On the 15th of June I returned from Cairo to St. Louis. Lyon had gone up the Missouri River with an expedition, which was all fitted out and started in a few hours. Lyon was very much in earnest, and he knew the supreme value of time in the outset of a war.
How just are the retributions of history! Virginia originated State Rights run-mad, which culminated in Secession. Behold her ground between the upper and nether mill-stones! Missouri lighted the fires of civil war in Kansas; now they blazed with tenfold fury upon her own soil. She sent forth hordes to mob printing-presses, overawe the ballot-box, substitute the bowie-knife and revolver for the civil law. Now, her own area gleamed with bayonets; the Rebel newspaper was suppressed by the file of soldiers, civil process supplanted by the unpitying military arm.
Governor Claiborne F. Jackson, in 1855, led a raid into Kansas, which overthrew the civil authorities, and drove citizens from the polls. Now, the poisoned chalice was commended to his own lips. A hunted fugitive from his home and his chair of office, he was deserted by friends, ruined in fortune, and the halter waited for his neck. Thomas C. Reynolds, late Lieutenant-Governor, by advocating the right of Secession, did much to poison the public mind of the South. He, too, found his reward in disgrace and outlawry; unable to come within the borders of the State which so lately delighted to do him honor!
A Railroad Reminiscence.
I followed Lyon's Expedition by the Pacific railway. The president of the road told me a droll story, which illustrates the folly that governed the location of the railway system of Missouri. The Southwest Branch is about a hundred miles long, through a very thinly settled region. For the first week after the cars commenced running over it, they carried only about six passengers, and no freight except a live bear and a jar of honey. The honey was carried free, and the freight on Bruin was fifty cents. Shut up in the single freight car, during the trip, he ate all the honey! The company were compelled to pay two dollars for the loss of that saccharine esculent. Thus their first week's profits on freight amounted to precisely one dollar and fifty cents on the wrong side of the ledger.
The Rebels had now evacuated Jefferson City, and our own troops, commanded by Colonel Bœrnstein, a German editor, author, and theatrical manager, of St. Louis, were in peaceable possession. The soldiers were cooking upon the grass in the rear of the Capitol, standing in the shade of its portico and rotunda, lying on beds of hay in its passages, and upon carpets in the legislative halls. They reposed in all its rooms, from the subterranean vaults to the little circular chamber in the dome.
Untainted with "B. Republicanism."
Governor and Legislature were fled. With Colonel Bœrnstein, I went through the executive mansion, which had been deserted in hot haste. Sofas were overturned, carpets torn up and littered with letters and public documents. Tables, chairs, damask curtains, cigar-boxes, champagne-bottles, ink-stands, books, private letters, and family knick-knacks, were scattered everywhere in chaotic confusion. Some of the Governor's correspondence was amusing. The first letter I noticed was a model of brevity. Here it is—its virgin paper unsullied by the faintest touch of "B. Republicanism."
Jefferson City, fed. 21nd 1861.
"to his Honour Gov. C. F. Jackson.—Please Accept My Compliments. With a little good Old Bourbon Whisky Cocktail. Made up Expressly in St Louis. fear it not. it is good. And besides it is not even tainted with B. Republicanism. Respectfully yours,