Brigadier-General W. S. Harney, in command of the Department of the West, with headquarters at St. Louis when the war broke out, was relieved, and, on May 31, 1861, Nathaniel Lyon, but recently appointed a Brigadier-General of Volunteers, succeeded him. Lyon lost his life, August 10th, while gallantly leading his forces at Wilson's Creek against superior numbers under General Sterling Price. General John C. Fremont assumed command of the Western Department, July 25th, with headquarters at St. Louis. He was the first to proclaim martial law. This he did for the city and county of St. Louis, August 14, 1861.( 2)
He followed this (August 30th) with an emancipation proclamation, undertaking to free the slaves of all persons in the State of Missouri who took up arms against the United States or who took an active part with their enemies in the field; the other property of all such persons also to be confiscated. The same proclamation ordered all disloyal persons taken within his lines with arms in their hands to be tried by court-martial, and if found guilty, shot.( 3)
President Lincoln disapproved this proclamation in the main. He ordered Fremont, by letter dated September 2d, to allow no man to be shot without his consent, and requested him to modify the clause relating to confiscation and emancipation of slaves so as to conform to an act of Congress limiting confiscation to "property used for insurrectionary purposes."
Lincoln assigned as a reason for this request that such confiscation and liberation of slaves "would alarm our Southern Union friends and turn them against us; perhaps ruin our rather fair prospect for Kentucky.": Fremont declining to modify his proclamation, Lincoln, September 11th, ordered it done as stated.( 4)
But as matters did not progress satisfactorily in Fremont's Department, he was relieved by General David Hunter, October 24th, who was in turn relieved by General H. W. Halleck, November 2, 1861.( 4)
Brigadier-General U. S. Grant, September 1, 1861, assumed command of the troops in the District of Southeastern Missouri, headquarters Cairo, Illinois.( 5)
The most notable event of 1861, in Grant's district, was the spirited battle of Belmont, fought November 7th, a short distance below Cairo. Grant commanded in person, and was successful until the Confederates were largely reinforced, when he was obliged to retire, which he did in good order.
The Confederates were led in three columns by Generals Leonidas
Polk, Gideon J. Pillow, and Benjamin F. Cheatham.
The event, really quite devoid of substantial results to either side, save to prove the valor of the troops, was the subject of a congratulatory order by Grant, in which he states he was in "all the battles fought in Mexico by General Scott and Taylor, save Buena Vista, and he never saw one more hotly contested or where troops behaved with more gallantry."( 5) The Confederate Congress voted its thanks to the Confederate commanders and their troops for their "desperate courage," by which disaster was converted into victory.( 5)
General Robert Anderson was relieved, October 6, 1861, and General
W. T. Sherman was assigned to command the Department of the
Cumberland.( 6)