Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 9.djvu/294



HE State convention met at Jefferson City on the Conditional Union man, was elected president. He received 75 votes, and Nathaniel Watkins, a half-brother of Henry Clay, received 15. As soon as the convention was organized it adjourned to St. Louis, the stronghold of Unionism in the State, and put itself under the protection of Blair's Wide-awakes. In some respects the convention looked fair enough for the Southern Rights cause. If the people had not elected Secessionists they had elected Southern men to represent them, and men whom they thought they could trust. It consisted of 99 members. Of these 53 were natives of either Virginia or Kentucky, and all but 17 of the whole number were Southern born. Of the remainder, 13 were natives of Northern States, three were Germans, and one was an Irishman.

On re-assembling in St. Louis on the 4th of March, the convention went to work in earnest On the 9th the committee on Federal relations made a long report Ex-Gov. Sterling Price, a