Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: FEELING ON THE BORDER. 27 CHAPTER II. MISSOURI IK THE EARLY DATS. Apathy of the Border States.—The Missouri State Convention.—Sterling Price a Union Man.—Plan to take the State ont of the Union.—Capture of Camp Jackson.—Energy of General Lyon.—Union Men organized.—An Unfortunate Collision.—The Price-Harney Truce.— The Panic among the Secessionists.—Their Hegira from St. Louis.— A Visit to the State Capital.—Under the Rehel Flag.—Searching for Contraband Articles.—An Introduction to Rehel Dignitaries.—Governor Jackson.—Sterling Price.—Jeff. Thompson.—Activity at Cairo. —Kentucky Neutrality.—The Rebels occupy Columbus. The Border States were not prompt to follow the example of the States on the Gulf and South Atlantic coast. Missouri and Kentucky were loyal, if the voice of the majority is to be considered the voice of the population. Many of the wealthier inhabitants were, at the outset, as they have always been, in favor of the establishment of an independent Southern Government. Few of them desired an appeal to arms, as they well knew the Border States would form the front of the Confederacy, and thus become the battle-field of the Rebellion. The greater part of the population of those States was radically opposed to the secession movement, but became powerless under the noisy, political leaders who assumed the control. Many of these men, who were Unionists in the beginning, were drawn into the Rebel ranks on the plea that it would be treason to refuse to do what their State Government had decided upon. 28 THE MISSOURI CONVENTION. The delegates to the Missouri State Convention were elected in February, 1861, and assembled at St. Louis in the following April. Sterling Price, afterward a Rebel general, was president of this Convention, and spoke in favor of keepin...