Nathaniel Lyon Secures Missouri

When Lincoln became president, the first problem he had to face – after Confederate Secession itself – was what to do about the slave-holding “Border States” – Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and loyalist slave-holding areas in secessionist states, such as western Virginia. Could their loyalty be secured perhaps their active support be gained for the Union? All of these areas were deeply conflicted between Union sympathizers, Southern sympathizers, pro-slavery Unionists, pro-states’ rights opponents of slavery, and also between firebrands ready to resort to violence and believers in compromise to preserve domestic peace.

Most readers will be familiar with the mobbing of Massachusetts regiments marching through the streets of Baltimore in April 1861, and of Lincoln‘s repudiation of the emancipation of slaves by General Fremont in Kentucky. But how to secure control of the Border States without pushing them towards secession? Lincoln said “I think that to lose Kentucky is nearly the same as to lose the whole game”. He felt Kentucky, and even more Missouri, would have made the Confederacy too strong to defeat, and in the event strategically blocked the vital and successful campaign to divide the South by conquest of the Mississippi River. And Missouri presented Lincoln with an unusually complex problem. Its Southern-sympathizing Governor Jackson sought to steer a line between secession and Federal use of force against the state by a declaration of state neutrality, something Lincoln felt to be but could not publicly call “treasonous” and illegal.

This story of the next six months in Missouri is the one told by Burchett in this book – and told very, very well. It is deeply scholarly; Prof. Burchett is a master of primary sources, and has digested all the letters, newspapers, speeches, memoirs necessary to bring all his characters alive to us in all their doubts, contradictions - and fanaticisms. The author’s style gives the story a vivid immediacy that makes it a tense, even gripping read.

Missouri’s legislature rejected secession and declared armed neutrality, threatening to resist the invasion of troops from either side. This momentarily kept the civil peace between factions. But into this delicate balance, the figure of Captain Nathaniel Lyon dropped like a bomb. A fiery anti-slavery pro-Unionist, Lyon was forceful , charismatic, energetic and decisive – and perhaps rash, and even ruthless. Sent to secure the large store of arms at the St. Louis Arsenal, he immediately resorted to force. On May 10, he marched with 7000 troops on 700 Missouri State Militia mustered (legally) outside St. Louis at Camp Jackson. The militia surrendered, but a mob gathered and someone fired on Lyon’s troops, who spontaneously fired into the crowd, killing 31 including women and children. Two days before Ft. Sumter, this was arguably the beginning of the Civil War.

Missouri opinion was inflamed, but St. Louis was firmly under Federal control of Lyon and his troops – largely German volunteers. The latter provided a firm base of support for the Union (and provided the Union with General Franz Sigel). They were strongly anti-slavery, well-educated, with much military experience in Germany’s armies, and recent wars and revolutions. They were also much-disliked by Missouri’s “American” majority.

Serious efforts followed to compromise and preserve the state government’s neutrality and domestic order, but Lyon torpedoed them and forced Jackson and the state government to flee, proceeding from battle to battle as he pursued them up the Missouri, until his death in action on Aug. 10, 1861, the first Union general killed in the war. Well – no more spoilers! Anyone with the slightest interest in the Civil War needs to read this very fine book. New knowledge is much appreciated, and the author is a superb writer, with a gift for putting us inside the mind – or should we say the many minds – of the times. His ability to convey the actual doubts and complexities experienced by his historical actors is impressive, with no trace of those familiar sins against history, of presentism, of 20/20 hindsight, and of contemporary political ideologizing. Mistakes? A rare use of an incorrect word, as “subversive” for “supporting”.

Plainly, Nathaniel Lyon’s decision and forcefulness secured Federal power in Missouri wherever it most counted for prosecuting the war, meaning St. Louis and the head of the Mississippi. The price was creating a state of neighbor-vs.-neighbor violence, bloodshed, and guerrilla fighting throughout the state for the rest of the war. A bitter price – and was it necessary? Was it worth it? Was another alternative possible? Lincoln himself never ceased to hope that the Border States could be converted to the cause of voluntary emancipation, perhaps through a compensated and gradual emancipation of their slaves. (This worked for ending slavery in the British West Indies, for example.) There’s much food for thought here - but we can hardly answer these questions any better than those who grappled with them at the time.

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Our Reviewer: Robert P. Largess is the author of USS Albacore; Forerunner of the Future, and articles on the USS Triton, SS United States, the origin of the towed sonar array, and the history of Lighter-than-Air. He has contributed book reviews to ‘The Naval Historical Foundation’ (http://www.navyhistory.org) and The International Journal of Naval History (http://www.ijnhonline.org). He earlier reviews include The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, King Arthur’s Wars: The Anglo-Saxon Conquest of England, Clouds above the Hill: A Historical Novel of the Russo-Japanese War, Winning a Future War: War Gaming and Victory in the Pacific War, The Fate of Rome, and "Tower of Skulls", A History of the Asia-Pacific War, Volume I: From the Marco Polo Bridge Incident to the Fall of Corregidor, July 1937-May 1942.

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Note: Nathaniel Lyon’s River Campaign of 1861 is also available in e-editions.

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