ted to the Union as the State of West
Virginia. In Delaware, though some degree of secession feeling existed,
it was too insignificant to produce any note-worthy public
demonstration.

In Kentucky the political struggle was deep and prolonged. The governor
twice called the legislature together to initiate secession proceedings;
but that body refused compliance, and warded off his scheme by voting to
maintain the State neutrality. Next, the governor sought to utilize the
military organization known as the State Guard to effect his object. The
Union leaders offset this movement by enlisting several volunteer Union
regiments. At the June election nine Union congressmen were chosen, and
only one secessionist; while in August a new legislature was elected
with a three-fourths Union majority in each branch. Other secession
intrigues proved equally abortive; and when, finally, in September,
Confederate armies invaded Kentucky at three different points, the
Kentucky legislature invited the Union armies of the West into the State
to expel them, and voted to place forty thousand Union volunteers at the
service of President Lincoln.

In Missouri the struggle was more fierce, but also more brief. As far
back as January, the conspirators had perfected a scheme to obtain
possession, through the treachery of the officer in charge, of the
important Jefferson Barracks arsenal at St. Louis, with its store of
sixty thousand stand of arms and a million and a half cartridges. The
project, however, failed. Rumors of the danger came to General Scott,
who ordered thither a company of regulars under command of Captain
Nathaniel Lyon, an officer not only loyal by nature and habit, but also
imbued with strong antislavery convictions. Lyon found valuable support
in the watchfulness of a Union Safety Committee composed of leading St.
Louis citizens, who secretly organized a number of Union regiments
recruited largely from the heavy German population; and from these
sources Lyon was enabled to make such a show of available military force
as effectively to deter any mere popular uprising to seize the arsenal.

A State convention, elected to pass a secession ordinance, resulted,
unexpectedly to the conspirators, in the return of a majority of Union
delegates, who voted down the secession program and adjourned to the
following December. Thereupon, the secession governor ordered his State
militia into temporary camps of instruction, with the idea of t