A form of commanding hight (sp.), physique equal to any test of activity or endurance, a natural leader of men through superiority of courage and ability, William Selby Harney had for 43 years made an unsurpassed record as a commander of soldiers. He had served in the everglades of Florida, on the boundless plains west of the Mississippi, and in Mexico, during the brilliantly spectacular war which ended with our "reveling in the Halls of the Montezumas." He it was, who, eager for his country's honor and advancement, had, while the diplomats were disputing with Great Britain, pounced down upon and seized the debatable island of San Juan in Vancouver waters. For this he was recalled, but the island remained American territory. He was soon assigned to the Department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis.
He had been for 12 years the Colonel of the crack 2d U. S. Dragoons, and for three years one of the three Brigadier-Generals in the Regular Army, his only seniors being Maj.-Gen. and Brevet Lieut.-Gen. Winfield Scott, the General-in-Chief; Brig.-Gen. John E. Wool, commanding the Department of the East; and Brig.-Gen. David E. Twiggs, commanding the Department of Texas.
Gen. Harney's assignment, while a recognition of his eminent fitness for ruling the territory over which he had campaigned for more than a quarter of a century, was highly gratifying to him inasmuch as he was married to a wealthy St. Louis woman, and in that city he had an abundance of the luxurious social enjoyment so dear to the heart of the old warrior. A Southerner by birth and education, a large Slave-owner, with all his interests in the South, and at all times seemingly in full sympathy with the Southern spirit that dominated the Army, the Secessionists sanguinely expected that he would prove as pliant to their proposals as had Gen. Twiggs, the Commander of the Department of Texas. We shall see how soldierly instincts and training measurably disappointed them.
To return to the Missouri Legislature: Lieut.-Gov. Reynolds could, as a lieutenant always can, be more outspoken and radical than his chief, who labored under responsibility. On the day the Legislature met he published an important letter which thoroughly indicates the feeling of the Secessionists at that period. He urged the General Assembly to promptly express the determination of Missouri to resist every attempt by the Federal Government to coerce any State to remain in the Union, or to use force in any way to collect revenues or execute the laws in any seceding State. He denounced President Buchanan's distinction between "coercing a State" and "compelling the citizens of the State to obey the laws of the United States" as a "transparent sophistry." "To levy tribute, molest commerce, or hold fortresses, are as much acts of war as to bombard a city." He also urged immediate and thorough organization of the militia and other preparations for "putting the State in complete condition for defense." If the present controversy could not be adjusted before March 4, the State of Missouri "should not permit Mr. Lincoln to exercise any act of Government" within her borders.
This was certainly distinctly defiant, and shrewdly calculated to gather about the new administration all the wavering men who could be attracted by inflammatory appeals to their prejudices against the North, to their State pride, and to their hopes of making Missouri the arbiter in the dispute. Lieut.—Gov. Reynolds followed up his pronunciamento by carefully organizing the Senate committees with radical Secessionists at the head, and the immediate introduction of bills ably contrived to put the control of the State in the hands of those who favored Secession. These committees promptly reported several bills.
One provided for calling a State Convention, an effective device by which the other Southern States had been dragged into Secession. Another provided for the organization of the Militia of the State, which would be done by officers reliable for Secession, and the third was intended to extinguish resistance by taking away much of the police power of the Republican Mayor of St. Louis, who had at his back the radical Germans, organized into semi-military Wide-Awake Clubs. All these bills seemed to be heartily approved all over the State, and the Southern Rights leaders were exultant at their success. Apparently the 117 "Doubtfuls" were flocking over to them.