctioneer. But he was too busy with other work to put his hand at once to this projected task. And while it was deferred the war broke out. Out of sympathy for the people of the South he enlisted as a soldier in the Confederate army. When the term of his enlistment expired, he returned to St. Louis, and took up again the work of his studio. On account of his absence his patrons to a considerable extent had fallen away from him. He found that he had leisure time on his hands, and so determined to begin the work of painting the slave auction, projected so long before. In his mind this public sale of men and women was a typical national crime. It was sanctioned by both State and national law. The steps of the Court-house in which both were interpreted and enforced became without protest a slave mart. The Stars and Stripes floating over the heads of the auctioneer and cowering slaves exposed to the gaze of the curious throng made the sale a national offence. Under a sense of this flagrant national injustice he began to paint and the product was a mighty protest against the crime of legalized bondage. With his sword he had just been fighting for slavery and the Southern Confederacy; now with his brush, he was contending against both. And his brush was mightier than his sword.

But he was soon put to the severest test. What he had painted with exhilaration and joy brought upon him the sharpest of trials. In a social way some highly esteemed Southern friends dropped into his studio. For the first time they looked on his slave auction, or “Slave Mart” as he called it. Knowing nothing of his real attitude towards slavery, they nevertheless at once felt the powerful protest which that new painting uttered against slavery and its accompanying evils.

In the front window of a picture store on Fourth Street the artists of the city were accustomed to display their paintings. The Southern friends of Mr. Noble, as in his studio they gazed upon his embodied protest against slave auctions, anxiously asked: “Are you going to exhibit that painting in the window on Fourth Street?” He replied that he had thought of doing so. They said, “If you do, you shall have no social standing with us. Our relations with you will end forever.”

Almost all of the artist’s intimate friends were Southerners. To be cut by them in that way seemed to him a very bitter trial. For the moment he hesitated. Up to that time I had not known him; but I was known in St. Louis as an uncompromising Union man; so, in his hesitation as to what he should do, he called at my house, told me his whole fascinating history, and asked my advice as to whether, in view of the threats of his old friends, he should put his painting of the slave auction in the show-window. I counselled him not to be turned aside by threats from doing any right thing, and insisted that in his case his conscience was involved; that he was bound in some way to bear witness to his conviction concerning slavery, and that he should do it by his brush as well as by his lips. I told him, come what would, he ought to display his painting; that while it would cost him much so to do, there certainly would be compensations for his sacrifice; that, in my judgment, where he would lose one friend he would gain three; and that those whom he would gain would be better than those whom he would lose. At the close of our conversation he determined to act in accordance with his own judgment and conscience, even if he lost all his old friends and gained none.

The next day his “Slave Mart”^[37] was in the show-window. Before it all day long stood a crowd, ever going, ever coming. Thousands viewed with admiration the work of the artist. There was a soul, a life in the picture, that appealed to every onlooker. Some subtle power in it laid hold of the imagination and touched the heart. The artist became more widely known. He entered on a new career. Friends such as he never had before sprung up on every hand. He afterwards painted John Brown going out, with pinioned arms, to execution, and stooping to kiss a negro baby. This historical painting was afterwards engraved, and the engraving was extensively sold.

We have written enough to show how much it cost one in St. Louis, during the war, to decide firmly with which party in the national conflict he would cast his lot. Such decisions in a multitude of cases were divisive; they often set in bitter antagonism husbands and wives, parents and children; in not a few instances destroyed old friendships and blotted out for a time the ordinary amenities of life, and even split asunder Christian churches, the very body of Christ; and the cleavage was so deep and radical that it remains to this day; some churches still being designated either “North” or “South.”

The whole thing was amazing when it was enacted, the recollection of it now is weirdly strange. But we should never forget that those who uncomplainingly sacrificed for their country the tenderest relations of life were as heroically patriotic as those brave men who fell pierced with Minie balls on the “high places” of bloody battlefields.