eneral D. M. Frost, who was now
forced to establish Camp Jackson in a far less favorable place. So
vigorously had Blair and Lyon worked that they had armed thousands
while Frost had only armed hundreds. But when Frost received siege
guns and mortars from farther south Lyon felt the time had come
for action.

Lyon was a born leader, though Grant and Sherman (then in St. Louis
as junior ex-officers, quite unknown to fame) were almost the only
men, apart from Blair, to see any signs of preeminence in this
fiery little redheaded, weather-beaten captain, who kept dashing
about the arsenal, with his pockets full of papers, making sure
of every detail connected with the handful of regulars and the
thousands of Home Guards.

On the ninth of May Lyon borrowed an old dress from Blair's
mother-in-law, completing the disguise with a thickly veiled sunbonnet,
and drove through Camp Jackson. That night he and Blair attended
a council of war, at which, overcoming all opposition, answering
all objections, and making all arrangements, they laid their plans
for the morrow. When Lyon's seven thousand surrounded Frost's seven
hundred the Confederates surrendered at discretion and were marched
as prisoners through St. Louis. There were many Southern sympathizers
among the crowds in the streets; one of them fired a pistol; and
the Home Guards fired back, killing several women and children
by mistake. This unfortunate incident hardened many neutrals and
even Unionists against the Union forces; so much so that Sterling
Price, a Unionist and former governor, became a Confederate general,
whose field for recruiting round Jefferson City on the Missouri
promised a good crop of enemies to the Union cause.

Lyon and Blair wished to march against Price immediately and smash
every hostile force while still in the act of forming. But General
Harney, who commanded the Department of the West, returned to St.
Louis the day after the shooting and made peace instead of war with
Price. By the end of the month, however, Lincoln removed Harney and
promoted Lyon in his place; whereupon Price and Governor Jackson at
once prepared to fight. Then sundry neutrals, of the gabbling kind
who think talk enough will settle anything, induced the implacables
to meet in St. Louis. The conference was ended by Lyon's declaration
that he would see every Missourian under the sod before he would
take any orders from the State about any Federal matter, however
small. "This,