Up to the time that Gen. Harney was relieved and ordered to Washington, and Capt. Lyon was given a free hand, Gen. D. M. Frost's course and advice were worthy of his reputation as a resolute, far-seeing commander. With the organized military companies of his district and the Minute Men he had a good nucleus for action, and had he made a rush on the Arsenal at any of the several times that he seems to have contemplated, it would have been backed up by several thousand young Irishmen and Americans in St. Louis, as well as by tens of thousands from the country swarming in as fast as they could have gotten railroads and steamboats to carry them.
Then the capture of the Arsenal would have opened the war instead of the firing on Fort Sumter.
He was then, however, restrained by Gov. Jackson and his coterie, who expected to gain their ends by intrigues and manipulations which had proved so successful in the other States.
After, however, Capt. Lyon had equipped some 10,000 Missourians from the Arsenal and sent most of the rest of the arms across the river into Illinois, Frost seems to have suddenly become doddering. The Rev. Henry W. Beecher used to tell a very effective story about an old house dog named Noble. Some time in the dim past Noble had found a rabbit in a hole under an apple tree. Every day ever after, for the rest of his life, Noble would go to the hole and bark industriously at it for an hour or so, with as much zeal as if he had found another rabbit there, which he never did.
There seemed to be something of this in Gen. Frost's carrying out his idea of establishing a camp ostensibly for the instruction of his Militia, on the hills near the Arsenal, which he did May 3. It is hard to reconcile this with any clear purpose. If he intended to assault and capture the Arsenal, the force that he gathered was absurdly inadequate, in view of what he must have known Lyon had to oppose him. Accounts differ as to the highest number he ever had assembled, but it must have been less than 2,000.
His camp, which was in a beautiful grove, then in the first flush of the charms of early Springtime, was quite an attractive place for the "knightly" young Southerners who, filled with the chivalrous ideas of Sir Walter Scott's novels, then the prevalent romantic literature of the South, had made much ado before their "ladye loves" of "going off to the warres," and the aforesaid "ladye loves," decorated with Secession rosettes and the red-white-and-red colors then emblematic of Secession, followed their "true-loves" to the camp, and made Lindell Grove bright with the gaily-contrasting hues in bonnets and gowns. There were music and parades, presentations, flags and banners, dancing and feasting, and all the charming accessories of a military picnic. But some how the material for common soldiers did not flock to the Camp as the Secessionists had hoped. Possibly the stern uprising of the loyal people of the North in response to the firing upon Fort Sumter, and the mustering of solid battalions in Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, immediately around the Missouri borders, had a repressing effect upon those who had at first thought of going with a light heart into Secession. It began to look as if there were going to be something more serious than a Fourth of July barbecue about this work of breaking up the Union.
Certainly, recruits had not come to Camp Jackson, which Frost had so named in honor of the Governor of the State, as they had flocked into similar camps farther South. Nor had they come in the numbers which were assembled around Lyon and Blair, appealing for arms. Still, the men in Camp Jackson had a resolute purpose, under all the frivolity and merry-making of the gay camp, and presently Capts. Colton Greene and Basil Duke returned with the cheering news that their mission to Jefferson Davis had been entirely successful. Heavy artillery would be furnished with which to batter down the walls of the Arsenal, and force the Home Guards to fight or surrender. They brought with them the following encouraging letter from the President of the Southern Confederacy:
Montgomery, Ala., April 23, 1861. His Excellency C. F.
Jackson, Governor of Missouri.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge yours of the 17th
Instant, borne by Capts. Greene and Duke, and have most
cordially welcomed the fraternal assurances it brings.
A misplaced but generous confidence has, for years past,
prevented the Southern States from making the preparation
required by the present emergency, and our power to supply
you with ordnance is far short of the will to serve you.
After learning as well as I could from the gentlemen
accredited to me what was most needful for the attack on the
Arsenal, I have directed that Capts. Greene and Duke should
be furnished with two 12-pounder howitzers and two 32-
pounder guns, with the proper ammunition for each. These,
from the commanding hills, will be effective, both against
the garrison and to breach the inclosing walls of the place.
I concur with you as to the great importance of capturing
the Arsenal and securing its supplies, rendered doubly
important by the means taken to obstruct your commerce and
render you unarmed victims of a hostile invasion.