1861_ The Civil War Awakening - Adam Goodheart [156]
Yet the German volunteers themselves, after all their excitement during the previous months, seemed strangely subdued on the morning of the attack. As they marched through the streets of St. Louis, no one sang; no bands played. Dressed in their civilian clothes, they seemed to trudge like cattle, one observer said. Perhaps, like Isidor Bush (himself now a private in one of the Home Guard regiments), too many had already seen firsthand the unpredictable calamities of war.116
Ulysses Grant stood across from the Arsenal’s main gate, in front of the Anheuser-Busch brewery, watching the troops file out. (Still eager to make acquaintances that might lead to a commission, he took the opportunity to introduce himself to Blair, who was on horseback marshaling the companies, and wish him luck.) William T. Sherman, on his way to the streetcar company office, heard people on every corner saying excitedly that the “Dutch” were moving on Camp Jackson. The streets were filling with people hurrying after the troops, swept along almost involuntarily, “anxious spectators of every political proclivity,” one witness wrote, “never doubting for a moment that if a fight should occur they could stand by unharmed and witness it all.” One big, bearded man, distraught at Lyon’s surprise attack, shouted, “He’s gone out to kill all the boys,—to kill all the boys!” Although a couple of Sherman’s friends urged him to come and “see the fun,” he hurried in the opposite direction, walking quickly home to make sure his seven-year-old son, Willie, had not joined the packs of schoolboys scampering toward the excitement.117
With soldierly precision that impressed the onlookers, Lyon’s regiments surrounded Camp Jackson on all sides. In the grove itself, there seemed to be little commotion and no sign of resistance. General Frost’s militiamen were outnumbered at least eight to one. Lyon, on horseback, surveying the scene with satisfaction, sent in an adjutant with a curtly worded note:
SIR—Your command is regarded as evidently hostile to the Government of the United States.
It is for the most part made up of those secessionists who have openly avowed their hostility to the Government, and have been plotting at the seizure of its property and the overthrow of its authority. You are openly in communication with the so-called Southern Confederacy, which is now at war with the United States; and you are receiving at your camp, from the said Confederacy and under its flag, large supplies of the material of war.…
In view of these considerations … it is my duty to demand, and I do hereby demand of you, an immediate surrender.
Frost had little choice. He sent the adjutant back with a note acquiescing, under strong protest, to the demand.118
At this point the second casualty of the day was suffered. Dismounting with the note in hand, Lyon was promptly kicked in the stomach by the overexcited horse of one of his aides. Doubling over in pain, he collapsed senseless on the ground. A doctor from one of the German regiments hurried over to him, and Lyon gradually began regaining consciousness, but apparently he was still incapacitated when the evacuation of Camp Jackson began.119
Blair’s and Boernstein’s regiments drew up in formation on each side as Frost’s men began to file out through an opening in the fence. All around them, crowds of civilians pressed in. Many were friends