On April 13, Confederate gunners in Charleston Harbor hammered Fort Sumter into surrender. With war now on, Lyon warily prepared his men for a Confederate attack, authorizing them to put Hagner in irons if he interfered with their work. 'And if he interferes with me,' he roared, 'I'll shoot him in his tracks!' No attack came.

Two days later President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 three-month volunteers to help crush the rebellion. In Missouri, Governor Jackson responded to Lincoln's decree with bitter defiance. 'Your requisition, in my judgment,' he wrote, 'is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman and diabolical and cannot be complied with. Not one man will the State of Missouri furnish to carry on any unholy crusade.' It was the kind of talk that disgusted hard-core Unionists. Convinced that full-scale war was on the horizon, Lyon wrote: 'But let them come. I would rather see the country lighted up with the flames of war…than that the great rights and hopes of the human race expire before the arrogance of secessionists.'

On April 17, Blair returned from Washington, D.C., with an order from the War Department authorizing Lyon to issue 5,000 muskets to any Union Home Guards willing to enter Federal service. The good news forced him into another faceoff with Harney, who — not having received those specific orders himself — refused to follow them. Trying to slow what he considered Lyon's rush toward war, Harney ordered an end to all Home Guard patrols outside the arsenal and decreed that no one was to issue arms without his explicit approval. Meanwhile, he requested that Lyon be replaced.

Lyon, though, received some good news from Secretary of War Simon Cameron, who approved Lyon's request for two or three Illinois regiments to beef up the arsenal's manpower. Lyon was also authorized to ship 10,000 of the arsenal's muskets to Illinois in order to make the stronghold less attractive to secessionists. This last directive was particularly timely, because that same day pro-Confederate forces had captured and looted the small Federal arsenal at Liberty, Mo.

On the night of April 21, as rumors of a move against the St. Louis arsenal filled the city's streets, Lyon and Blair began swearing volunteers into Federal service. If Governor Jackson would not meet the four-regiment state quota called for by the president, they would. That afternoon Blair had worked the telegraph lines, calling on friends to convince Cameron to make their efforts legal. At midnight, as Lyon worked to enlist and equip the long lines of Germans, the telegraph not only carried news of Washington's approval but that Harney had been relieved. A few hours later, Hagner was relieved as well, and Lyon found himself in command of the entire Department of the West. He and Blair were ecstatic.

Within a few days hundreds of enthusiastic Missouri volunteers had filled the state's four federally sanctioned regiments. The 1st Missouri named Blair its first colonel. The Germans picked former German army officer and St. Louis school superintendent Franz Sigel to lead the 3rd Regiment, and Lyon as their brigadier general. This last choice — backed by Blair after William T. Sherman turned it down — gave Lyon authority to have his way in St. Louis.

Lyon's cause received a further boost on April 25. When an Illinois officer arrived to arrange the agreed-upon transfer of arms to Illinois, Lyon spread word that his men would be moving a large load of guns through town that evening. That night, while tipped-off secessionists swarmed over empty streetcars searching for the loot, Union troops quickly loaded a steamer with thousands of arms, leaving only enough guns within the fort's walls for its defenders. Lyon's successful ruse drew hundreds more German volunteers to his support, and also resulted in consent from Washington to create a Reserve Corps of up to 10,000 men. In authorizing Lyon to declare martial law if necessary, President Lincoln noted, 'It is revolutionary times, and therefore I do not object to the irregularity of this.'

As preparations for war continued in the East, a showdown in Missouri was nearing. Fearful of Lyon's consolidation of power, Jackson petitioned the General Assembly to pass his own military bill, which he expected to bring out volunteers in droves to defend the state. Meanwhile, members of the state militia were instructed to temporarily assemble in their respective camps in expectation of mobilization. Daniel Frost, a West Pointer and district commander in St. Louis, assembled 900 men at Lindell Grove on the western outskirts of the city. The outfit dubbed its training ground Camp Jackson, in honor of the pro-Southern governor.

Lyon eyed the camp with deep suspicion. The militia made no attempt to hide its secessionist leanings. The camp's bumpy'streets' were named for Jefferson Davis and P.G.T. Beauregard. Meanwhile Arkansas and Tennessee left the Union, and to clear-thinking Unionists it looked like Missouri might be next. When Frost sent an aide to request permission for his artillerists to get in some practice on the heights south of the arsenal, Lyon exploded. Any militia unit that moved into such a position, the seething general warned, would be welcomed by Union shells.

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