As tensions increased in the city, Lyon’s network of spies informed him that a steamer, said to be carrying stolen Federal cannons hidden in crates labeled ‘Marble,’ was due in St. Louis shortly. Rumor had it that the cannons were a donation from Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Verifying the destination and contents of the steamer’s cargo would require creativity and personal risk — but would also supply a touch of comedy to the otherwise grim proceedings.

Under cover of darkness on the night of May 8, shadowy figures quietly unloaded the mysterious cargo of the steamer J.C. Swan. With Lyon’s agents watching the whole way, the group loaded the crates onto wagons and rolled across the city — directly into pro-Confederate Camp Jackson.

The next day, as Camp Jackson hosted friends and family from the city, a familiar carriage rumbled through the camp at a leisurely pace. Militiamen recognized its passenger as Frank Blair’s blind mother-in-law, and let it roll by unfettered. Well known throughout the city, Mrs. Mira Alexander wore a black dress and heavy black veil on her daily trips around town. Bellowing above the sound of trodding horses, her driver described the sights all around them. Thirty minutes later the carriage wheeled out of camp, crossed the city, and rolled into the Federal arsenal. The slight figure in black stepped out of the carriage and removed the veil to reveal the thick red whiskers and matted hair of General Lyon. Without anyone suspecting, the disguised Lyon had surveyed the entire secessionist camp.

Lyon had seen enough of Daniel Frost’s supposedly benign militia to confirm his fears, including smuggled weapons, and he called a meeting of the Committee of Public Safety for that evening, May 9. The time to strike, he argued, was now. The secessionists were becoming stronger every day and bolder in their daily attacks on Union men. (Blair had already been forced to move his family out of town.) More unsettling was fresh news that Harney had somehow regained his position, and was due back in town any day.

With Blair and Major John Schofield, Lyon worked long into the night, drawing up a plan to surround Frost’s camp. Early the next afternoon, Lyon emerged from the arsenal, ‘his hair in the wind, his pockets full of papers, wild and irregular.’ The general led a Federal column west through the city. Taking specifically planned routes, five other columns also began the six-mile march to Camp Jackson. Lyon hoped the six columns — totaling about 5,500 men — would arrive simultaneously.Almost as soon as Lyon’s force began turning out around noon, Frost knew something was brewing. He sent an aide to Lyon with a note asking if the swirling rumors of an imminent move against his camp were true.

Lyon saw no point in responding. Somehow his columns all reached Camp Jackson at the same time, and discovered that Frost had not organized a defense. The Union men planted a six-gun battery above the field and quickly surrounded the badly outnumbered militia. When all was in place, Lyon dispatched Schofield with an ultimatum for Frost. ‘Your command is regarded as evidently hostile towards the government of the United States,’ Lyon’s missive began. He went on to note Frost’s continuing communication with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, the presence in Camp Jackson of avowed secessionists, and his possession of weapons stolen from United Sates facilities. Lyon demanded Frost’s surrender within 30 minutes, and Schofield returned shortly with Frost’s indignant response. Outgunned 8-to-1, Frost stated he had no options but surrender to Lyon’s ‘illegal and unconstitutional demands…made by an officer of the United States Army.’

Capturing Frost’s men was one thing; marching them back to the arsenal would prove quite another. A growing crowd of anti-Union spectators, fueled by liquor and resentment, had gathered around the site and was growing increasingly agitated. As two columns of Regulars guided Lyon’s 669 prisoners (about 160 of Frost’s men had escaped) through town, spectators began raining insults, garbage and even bricks onto the hated German volunteers. Suddenly a shot rang out, fatally wounding Captain Constantine Blandowski, a popular German company commander. When more shots followed near the rear of the column, the frightened and inexperienced troops opened fire on their tormentors. In no time, 28 civilians, two soldiers and three prisoners lay dead in the streets.

The balance of the long march back to the arsenal seemed like an eternity to the wary Union troops, who cast their eyes right and left while keeping order in their lines. Finally the strains of German music signaled their arrival on safe ground, and the soldiers passed through the arsenal’s gates with great relief. By coincidence, both William T. Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant — future architects of Union victory in the war now beginning — happened to be in St. Louis that day. Sherman, who had spoken with Blair just that morning, barely evaded the flying lead on the city’s streets that afternoon. Grant, who like Sherman was still awaiting a Federal commission, offered Blair and Lyon his congratulations upon their return to the arsenal.

Lyon’s raid sent shockwaves across the state. It also put a quick end to the secessionist threat in St. Louis, cementing the Union hold on the city. In addition to nearly 700 pro-Confederate fighters, Lyon’s booty included the weapons smuggled into St. Louis aboard J.C. Swan — two 24-pounder howitzers, one 8-inch siege mortar, six coehorn mortars, 500 muskets and considerable ammunition. To Lyon this evidence alone justified his move against the camp and damned Frost and his cohorts as traitors.

But there were serious side effects to Lyon’s audacious move. Outraged secessionists challenged the legality of his offensive and dubbed the subsequent riot the ‘Camp Jackson Massacre.’ Fearful St. Louis residents fled the city in droves. Others stayed behind closed doors and spewed venomous oaths against Lyon, Blair and the dreaded ‘Dutch’ — a derisive term reserved for the city’s German population.

Still more bad news arrived. An outraged Missouri legislature suddenly passed Jackson’s long-stalled military bill. Meanwhile, former Missouri Governor Sterling Price joined the secessionist cause. The graying Mexican War veteran remained, like his state, officially neutral. Now Jackson put him in charge of the rapidly expanding Missouri State Guard.Lyon paroled his prisoners the following day. As for the tragic postscript to his capture of the militia camp, he regretted the deaths of so many innocents. ‘The troops manifested every forbearance,’ he said in a statement, ‘and discharged their guns simply obeying the impulse natural to us all in self defense. If innocent men, women, and children, whose curiosity placed them in a dangerous position, suffered with the guilty, it is no fault of the troops.’

Harney returned to St. Louis in the wake of the Camp Jackson affair, eager to broker peace between the secessionist and Federal factions. On May 21, Harney and Sterling Price signed an agreement intended to end any further military preparations by either side. But while Harney meant well, he failed to recognize Jackson’s determination to arrange Missouri’s secession and Lyon’s unwillingness to compromise. The much-ballyhooed Price-Harney agreement was rendered pointless when Harney was removed from the department for good at the end of May. His departure left Lyon and Jackson careening toward a confrontation. If that meant war, Nathaniel Lyon was prepared to welcome it.

---

This article was written by Eric Ethier and originally published in the June 2005 issue of Civil War Times Magazine.

For more great articles, be sure to subscribe to Civil War Times magazine today!

Pages: 1 2 3