For instance, Southern Methodists, and Southern Baptists, and Southern Presbyterians were by the Union men and forces constructively identified with secession and rebellion, and put in sympathy with the Southern cause. The first from the beginning, the last two after the virtual disruption of those respective churches.
Under the heat of party passion many innocent victims suffered the spoiling of their goods, and often the loss of life itself, only upon this constructive evidence.
The principal portions of the State were always held by the Union forces, and their subordinate officers and independent, predatory bands were either commissioned to make war upon these innocent and defenseless people or they did it without commission. Certain it is that it was done, and done, too, relentlessly and indiscriminately. How far this state of things is due to the converse action of the legitimate State Legislature and the legitimate State Convention—the one elected in November, 1860, and the other elected in January, 1861, and both assuming to reflect the will of the people—and how far it is due to the course pursued subsequently by Governor Jackson, General Price, and the whole State Government, with the legislative branch thrown in, adhering South, may be determined by others. The people of the State, who were not accustomed to a long search after remote causes, were free—and many of them are still free—to attribute these most inhuman features of the war to those who were put in command of the Federal forces in this department, the officers and men of the State militia, and the “Kansas Redlegs,” as they were generally called.
The first session of the State Convention did very little more than discuss and determine the Federal relations of the State. The State of Georgia had an accredited commissioner present in the person of Hon. Luther J. Glenn, a distinguished citizen of that State, asking Missouri to secede and join the Southern Confederacy. The Convention heard him respectfully, but, after due deliberation, rejected the proposition, and resolved to remain in and try to preserve the integrity of the Union.
The Convention also appointed a Commission to attend the “Border States Convention,” and adjourned to await results.
The people of the State were still in much of a dilemma until after the fall of Fort Sumter, the proclamation of President Lincoln, and the capture of Camp Jackson. Then it was discovered that the State Government, with Governor Jackson at the head, was in sympathy with the South, and would adhere South in defiance of the Convention. It was also discovered that the “Missouri State Guard,” which had been raised, officered, armed and equipped by the Legislature the previous winter, would adhere South, with General Sterling Price in command. These revelations excited and alarmed the people all over the State, and presented new difficulties and embarrassments, which were greatly complicated and enhanced by the simultaneous appearance in different parts of the State of the U. S. forces equipped for war. Indignation and consternation alternated in the public mind, until some definite line of policy was disclosed and the people knew what to expect.
Governor Jackson fled the capital of the State with his officers and army, taking the great seal of State and the official records of the several State Departments with him, as far as it could be done. He convened the Legislature in Neosho, organized and put into operation the several Departments of the State Government. “An Act of Secession” was passed by the General Assembly; delegates were elected to the Confederate Congress; a proclamation was issued to the people of Missouri, and many other things were done to force the State out of the Union and commit her destinies to the fate of the Southern cause. This meant war; and the wisest men abandoned for ever the idea of a peaceful adjustment of the difficulties, and prepared for that which neither the counsels of the prudent nor the prayers of the good could avert.
For the next few months the preparations for war on both sides were active and general. Plows were left standing in the furrows; wheat stood unshocked and ungarnered in the fields; mechanics and artisans closed their shops and exchanged hammers and saws for guns and swords; merchants dismissed their clerks and manufacturers their hands, and all prepared for the war; saddleries, foundries and gunsmiths were pressed out of measure with work, and the country was ransacked for mules and horses for service. The policy was, “He that hath no sword, let him sell his coat and buy one.”
President Lincoln’s call upon Governor Jackson for the quota of troops from this State to help the Federal Government put down insurrection and rebellion had been promptly and curtly declined by that official, and yet ten times more than the President asked for stood ready to respond to the call in defiance of Governor Jackson.
The cities and towns along the railroad lines especially turned out a heavy surplus population for the Union army, while the river towns and rural districts supplied men and material for “Price’s army,” as it was familiarly called.