St. Louis massacre

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The St. Louis massacre (sometimes referred to as the Camp Jackson Affair) was an incident in the American Civil War on May 10, 1861, when Union military forces clashed with civilians on the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, resulting in the deaths of at least 28 people and injuries to another 100. The affair polarized the border state of Missouri, leading many citizens to advocate secession and setting the stage for sustained violence between the opposing factions.

Union Capt. Nathaniel Lyon, a Radical Republican known for his brazenness, commanded the Federal troops in St. Louis. It was widely rumored that the Missouri State Militia intended to forcibly take possession of the hotly contested St. Louis Arsenal, which both Union and Confederate authorities desired, as the largest supply of weapons in the West were stored there. On May 3, Lyon took action to prevent such an occurrence. He recruited and armed a number of politico-military organizations, many of them comprised of German immigrants and members of the Wide Awakes political organization. The Germans in particular were unpopular with native-born Missourians, who deeply resented their anti-slavery and anti-secessionist political views. The arsenal was under the command of Peter V. Hagner, a career ordnance officer.

Lyon's 2nd U.S. Infantry seized the arsenal and moved most of the weapons to Illinois for safekeeping. On May 10, he used his newly mustered force of roughly 3,000 recruits to surround Camp Jackson, a pro-secession militia encampment located several miles outside of the city. The temporary camp had been authorized by pro-Southern Governor Claiborne Jackson, and was a legal assembly according to the state constitution. Lyon did not see it that way, as he had disguised himself as a farm woman to spy on the camp and discovered that Jackson indeed planned to seize the arsenal. Lyon arrested Gen. D. M. Frost and 669 "St. Louis Minute Men" without serious incident, although the men refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Federal government. However, Lyon decided to march his prisoners through downtown St. Louis before providing them with a parole and ordering them to disperse. This lengthy march was widely viewed as a public humiliation for the state forces, and immediately angered citizens who had gathered to watch the commotion. To add to the insult, Lyon placed the captured militiamen between two lines of armed German Home Guards.

Tensions quickly mounted on the streets as civilians hurled fruit, rocks, paving stones, and insults at Lyon's troops (particularly his German Home Guards), and some of the soldiers returned the favor. Exactly what provoked the massacre remains unclear, but the most common explanation is that a drunkard stumbled into the path of the marching soldiers, sparking a loud altercation. Weapons were drawn by soldiers and civilians alike and shots rang out, killing three militiamen. Some of the soldiers formed a line and fired into the nearby crowd of bystanders, injuring or killing a large number of men, women, and children. Lyon initially dismissed the German guards and sent them home, but mobs rioted throughout the city, and a number of buildings were burned, causing Lyon to recall the Home Guards. Violence continued for the next two days, resulting in the death of at least seven more civilians who were shot by Federal troops patrolling the streets.

Racism, mistrust of the Federal government, slavery, and states rights issues all played roles in provoking the incident. The St. Louis Massacre, as it came to be called, quickly sparked an outcry across the state. Before that, most Missourians had been moderate Unionists who were opposed to secession and war. Popular opinion transformed overnight, causing many former Unionists, including former Governor Sterling Price, to advocate secession and bitterly dividing the state between Union and Confederate sympathizers. Price would soon transform the militia in the Missouri State Guard and enter it into Confederate service, and he would become a leading general in the Confederate States Army. Lyon was promoted to brigadier general and assigned command of all the Union forces in Missouri.

An eye-witness account of the massacre appears in "The Civil War Memoir of Philip Dangerfield Stephenson, D.D.; Private, Company K, 13th Arkansas Volunteer Infantry [and, later, an artillery] Loader, Piece No. 4, 5th Company, Washington [Louisiana] Artillery, Army of Tennessee, CSA."