When the State Convention met at Jefferson City, it was found that of its 99 members 53 were natives of either Virginia of Kentucky, and all but 17 had been born in Slave States. Only 13 were natives of the North, three were Germans, and one an Irishman. A struggle at once ensued for the organization of the Convention, which resulted in a victory for the Union men, ex-Gov. Sterling Price being elected President by 75 votes, to 15 cast for Nathaniel W. Watkins, a half-brother of Henry Clay, and a strenuous advocate of Southern Rights. As soon as the Convention completed its organization it adjourned to St. Louis, to avoid the badgering of the pronounced Secessionists, who constituted the State Government, and the clamorous bullying of the crowd assembled in the State Capital to influence its action.
On assembling at St. Louis the Convention immediately addressed itself to the duty for which it had assembled. Judge Hamilton R. Gamble, a Virginian, leader of the Unconditional Union men, and afterwards Governor of the State, as Chairman of the Committee on Federal Relations, made a long report, in which it was denied that the grievances complained of were sufficient to involve Missouri in rebellion; that in a military sense Missouri's union with the Southern Confederacy meant annihilation; that the true position of the State was to try to bring back her seceding sisters, and to this effect a Convention of all the States was recommended, to adopt the Crittenden Proposition. An attempt to amend this report by the declaration that if the Northern States refused to assent to the Crittenden Compromise Missouri would then side with her sister States of the South received only 23 votes, but among them was that of Sterling Price, who had begun to drift southward.
The Convention adopted Gamble's report, and a few days afterward adjourned subject to call of the committee.
The Secessionists were greatly discouraged by the result, and the Legislature also adjourned. Then came another fluctuation in public opinion. The great majority wanted peace. The attitude of the Governor and his faction, who seemed to look toward peace by putting Missouri in a state of defense to prevent the new Republican President from making war, appealed to many, and in the Spring elections the Unconditional Union men were defeated by a small majority, and St. Louis passed from their official control to that of the Conditional Union Men.
While these events were occupying public attention there occurred another, little noted at the time, but which was soon to be of controlling importance. Feb. 6 there marched up from the steamboat landing to the Arsenal a company of 80 Regular soldiers of the 2d U. S., from Fort Riley, Kan., at the head of which was a Captain, under the average hight, and a well knit but rather slender frame. He had a long, narrow face, with full, high forehead, keen, deep-set blue eyes, and hair and whiskers almost red. His face was thoughtful but determined, his manner quick and nervous. He bore himself towards his men as an exact and rigid disciplinarian, mingled with thoughtful kindness for all who did their duty and tried their best This was Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, born in Connecticut, descended from old Puritan stock, with the blood of Cromwell's Ironsides flowing in his veins. He was then 42 years old, and before another birthday was to fill the country with his fame, and fall in battle-face to the front. He had graduated from West Point in 1841, the 11th in his class. That his intellectual abilities were of high order is shown by his standing in that class, of which Zealous B. Tower, an eminent engineer, and brevet Major-General, U. S. A., was the head, and Horatio G. Wright, who commanded the Sixth Corps during the last and greatest year of its history, was the second.
Gen. John F. Reynolds, the superb commander of the First Corps and of the Right Wing of the Army of the Potomac, with which he brought on the battle of Gettysburg, where he was killed, graduated 26th in the class, and Gen. Don Carlos Buell, who organized and commanded the Army of the Ohio, graduated 32d. Gen. Robert Garnett, the first Confederate General officer to fall in the struggle,—killed July 13, 1861, at Carrick's Ford,—was the 27th in the class. Julius P. Garesche, who graduated 16th in the class, became Chief of Staff to Gen. Rosecrans, and was killed at Stone River.