Dickey did not take kindly to the setback and led the remaining Wide-Awakes against the front entrance of the mansion. The Minutemen attempted unsuccessfully to fire the brass swivel gun placed at the doorway, and Duke grappled with Dickey on the front steps, the little match ending with Duke holding a knife to Dickey's throat. Muskets and revolvers were brandished on both sides. The Minutemen in the crowd began to brawl with anyone within reach, and the situation soon began to deteriorate, with men who had no strong political feelings trying to find shelter as quickly and as far away from the mob as possible. The affair ended when, as Greene wrote, Irish from the Biddell Market quarter joined with us in the melee and we were masters of the ground.

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Following the events at the Berthold mansion, both sides regrouped, organized their forces and engaged in verbal recriminations. Most significant, the respective sides redoubled their efforts to bring outside aid into the state. Both the Federal and Confederate governments had been handling the situation in Missouri with kid gloves. Neither government seemed willing to commit to complete involvement, for fear that overt support would antagonize St. Louis citizens and drive the state into the opponent's hands. James Buchanan's lame-duck administration kept to the same waffling stance it had taken whenever the notion of secession came up. Meanwhile, the nascent Confederate administration in Montgomery, Ala., was too disorganized to move effectively even if it had so desired.

Blair, Lyon and other Wide-Awakes renewed their efforts in Washington to coax effective Federal help to the city. Again, the focus was the arsenal, commanded by Major William H. Bell, whom Blair strongly suspected of holding pro-Southern sympathies. He was correct.

In January, Jackson and Price had moved the small battalion of state militia, comprising roughly 500 men, from the southwest area of the state to St. Louis. Originally formed to combat Kansas Jayhawkers during the years of Bleeding Kansas, when internecine raiding and skirmishing had occurred almost daily across the border between the two states, the militia had been languishing at Carthage for the past year. Brigadier General Daniel M. Frost, a Mexican War veteran and an 1844 West Point graduate, commanded the small force. Although born in New York, Frost was thoroughly Southern in both his sympathies and politics. Jackson had hoped the people of the state would vote for secession, allowing him to take the arsenal without the use of force, as other seceding states had done. When the state convention voted overwhelmingly to remain in the Union, Jackson charged Frost with taking the arsenal by force when he deemed it expedient to do so.

Accordingly, Frost had requested a conference with Major Bell, and wrote Jackson on January 24 of the result. I have just returned from the arsenal, he reported. I found the Major everything you or I could desire. He assured me he considered Missouri had, whenever the time came, a right to claim it as being on her soil. He asserted his determination to defend it against any and all irresponsible mobs, come from whence they might, but at the same time gave me to understand that he would not attempt any defense against proper State authorities. Blair became aware of Bell's sympathies and the meeting with Frost through Isaac H. Sturgeon, assistant treasurer of St. Louis. Sturgeon had the confidence of the prosecessionists while secretly working for Blair and the Wide-Awakes.

Blair immediately began lobbying Washington for Bell's removal, but the Buchanan administration would not comply. Finally, Blair was able to bypass the administration and persuade General-in-Chief Winfield Scott to replace Bell with Major Peter V. Hagner. Hagner was an old-line Regular Army officer and was not predisposed to surrender the arsenal to either side without proper military orders from Washington. While not exactly a victory for Blair, the appointment of Hagner at least prevented Bell from turning the arsenal over to the Minutemen.

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