On April 15, 1861, three days after the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 militiamen to serve for 90 days against 'combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. In the border states of Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and Missouri, Lincoln's proclamation met with a decidedly mixed reaction. Governor William Burton of Delaware reported that his state had no militia and therefore could not comply, while Governor Thomas Hicks of Maryland replied that his state would only furnish troops for the defense of Washington. Governor Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky issued the fiery statement, Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern states. The most incendiary reply of all was sent by Governor Claiborne F. Jackson of Missouri: Your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and cannot be complied with. Jackson's stance would be the backdrop against which the struggle for Missouri and her greatest asset to both sides, the city of St. Louis, would be played out.

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In the early days of the war, Missouri's strategic importance was well-realized by both governments. If the state remained in the Union, the Federal government would have a perfect staging area into the heart of the Mississippi Valley. The great river port of St. Louis would be a base of operations for a thrust down the river to Memphis and points farther south. It would also allow the vital town of Cairo, at the southern tip of Illinois, to be garrisoned and provisioned, opening the Ohio and Tennessee rivers to Federal incursions. Conversely, if Missouri seceded, the Confederate government would have a large salient into Northern territory, the state of Illinois would be threatened, the Mississippi Valley would be secure, and the Ohio and Tennessee rivers would be protected. In addition, both sides coveted Missouri's rich farmland and her large population of military-age men.

Internally, Missouri was truly a state divided. The majority of the population held to the view of conditional unionism. According to this rather impractical concept, slavery should be left to popular sovereignty within a state, but, conversely, there should still be a strong Federal government. Many Missourians hoped to remain neutral in the conflict. However, two small minorities — unconditional union men and pro-secessionists — existed within the state, and it was around these two factions that the struggle for Missouri would increasingly revolve.

The two most prominent pro-secession leaders were the newly elected Governor Claiborne Jackson and former Governor Sterling Price. Jackson was a pro-Southern fire-eater who had been attempting to align Missouri with the Confederacy since the day of his election. Price, a well-respected Mexican War veteran, prosperous slave-owning tobacco planter and former congressman, had initially supported conditional unionism but had switched allegiance to the pro-secessionists when Jackson convened a state convention in February 1861 to address the question of secession. The pro-secessionists failed miserably in their attempts to take the state out of the Union, as the majority of delegates elected were conditional-union men. Price wrote in a letter to a friend after the convention's decision: It is now inevitable that the general government will attempt the coercion of our southern states. War will ensue. I am a military man, a southern man, and if we have to fight, will do so on the part of the South.

Francis P. Blair and Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon headed the unconditional-union faction. Blair, scion of the politically powerful Blair family (his brother Montgomery was Lincoln's postmaster general), insisted on the full support of the Federal government and declared that any talk of secession was treason. Lyon, a pugnacious 43-year-old New Englander who had once declared, I was born among the rocks, commanded Jefferson Barracks, the Federal garrison at St. Louis, and was an ardent abolitionist. When word of Governor Jackson's reply to Lincoln's call for militia reached their ears, both men regarded it as the strongest sort of treason. Blair immediately set about organizing the Home Guards from St. Louis' strong German immigrant population, while calling for reinforcements from Illinois, Iowa and Kansas. Lyon assisted by arming the groups with weapons from the arsenal. Jackson and Price, in turn, formed the Missouri State Guard. The stage was set for a violent clash; its focus would be the city of St. Louis.

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