Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/225

Rh be resisted. The convention which met first at Jefferson in February, and then at St. Louis in March, was decidedly against immediate secession. After prolonged discussion it was resolved that Missouri desired the perpetuity of the Union, that the Crittenden resolutions made a good basis for adjusting all difficulties, and that Federal troops should be withdrawn from forts where there was danger of collision, in order to prevent civil war in the State. With exceeding caution, justified, as many of its public men thought, by its specially endangered position, Missouri moved at first with an earnest purpose to prevent the horrors of war.

But war was not only inevitable; it was at hand. The fateful proclamation of the President of the United States seemed to Governor Jackson, of Missouri, to start a civil war and to precede a consolidated despotism and he said so; but he counseled the legislature to take no precipitate and passionate step. Great excitement was caused by the warlike news from Washington city, amidst which arms were secretly conveyed out of Missouri from the unprotected arsenal at St. Louis and delivered into the keeping of hostile parties at Springfield, 111. This abstraction of arms, with which the forces of the State might have been equipped, and the surrender of Camp Jackson, at the same date, caused an alarm that precipitated the passage by the legislature of the pending military bill, which authorized the governor to equip the military and take command in person, so as to suppress riots and insurrections in the State.

General Harney, of the Federal army, came to St. Louis April 15th, assumed command of the military department, and agreed with Major-General Price, representing the governor, upon a plan to preserve the peace, which proved futile because it was disapproved at Washington. Another attempt at agreement, proposed by Governor Jackson, was made June nth, in which he and General Price acted for Missouri, while Frank P Blair and General