THE CAMP JACKSON AFFAIR

I wrote in an earlier post about how robust states’ rights were in the antebellum United States, comparing state governors to Chinese Warlords. As an example of what I was talking about, I’d like to share a remarkable incident from the early days of the Civil War.

Fort Sumter had been fired upon; Lincoln had called for the individual states to provide 75,000 volunteers to put down the insurrection; most states had enthusiastically answered the call; but many had not. One of the reluctant states was Missouri, whose citizens had divided loyalties. Missouri Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson had announced a lukewarm allegiance to the Union, but had said that no coercion should be used against the seceding states. A convention which had been called to consider secession voted against it, but resolved that slavery should not be disturbed in peacefully resolving the differences between North and South.

President Lincoln’s call for troops inclined Jackson toward the camp of the secessionists. He denounced Lincoln’s action as a step toward civil war and despotism, said Lincoln would get no troops from Missouri, and asked the legislature to pass a Military Bill putting the state on a war footing and granting him extraordinary military authority. In recognition of Missouri’s “neutrality,” Federal General William Selby Harney, who was in charge of the Department of the West at the time, gave strict orders not to recruit inside the state. The War Department called Harney to Washington for consultation, and Harney left Captain Nathaniel Lyon in charge. Lyon began recruiting volunteers.

While the Military Bill was pending Jackson called out a part of the Missouri Volunteer Militia and had them bivouac outside St. Louis at “Camp Jackson.” Jackson also borrowed two howitzers from Jefferson Davis for use by the militia. When militiamen seized the weapons from the small arsenal in Liberty, Missouri, Lyon secretly moved most of the weapons in the much larger St. Louis Arsenal to Illinois.

Then the Camp Jackson Affair, also known as the Camp Jackson Massacre, occurred. Lyon took his volunteer troops and captured Camp Jackson. As he was marching his prisoners back to the St. Louis Arsenal to parole them. Lyon’s troops were set upon by an angry mob; shots were fired; and 28 protesters were killed. This led to days of rioting and the passage of the  Military Bill.

When Harney returned, the Missouri State Militia had become the Missouri State Guard, and open the possibility of open warfare loomed. Harney met with Major-General Sterling Price of the Missouri State Guard and the two of generals negotiated a cease-fire agreement between the United States of America and one of its own states.  Washington immediately disapproved of the Price-Harney Truce, relieved Harney of command, and promoted Lyon from Captain to Brigadier-General.

Open hostilities broke out and a number of battles were fought between the Missouri State Guard under Sterling Price and Federal forces. Missouri was eventually retained in the Union largely by force of arms, but not before Lyon’s death at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek.