The fighting 2 49and home burning. Among those who
retaliated, John Brown of Osawatomie,
Kansas, led a band that savagely murdered
five pro-slavery neighbors.
Strangely enough, the secession crisis of
1860-61 brought matters to a lull, as both
sides struggled to size up the situation.
Missouri Governor Claiborne Jackson
advocated secession and called for the state
to join the Confederacy. Pro-Union
opposition, centered around the
German-American community in St Louis
and led by Francis P. Blair, a member of one
of the most prominent families in Missouri,
resisted. When the governor mobilized
pro-secession militia and positioned them to
seize the US arsenal in St Louis, Blair acted.
He encouraged a fiery red-headed US army
officer named Nathaniel Lyon to surround
and disarm the militia, which Lyon
accomplished. But as he marched his
prisoners back, a crowd of civilians gathered
and harassed and abused Lyon's militiamen.
Finally, someone shot and killed one of
Lyon's officers, and his troops retaliated by
blasting into the crowd. When the smoke
cleared, 28 people lay dead.
From this moment on, the violence took
on a life of its own. Union troops and
opponents of slavery in Kansas and Missouri
began sacking towns and seizing slaves and
other property from Missourians. These acts
inflamed old passions and drove main
neutrals or pro-Union advocates, among
them a Mexican War veteran named SterlingJohn S. Pemberton (right), a Northerner by birth,
commanded Confederate forces at Vicksburg. Caught
between orders from President Davis and General
Johnston. Pemberton could not decide whether to
try to save Vicksburg or his army. He lost both.
(Ann Ronan Picture Library)