In our hot fight for Missouri and the Union we unhappily split up into factions. We not only contended against secession but against each other. And the warring factions were significantly named Charcoals and Claybanks. The Charcoals taken as a whole were uncompromising radicals, while the Claybanks were the conservatives. Many of the Claybanks had been born and educated in the North, while some of the blackest of the Charcoals had been reared in the midst of slavery. They were recent converts to Unionism and gloried in their new-found faith.

What gave birth to these party names no one can certainly tell. Apparently, like Topsy, they “just growed.” The clay of Missouri is of a decidedly neutral tint. Perhaps an extremist, indignant at a conservative for his colorless views, called him a claybank; and since the name was descriptive, fitting, and easily understood by Missourians, it stuck. The conservative, stung by the epithet, may have warmly retorted, “You are a charcoal.” And that name, equally descriptive and fitting, also stuck. At all events each faction named the other, and each adopted the name hostilely given and gloried in it. And for many months these names bandied by the opposing factions played an important part in the heated controversies of our State.

Both Charcoals and Claybanks were loyal to the Federal government. Upon the main issue, the preservation of the Union, they agreed; but they were at swords’ points upon the statement of the problem in hand and the method of its solution. The Claybanks contended that the foremost question was the maintenance of the Union. They were ready to preserve it either with or without slavery. So their cry was: “Let us first save the Union, and afterwards adjust the matter of slavery.”

On the other hand, the avowed object of the Charcoals was to save the Union without slavery; and perhaps they were unduly impatient with those who would save the Union with slavery, or even with those who would save the Union with or without slavery. But they were always ready to give a reason for the faith that was in them. They said: “Slavery is unquestionably the cause of secession and of this bloody war. If we preserve the Union and with it the cause of its present disruption, then, at no distant day, the same cause will rend it again, and our soil will be drenched with the blood of our children. We believe the doctrine of our great President, that the nation cannot continue half slave and half free. We therefore give ourselves to the extermination of the fruitful cause of all our present distress. We fight and pray for the restoration of the Union, but of the Union purged of human bondage.”

These opposing factions also radically disagreed as to the method of dealing with the disloyal, or those suspected of disloyalty. The Claybanks contended that in dealing with rebels or rebel-sympathizers their previous surroundings and education should be taken into account, and large allowance should be made for their inevitable prejudices; that many slaveholders were Unionists and ought not to be driven into hostility to the general government by needlessly severe measures; that every day that they remained in our ranks their Unionism would grow stronger; and that since they were with us on the main question of Unionism, all other questions should be permitted to sink from sight.

But the shibboleth of the Charcoals was: “No quarter to slavery or secession.” They maintained that since the war had been begun by secessionists, in a mixed community like Missouri it was of the utmost importance to find out who were really for the Union and who were against it; and that the shortest road to such knowledge was through uncompromising and drastic measures; and that in the long run such a course of action, rigidly adhered to, would be productive of the least suffering, and consequently most humane. So they urged that all aiders and abetters of rebellion should be imprisoned or sent beyond the lines of the Federal army, and their property confiscated.

But all Charcoals were not alike; some were much more extreme in their views than others. At times they strenuously opposed one another, and the more moderate among them held the more radical in check. A like diversity of views was seen among Claybanks. But notwithstanding the variety of views held by each of these factional parties, each, as we have seen, unitedly and bitterly opposed the other, both in reference to the aim of the war and the manner of conducting it.

When our military commanders came to us one after another, they were beset, not to say besieged, by the Charcoals and Claybanks in reference to the conduct of the war in Missouri. Each faction tried to forestall the other by getting the ear of the new general first, and telling him just what he ought to do in order to achieve success. Each was absolutely sure that only its way was right. Any other course than the one suggested would lead to utter disaster. Each party was so dead in earnest that when its views were discarded it cursed the idiot that had not heeded them. To do his duty intelligently and fearlessly amid this din of clashing opinions, a commander of the Department of Missouri needed great clearness of thought, coolness of disposition, and firmness of purpose. He did not lie on a bed of roses, but on bumblebees’ nests.

General Fremont, whose career among us I have already briefly delineated, gave himself too much into the hands of the radicals. He did this partly because he himself was naturally radical, and partly from the influence of his environment. Our German fellow-citizens, whose views were extreme, at the start got the ear of the general and held it to the last. Mr. Blair, the leader of the Union men of St. Louis, although at first very radical, soon drew away from the extremists, and became a conservative. It was through his great personal influence that Fremont had been put over the Department of the West, and by that same influence he had been removed from his command. Among other reasons urged as making his removal necessary was his radicalism, that had offensively manifested itself when he exceeded his authority in manumitting slaves.

