Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
This was small potatoes compared with other batles, much less those termed as "massacres".
That's an interesting question.
The term "massacre" is more commonly used for political/propaganda/sensational purposes than to designate any particular standard of what actually happened. Unionists would not want to refer to this as one; secessionists would trumpet it that way.
An event like this one is basically a riot. It gets out of control from some flashpoint, and it is unlikely any one account of it is entirely correct or accurate.
In the march of the prisoners back through St. Louis, everyone agrees that the streets were lined with crowds that had been harassing the Home Guard at least verbally for some time. Various accounts say that the flashpoint was one thing or another, but the most common one points to a drunk who tried to crash through the column, got knocked down, got up, pulled a gun, and started shooting.
The Home Guard was as raw as troops get, essentially barely organized. Depending on who you listen to, one of their officers was shot in the leg and later died; other accounts say another soldier was killed and three of the POWS they were guarding. The troops definitely fired into the onlookers in this. Raw troops with guns in a tense situation, feeling they were under attack: this is a recipe for disaster in crowd control, and it is what happened. Generally it is believed 28 died and perhaps 100 were wounded (all sides) in the mess that followed. Rioting crowds burned buildings in St. Louis, and several Home Guards who left the camp that night in civilian clothes were beaten, while some accounts say 2 or 3 never returned and were presumed dead.
That's about as close as anyone can come to what happened here on May 10. Lost in this is that Lyon had moved out against Camp Jackson because Frost's militia was planning to seize the Arsenal and had just received a shipment of arms (including heavy artillery and mortars) from Jefferson Davis to assist them in that effort. Lyon had accomplished the arrest of the militia, recovered the stolen weapons, and was on his way back to camp when all this blew up.
On May 11, another incident occurred. A mob fired on a column of Home Guards returning to camp. The troops returned fire. Twelve were reported killed, including 2 of the Home Guard.
"Massacre", to me, implies a deliberately enacted slaughter. I see no indication of such an event in St. Louis here. What I see instead is a tragic result of tension-charged events exploding into violence: a riot.
As to the bloodiness of other events compared to this, on May 11, 1861 this might have been the biggest casualty count of the war to that point. There seem to have been fewer in the Baltimore riots and this was before any organized skirmish or battle (such as Philippi or Big Bethel). So it got into the papers as a major event, even if we don't remember much of it today, and the headlines about the "massacre" gave it the name.
Many conflicting rumors prevail relative to the cause of the firing on the crowd of spectators at Camp Jackson last evening.
Some say that bricks and other missiles were hurled at the volunteers, smashing muskets, breaking limbs, and otherwise wounding the soldiers, while others assert the contrary.
A respectable citizen, an eye witness, who stood a few feet behind the troops that fired, states positively that no bricks were thrown, and that no pistols were fired by the crowd--that the only provocation given was abusive epithets launched at the Germans in the ranks.
It is known however that when the firing commenced, shots were returned by outside parties, the crowd wounded several soldiers, it is understood that a thorough investigation of the matter has been ordered by Capt. Lyon..."
The Manitowoc Pilot (Wisconsin), 17 May 1861
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
News report. Very consistent with Sherman's account except for the one pistol fired by a drunk.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
News report. Very consistent with Sherman's account except for the one pistol fired by a drunk.
And your point in posting it is?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Found report of another massacre in St. Louis 17 June 1861. Seven killed outright. Many others wounded.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Actually the forming of the Minute Men, Wide Awakes, and Turnervesks into armed militia was not strictly illegal. Many of the German Turner Companies were pre-war militia units not connected to the State Guard pre-war or wartime and had been armed prior to the war.
What is in question is the legality of Lyon "Federalizing" these units and using them against a legally formed and authorized State Militia.
Lyon possesses no authority to conscript the private militia companies, but they can go along with him. The only party with any standing to challenge Lyon's actions would be the actual members of the militia units that were 'Federalized' - the fact that they are being used against legitimate state militia units is irrelevant, they can be used against any force triggering the Insurrection Act.
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