attempt at such would result in the
people of Missouri rallying on the side of their Southern brethren to
resist to the last extremity." There was only one vote against this in
the Senate, and but 14 in the House.

The eager young Secessionists were impatient to emulate their brethren
farther south, and strike a definite blow--seize something that would
wreck the sovereignty of the United States. Forts there were none. In
the historic old Jefferson Barracks, below St. Louis, there were only
a small squad of raw recruits, and a few officers, mostly of Southern
proclivities, whom it would be cruel to turn out of house and home while
they were waiting "for their States to go out."

36

There were but two Arsenals in the State; a small affair at Liberty, in
the northwest, near the Missouri River, which contained several hundred
muskets, a dozen cannon, and a considerable quantity of powder. The
other was the great Arsenal at St. Louis, one of the most important in
the country. It covered 56 acres of ground, fronting on the Mississippi
River, was inclosed by a high stone wall on all sides but that of the
river, and had within it four massive stone buildings standing in a
rectangle. In these were stored 60,000 stands of arms, mostly Enfield
and Springfield rifles, 1,500,000 cartridges, 90,000 pounds of powder, a
number of field pieces and siege guns, and a great quantity of munitions
of various kinds. There were also machinery and appliances of great
value. The Arsenal was situated on rather low ground, and was commanded
from hills near by. At the beginning of 1861 the only persons in it were
some staff officers, with their servants and orderlies, and the unarmed
workmen. The officer in command was Maj. Wm. Haywood Bell, a North
Carolinian, graduate of West Point, and Ordnance Officer, but who
had spent nearly the whole of his 40 years' service in Bureau work,
attending meanwhile so providently to his own affairs that he was quite
a wealthy man, with most of his investments in St. Louis.

Gov. Claiborne F. Jackson had as his military adviser and executant
Maj.-Gen. Daniel M. Frost, a New Yorker by birth and a graduate of West
Point. He had served awhile in the Mexican War, where he received a
brevet as First Lieutenant for gallantry at Cerro Gordo, and then became
Quartermaster of his regiment. He had been sent to Europe as a student
of the military art there, but resigned in 1853, to take charge of a
planing mill and