His successor in command was quite as radical as he; but Halleck courted information. He listened attentively to both Charcoals and Claybanks. Having gotten the views of both factions, he discreetly kept his own counsels. He was independent and fearless. His measures were often startlingly radical; but his blows, which fell hard and fast, were mainly directed against rebels, rebel-sympathizers, bushwhackers, bridge-burners and spies. He did, to be sure, as we have seen, deliver a batch of slaves from durance vile and put them on the road to freedom; but in doing it he was very careful to keep strictly within the limits of his authority. While he did not fully please any faction, his administration taken as a whole was far more satisfactory to the Charcoals than to the Claybanks.

General Samuel R. Curtis, Halleck’s successor, leaned decidedly to the Charcoals; in fact he was a Charcoal himself. He and they evidently were one in thought and sentiment. He carried out so far as he was able their extreme views. Without possessing Halleck’s discretion, he continued the policy of assessing wealthy secessionists. But this policy had gradually taken on new features. What began in assessments had unfolded into confiscation. During the last month of his administration, General Curtis sent to the South, beyond the lines of the Union army, not a few persons of means. Those having families were permitted to take with them a thousand dollars; those without families two hundred dollars each. The rest of their property was confiscated and used to meet the necessities of sick and wounded soldiers.

While in some cases this mode of procedure was unquestionably justifiable, still it was a policy specially liable to abuse. It was deprecated by many of the staunchest Union men. They maintained that in a heterogeneous community like ours, where there was every kind and shade of political opinion, it could hardly fail to subject some good men to the rankest injustice; that those who did not openly participate in rebellion, whatever might be their political views or sympathies, should be let alone. There were among us many good men who were born and educated in the South, and while opposed to the folly of secession, they nevertheless naturally sympathized with their kith and kin; and the drastic policy of the extreme radicals and of their Charcoal general greatly disturbed and disheartened them.

Take this as a representative case. There was in St. Louis a prominent Presbyterian minister of Southern sympathies. He had been born and bred in the midst of slavery. He hardly knew where he stood politically. He swung uncertainly between Unionism and secessionism. Like all such irresolute, hesitating mortals, he got into difficulty. The staunch Union men of his church secured his removal from his pulpit by ecclesiastical authority; and he now stood in fear lest the hand of military power might be laid upon him. So he determined to leave the State. One of his familiar acquaintances found him one morning boxing up his household goods, on the sidewalk before his door, and in surprise exclaimed: “Doctor, what’s up now?” He replied: “I am going to get out of this State of Misery;^[90] I can endure it no longer.” “Where are you going?” asked his friend. He answered, “I am going to Kentucky.” “Why,” said his neighbor, “that is a worse State than this.” “Then,” said the doctor, “it must be a State of Despair.”

The extreme policy of General Curtis soon brought him into collision with our conservative, provisional Governor. The sparks flew. The Charcoals and Claybanks put on fresh war-paint. The one upheld the general and his radical policy; the other the Governor and his more moderate policy. While both parties were for the Union, they denounced each other in the hottest terms. If we had believed what both factions declared, we should have been forced to conclude that there was scarcely a decent man among all the Unionists in the State. Each party again and again appealed to the President for his support, but of course he could not side with either. At last, worn out by this incessant strife, in May, 1863, he removed General Curtis from his command and put General Schofield in his place.

On May 24th, the new commander began his work. He was not a stranger to us. Before the war he had been for several months professor of physics in Washington University, which adorned our city, and was highly esteemed by all who knew him. Nor was he unfamiliar with this military department, having been put in command of it for a time by General Halleck. During his brief administration at that time he did such thorough and heroic work that we all expected of him wise, liberal, patriotic service, and were not disappointed.

Three days after he had relieved General Curtis, the President wrote him a letter, which is so quaint and so packed with good sense that we feel impelled to reproduce it. It tersely portrays the difficult task that confronted him.

“My dear Sir:—Having relieved General Curtis and assigned you to the command of the Department of Missouri, I think it may be of some advantage for me to state to you why I did it. I did not relieve General Curtis because of any full conviction that he had done wrong by commission or omission. I did it because of a conviction in my mind that the Union men of Missouri, constituting, when united, a vast majority of the whole people, have entered into a pestilent factional quarrel among themselves—General Curtis, perhaps not from choice, being the head of one faction, and Governor Gamble that of the other. After months of labor to reconcile the difficulty, it seemed to grow worse and worse, until I felt it my duty to break it up somehow; and as I could not remove Governor Gamble, I had to remove General Curtis. Now that you are in the position, I wish you to undo nothing merely because General Curtis or Governor Gamble did it, but to exercise your own judgment and do right for the public interest.

Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invader and keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass and persecute the people. It is a difficult rôle, and so much greater will be the honor if you perform it well. If both factions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the other.

So the general was to begin his duties with a clean slate. But no sooner had he taken firmly hold of his work than the extreme Charcoals began to oppose him and Governor Gamble. Happily he and the Governor agreed in policy and were united in action.

