aking
Missouri out of the Union by a concerted military movement. One of these
encampments, established at St. Louis and named Camp Jackson in honor of
the governor, furnished such unquestionable evidences of intended
treason that Captain Lyon, whom President Lincoln had meanwhile
authorized to enlist ten thousand Union volunteers, and, if necessary,
to proclaim martial law, made a sudden march upon Camp Jackson with his
regulars and six of his newly enlisted regiments, stationed his force in
commanding positions around the camp, and demanded its surrender. The
demand was complied with after but slight hesitation, and the captured
militia regiments were, on the following day, disbanded under parole.
Unfortunately, as the prisoners were being marched away a secession mob
insulted and attacked some of Lyon's regiments and provoked a return
fire, in which about twenty persons, mainly lookers-on, were killed or
wounded; and for a day or two the city was thrown into the panic and
lawlessness of a reign of terror.

Upon this, the legislature, in session at Jefferson City, the capital of
the State, with a three-fourths secession majority, rushed through the
forms of legislation a military bill placing the military and financial
resources of Missouri under the governor's control. For a month longer
various incidents delayed the culmination of the approaching struggle,
each side continuing its preparations, and constantly accentuating the
rising antagonism. The crisis came when, on June 11, Governor Jackson
and Captain Lyon, now made brigadier-general by the President, met in an
interview at St. Louis. In this interview the governor demanded that he
be permitted to exercise sole military command to maintain the
neutrality of Missouri, while Lyon insisted that the Federal military
authority must be left in unrestricted control. It being impossible to
reach any agreement, Governor Jackson hurried back to his capital,
burning railroad bridges behind him as he went, and on the following
day, June 12, issued his proclamation calling out fifty thousand State
militia, and denouncing the Lincoln administration as "an
unconstitutional military despotism."

Lyon was also prepared for this contingency. On the afternoon of June
13, he embarked with a regular battery and several battalions of his
Union volunteers on steamboats, moved rapidly up the Missouri River to
Jefferson City, drove the governor and the secession legislature into
prec