After the suppression of these papers, rigorous measures multiplied. The provost marshal, by a general order, forbade any one to pass beyond the limits of the city and county of St. Louis without a special permit from his office. That those born since the war may know under what stringent regulations all of us lived for many months, see the facsimile of both sides of a pass issued to myself, in October of 1861.

These requirements made and strictly enforced by martial law greatly annoyed many, even among the loyal of the city and county, especially elderly men and women, who had spent most of their lives in unrestrained liberty of movement. To be compelled to solicit in person a permit from the provost marshal to leave or enter the city seemed to them an arrogant and galling invasion of their freedom. And while they bowed to this inexorable demand so necessary to guard the fealty of their city and State to the Union, it was a yoke to which they unwillingly submitted, and under which they chafed.

I well remember meeting at that time a large, venerable man, who by a multitude of people was affectionately called Father Welsh. He was a pioneer Baptist minister. He had long lived in St. Louis County, and had preached not only in churches, schoolhouses, and private residences, but in summer in groves under the canopy of leafy boughs. He was not only generally respected, but sincerely loved by very many who had been blessed through his faithful, sympathetic ministrations. He was loyal to his country. His patriotism was unqualified and ardent, but to him martial law was abhorrent. He complained bitterly that one as old and well known as he was should be compelled to solicit a pass from a United States officer, in order that, unmolested by military sentinels, he might enter and leave the city and county where he had so long proclaimed the gospel. And he evidently represented many of unsullied patriotism, who deeply felt the infringement of their accustomed liberties. But in a border city, we were all compelled to learn by experience the difference between a state of war and a state of peace.

But if martial law was so distasteful even to some of the truly loyal, what was it to the men and women among us, who were aiding and abetting those in rebellion against the Federal government? They could not take the stringent oath printed on the pass, without which it could not be granted to them. If they should undertake to get out of the city or county without a pass, in all probability they would be challenged and arrested by the military sentinels, and, unable to take any oath of allegiance, would be duly landed in durance vile. Rather than run such risks, most of them, muttering their indignant protests, sat down in their homes and sulkily waited for deliverance. But the kind of deliverance that they ardently longed for happily never came.

On the same day that the provost marshal issued his order in reference to passes, General Fremont put the whole State under martial law, and, as many contended, unwarrantably assuming the functions of the general government, proclaimed the freedom of all slaves belonging to those guilty of disloyalty to the United States.[[56]] He made good his extraordinary proclamation by explicit act. On September 12th, notwithstanding the President had written him on the 2d, taking exception to this manifesto, he manumitted two slaves, belonging to Thomas L. Snead of St. Louis, and issued their manumission papers over his signature as major-general.[[57]] Lincoln kindly called his attention to the fact that he was transcending his authority, and gave him the opportunity to modify his own policy, without any open declaration of dissent on the part of the general government. But in reply, Fremont preferred that the President himself should modify the obnoxious proclamation;[[58]] so, reluctantly but firmly, Mr. Lincoln publicly set aside so much of the general’s proclamation of August 30th as pertained to the manumission of slaves belonging to rebels.[[59]]

The question on which the President and his general clashed was confessedly delicate and manifestly perplexing to those in administrative circles. At bottom, the duty of the President was clear. Since slavery was a local institution he could not legally interfere with it in any loyal State; and, as a State, Missouri had declared against secession. Just what, however, might be rightly done, according to the laws of war, with the slaves of the disloyal in loyal States was as yet apparently not altogether clear to those in authority at Washington. Still, on grounds of expediency, conservative action was manifestly wisest, in order not unnecessarily to alienate the loyal pro-slavery element of the border States. The problem in all its bearings greatly agitated the Unionists of our city. Upon it they were divided in both judgment and sentiment. Some said: “The enslavement of the negro is the real cause of the war. By law he is declared to be property; and if, as has been done before our eyes, a general may confiscate buildings belonging to the disloyal, and appropriate them to the use of the United States, why can he not treat the slave property of rebels in the same way?” “But,” their opponents replied, “this is what Fremont did not do with the slaves of Mr. Snead; he did not turn them over to the United States to be used in promoting the interests of the Federal government; he simply set them free. He is putting himself forward as an emancipator.” So the ideas of staunch Unionists were in conflict. Evidently the most intelligent and thoughtful unhesitatingly sustained the President in his modification of the general’s manifesto. And without expressing here any opinion as to whether or not their judgment of Fremont was just, it is true that many of them began to feel that in attempting to do what in itself as a matter of merely abstract justice was right, he was quite too impulsive, effusive, and spectacular, and that he had clearly exceeded his authority. In fact he was attempting to do what the general government felt itself debarred from doing by constitutional law and by a late specific act of Congress.

THE AUTHOR, GALUSHA ANDERSON, IN 1861, WHEN THE PASS WAS GRANTED HIM.
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But Fremont’s career, as commander of the Western Department, now drew rapidly to its close. He had gathered an army of twenty-five thousand men; but when the brave Mulligan at Lexington, on the Missouri River, in the western part of the State, was besieged by a rebel force more than four times greater than his own, and yet fought on pluckily for days, Fremont failed to re-enforce him. To be sure, he made what seemed to us a rather belated and languid effort so to do, but the troops ordered by him to Lexington failed to reach their destination before Mulligan was compelled to surrender.[[60]] This was a blow so disastrous to the Union cause, that the loyal of our city were filled with disappointment and discontent. Some of them murmured their disapprobation of the commanding general, some openly and bitterly denounced him. The Evening News, a Union journal, in a strong, manly editorial, entitled “The Fall of Lexington,” sharply criticized his failure to re-enforce Mulligan, and for this criticism, the proprietor, Charles G. Ramsay, was arrested by order of the provost marshal, taken to headquarters and there examined by the military authorities. He was sent to prison, and his paper was suppressed. All the manuscript in his office was seized and the building, where his paper was published, was put into the possession of a provost-guard.[[61]] With very few dissenting voices, this invasion of the freedom of the press was sharply condemned by Union men. The occurrence added largely to the distrust of the capacity of the general for a command so large and difficult.

The surrender of Mulligan’s small heroic army at Lexington stimulated Fremont to more strenuous effort. He now contemplated marching against the enemy that was so rapidly gaining strength in west and southwest Missouri. But in that event St. Louis would be left quite uncovered; so to provide for the defence of the city in the absence of his army, he proceeded to surround it on the north, west and south with earthworks, in which he placed great guns. These works he intended to man with a few hundred soldiers, who, if any enemy should approach, could with those big guns sweep with grape and canister all the roads that led to the city. Many of us, little acquainted with military affairs, looked on with curiosity mingled with wonder, grateful for the benign care bestowed upon us by our patriotic commander; but I noticed that those who evidently knew more of war viewed these earthworks with ill-concealed contempt. And during many months they remained unmanned, mute reminders of the wisdom or folly of the celebrated Fremont, under whose immediate direction they had been constructed.