An act of the Governor first elicited the wrath of the extremists. The policy of assessing well-to-do disunionists, begun in St. Louis, had spread itself over the whole State. The dragons’ teeth sown by Halleck were producing an abundant harvest. Just at this time the Provost-marshal general was engaged in gathering assessments in different parts of our commonwealth. Opposed as the Governor was to this arbitrary method of dealing with supposed disloyalty, he commanded the enrolled militia, that was under his immediate control, not to aid the Marshal in collecting the assessments that he had made. For this, the Charcoals poured the vials of their wrath upon his head.

But the Federal commander did not long escape their vituperation. That border ruffian, Quantrell, and his lawless gang, made a raid into Kansas, looted Lawrence and murdered many of its inhabitants. For this dastardly outrage the extreme radicals unreasonably blamed General Schofield. And when General Lane of Kansas and the men following his lead wished to invade Missouri in order to make reprisals, Schofield, in the interest of peace and good order, would not permit it. For this the extreme Charcoals bitterly denounced him, and even called in question his loyalty. They determined to down him. In their newspapers they sharply criticized him and his methods. In return he fulminated an order against the immoderate and lawless press, threatening to throttle it. This was an unwise act on his part. It encouraged them in their opposition. They had not toiled in vain. At least they had made the lion roar. They went to reprehensible extremes. The general believed that they tampered with some of the enrolled militia, that had been put by the Governor under his command. He sent a regiment of militia to New Madrid to relieve the 25th Missouri, and while on board the steamboat, going down the Mississippi, they mutinied, landed, and went to their homes. So if the general’s information was not at fault, faction began to blossom into treason.

As late as October (1863) the radicals sent a communication to the War Department complaining that General Schofield had enrolled rebels in the militia of northwest Missouri, and disarmed Unionists. The general, replying to this charge, declared that he had enrolled “twice as many former rebels” as were named by his accusers, “amounting to from five to ten per cent. of the whole” militia organization of that part of the State, and that he was glad to make a repentant rebel of “more service to the government than a man who never had any political sins to repent of.” He also felt great satisfaction in putting men of that class to “guard the property of their more loyal neighbors.”^[91] So that the act of which his enemies complained was evidently both wise and patriotic.

At last the extremists sent a large delegation to Washington to lay the situation in Missouri, as they apprehended it, before the President, and to urge him to remove General Schofield and appoint in his place General Butler. Mr. Lincoln heard them patiently, and on the following day replied to them in a strong, lucid paper. With marvellous insight he analyzed the parties in our State, and pointed out their attitude towards each other, and towards both the State and national government. He also heartily sustained General Schofield. The members of the delegation were of course disappointed, but returned wiser than when they went. They had surveyed at a distance the factional strife of their State. The perspective gave them a juster notion of its relative importance. They had listened to the luminous analysis of it all by the clear-headed President. They saw new light. From that day factional strife began to subside. It lingered, but it was less virulent. Little by little reason resumed its sway, and a larger charity found place in the minds of those holding divergent views.

But the view of these radicals which General Schofield presents in Chapter V of his “Forty-Six Years in the Army,” seems to me to be somewhat misleading. Admitting, as he claims, that some of them plotted to overthrow the provisional State government, and to change the policy of the national administration, and instigated to open mutiny a regiment of enrolled militia, his declaration that “they are loyal only to their radical theories, and so radical that they cannot possibly be loyal to the government,” certainly was not true of the great mass of them. While some of them, in their zeal for the extinction of slavery and secession, were led into the advocacy of condemnable policies, the loyalty of most of them was spotless. Many who clamored for the general’s removal did so patriotically, believing that the highest interests of Missouri demanded it. I believed then, as I do now, that they were in error, but they were true as steel both to their honest convictions and, as they saw it, to their country. And with the unswerving conviction that in the conflict then raging slavery would perish, they fought right on. Never were men more intensely in earnest. They won at last, as we shall see. Not the Claybank, but the Charcoal triumphed, and in that triumph both were equally blessed. And both contributed to the victory; the intensity of the Charcoal made it possible; the conservatism of the Claybank made it reasonable and most largely beneficent. But General Schofield came near to achieving the position between the factions that the President craved for him. While on the whole he was more satisfactory to the Claybanks than to the Charcoals, he was not wholly satisfactory to either. Some of the Claybanks were bitterly opposed to his policy of enlisting negro troops. And when some loyal slaveholders found their chattels wearing the uniform of United States soldiers, and claimed their property, they were both amazed and wrathful when informed by the general that, notwithstanding their loyalty, their slaves by their act of enlistment had been made free. So it came to pass that some Claybanks and some Charcoals approved him, some Claybanks and some Charcoals, for totally different reasons, sharply condemned him. In a most delicate and difficult position, he tactfully did what he believed to be right, and won the approval of the best elements in both of the warring factions.