in their machinations to win over or crush the leaders of those
favorable to the Union. Everywhere they had the "White Trash" solidly
behind them to vote as they wished, and to harry and persecute the Union
men. As machinery for malevolence the "White Trash" myrmidons could
not be surpassed. Criminal instincts inherited from their villain
forefathers made them ready and capable of anything from maiming a Union
man's stock and burning his stacks to shooting him down from
ambush. They had personal feeling to animate them in this, for their
depredations upon the hogs and crops of their thriftier neighbors had
brought them into lifelong collisions with the Middle Class, while they
had but little opportunity for resentment against the owners of the
large plantations. In every State in the South the story was the same,
of the Middle Class Union men being harassed at the command of the
Slaveowners by the "White Trash" hounds. They had been sent into Kansas
to drive out the Free State immigrants there and secure the territory
for Slavery, but though backed up by the power of the Administration,
they had been signally defeated by the numerically inferior but bolder
and hardier immigrants from the North.

19

Force rules this world; it always has; it always will. Not merely
physical force, but that incomparably higher type--intellectual
force--Power of Will. It seemed that in nearly all the States of the
South the Slaveowners by sheer audacity and force of will succeeded in
dominating the great majority which favored the Union, and by one device
or another committing them hopelessly to the rebellion. This was notably
the case in Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia, where the
majority repeatedly expressed itself in favor of the Union, but was
dragooned into Secession.

In Missouri, however, the Secessionists encountered leaders with will
and courage superior to their own. Many of these were Slaveowners
themselves, and nearly all of them were of Southern birth. Head and
shoulders above these, standing up among them like Saul among the
Sons of Israel, was Frank P. Blair, then in the full powers of perfect
manhood. He was 42 years old, tall and sinewy in body, blue-eyed and
sandy-haired. He came of the best Virginia and Kentucky stock, and had
long been a resident and slaveowner in Missouri. As a boy he had served
in the ranks in the Mexican War, had an adventurous career on the
Pacific Coast, had gone back to Misso