Apathy of the Border States.—­The Missouri State Convention.—­Sterling Price a Union Man.—­Plan to take the State out of the Union.—­Capture of Camp Jackson.—­Energy of General Lyon.—­Union Men organized.—­An Unfortunate Collision.—­The Price-Harney Truce.—­The Panic among the Secessionists.—­Their Hegira from St. Louis.—­A Visit to the State Capital.—­Under the Rebel Flag.—­Searching for Contraband Articles.—­An Introduction to Rebel Dignitaries.—­Governor Jackson.—­Sterling Price.—­Jeff.  Thompson.—­Activity at Cairo.—­Kentucky Neutrality.—­The Rebels occupy Columbus.

The Border States were not prompt to follow the example of the States on the Gulf and South Atlantic coast.  Missouri and Kentucky were loyal, if the voice of the majority is to be considered the voice of the population.  Many of the wealthier inhabitants were, at the outset, as they have always been, in favor of the establishment of an independent Southern Government.  Few of them desired an appeal to arms, as they well knew the Border States would form the front of the Confederacy, and thus become the battle-field of the Rebellion.  The greater part of the population of those States was radically opposed to the secession movement, but became powerless under the noisy, political leaders who assumed the control.  Many of these men, who were Unionists in the beginning, were drawn into the Rebel ranks on the plea that it would be treason to refuse to do what their State Government had decided upon.

The delegates to the Missouri State Convention were elected in February, 1861, and assembled at St. Louis in the following April.  Sterling Price, afterward a Rebel general, was president of this Convention, and spoke in favor of keeping the State in the Union.  The Convention thought it injudicious for Missouri to secede, at least at that time, and therefore she was not taken out.  This discomfited the prime movers of the secession schemes, as they had counted upon the Convention doing the desired work.  In the language of one of their own number, “they had called a Convention to take the State out of the Union, and she must be taken out at all hazards.”  Therefore a new line of policy was adopted.

The Governor of Missouri was one of the most active and unscrupulous Secessionists.  After the failure of the Convention to unite Missouri with the Confederacy, Governor Jackson overhauled the militia laws, and, under their sanction, issued a call for a muster of militia near St. Louis.  This militia assembled at Lindell Grove, in the suburbs of St. Louis, and a military camp was established, under the name of “Camp Jackson.”  Though ostensibly an innocent affair, this camp was intended to be the nucleus of the army to hoist the Rebel flag in the State.  The officers in command were known Secessionists, and every thing about the place was indicative of its character.