NEWS OF 150 YEARS AGO
May 1861
From The Missouri Democrat, Monday, May 13, 1861.
CAMP JACKSON A SECESSION CAMP.
The effort of the Republican and other secession organs has been to create the impression that Camp Jackson was merely a harmless display of the city military, and as such did not deserve the extreme treatment prescribed by Gen. Lyons [sic] and the forces under his command.
The note of Gen. Lyons to Gen. Frost seems to us to set forth the grounds of his proceeding in a very clear and forcible manner, and every unprejudiced mind must recognize in those reasons a full justification of the action which the government has ordered in reference to Camp Jackson.
There is no doubt about the open and avowed sentiments of at least three-fourths of the officers and men of this Camp. They were secessionists of the boldest and most radical stripe. Many of them were organized and mustered into the State service under the flag of the Southern Confederacy which still floats over the headquarters of the Minute Men. The principal alleys or streets in the encampment were ‘Beauregard’ avenue and ‘Davis’ avenue. The mortars, howitzers, muskets, shot and shell, all the property of the United States, stolen by Southern rebels and brought to this city on the steamer J. C. Swon, were received and harbored in this camp. On the day of the surrender the yells of defiance against the United States troops by the men of the camp and their friends, were hurrahs for Jeff. Davis and the Southern Confederacy. The continuance of the encampment by the Legislature beyond the six days prescribed in the original order of Adjutant Hough, had no other meaning than that of an intention to increase the secession forces and make them formidable at this point, with ultimate designs upon the Arsenal and the Union men of this city and State.
With these patient and undeniable facts before us, the Republican cries out about the injustice and tyranny of the Government against the secessionists who designed to take the State of Missouri out of the Union.
