Part 200

MISSOURI: A. D. 1821. Admission to the Union. The Compromise concerning Slavery.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1854-1859. The Kansas Struggle.

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (February-July). The baffling of the Secessionists. Blair, Lyon and the Home Guards of St. Louis. The capture of Camp Jackson. Battle of Boonville. A loyal State Government organized.

The seizure of arsenals and arms by the secessionists of the Atlantic and Gulf States "naturally, directed the attention of the leaders of the different political parties in Missouri to the arsenal in St. Louis, and set them to work planning how they might get control of the 40,000 muskets and other munitions of war which it was known to contain. … Satisfied that movements were on foot among irresponsible parties, Unionist as well as Secessionist, to take possession of this post, General D. M. Frost, of the Missouri state militia, a graduate of West Point and a thorough soldier, is said to have called Governor Jackson's attention to the necessity of 'looking after' it. … Jackson, however, needed no prompting. … He did not hesitate to give Frost authority to seize the arsenal, whenever in his judgment it might become necessary to do so. Meanwhile he was to assist in protecting it against mob violence of any kind or from any source. … Frost, however, was not the only person in St. Louis who had his eyes fixed upon the arsenal and its contents. Frank Blair was looking longingly in the same direction, and was already busily engaged in organizing the bands which, supplied with guns from this very storehouse, enabled him, some four months later, to lay such a heavy hand upon Missouri. Just then, it is true, he could not arm them, … but he did not permit this to interfere with the work of recruiting and drilling. That went on steadily, and as a consequence, when the moment came for action, Blair was able to appear at the decisive point with a well-armed force, ten times as numerous as that which his opponents could bring against him. In the mean time, whilst these two, or rather three, parties (for Frost can hardly be termed a secessionist, though as an officer in the service of the State he was willing to obey the orders of his commander) were watching each other, the federal government awoke from its lethargy, and began to concentrate troops in St. Louis for the protection of its property. … By the 18th of February, the day of the election of delegates to the convention which pronounced so decidedly against secession, there were between four and five hundred men behind the arsenal walls. … General Harney, who was in command of the department and presumably familiar with its condition, under date of February 19, notified the authorities at Washington that there was no danger of an attack, and never had been. … Such was not the opinion of Captain Nathaniel Lyon, who had arrived at the arsenal on the 6th of February, and who was destined, in the short space of the coming six months, to write his name indelibly in the history of the State. … Under the stimulating influence of two such spirits as Blair and … [Lyon] the work of preparation went bravely on. By the middle of April, four regiments had been enlisted, and Lyon, who was now in command of the arsenal, though not of the department, proceeded to arm them in accordance with an order which Blair had procured from Washington. Backed by this force, Blair felt strong enough to set up an opposition to the state government, and accordingly, when Jackson refused to furnish the quota of troops assigned to Missouri under President Lincoln's call of April 15, 1861 [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL)], he telegraphed to Washington that if an order to muster the men into the service was sent to Captain Lyon 'the requisition would be filled in two days.' The order was duly forwarded, and five regiments having been sworn in instead of four, as called for, Blair was offered the command. This he declined, and, on his recommendation, Lyon was elected in his place. On the 7th and 8th of May another brigade was organized. … This made ten regiments of volunteers, besides several companies of regulars and a battery of artillery, that were now ready for service; and as General Harney, whose relatives and associates were suspected of disloyalty, had been ordered to Washington to explain his position, Lyon was virtually in command of the department. … Jackson, … though possessed of but little actual power, was unwilling to give up the contest without an effort. He did not accept the decision of the February election as final. … Repairing to St. Louis, as soon as the adjournment of the General Assembly had left him free, he began at once, in conjunction with certain leading secessionists, to concert measures for arming the militia of the State. … {2191} To this end, the seizure of the arsenal was held to be a prerequisite, and General Frost was preparing a memorial showing how this could best be done, when the surrender of Fort Sumter and the President's consequent call for troops hurried Jackson into a position of antagonism to the federal government. … He sent messengers to the Confederate authorities at Montgomery, Alabama, asking them to supply him with the guns that were needed for the proposed attack on the arsenal; and he summoned the General Assembly to meet at Jefferson City on the 2d of May, to deliberate upon such measures as might be deemed necessary for placing the State in a position to defend herself. He also ordered, as he was authorized to do under the law, the commanders of the several military districts to hold the regular yearly encampments for the purpose of instructing their men in drill and discipline. … Practically its effect was limited to the first or Frost's brigade, as that was the only one that had been organized under the law. On the 3d of May, this little band, numbering less than 700 men, pitched their tents in a wooded valley in the outskirts of the city of St. Louis, and named it Camp Jackson, in honor of the governor. It is described as being surrounded on all sides, at short range, by commanding hills; it was, moreover, open to a charge of cavalry in any and every direction, and the men were supplied with but five rounds of ammunition each, hardly enough for guard purposes. In a word, it was defenseless, and this fact is believed to be conclusive in regard to the peaceful character of the camp as it was organized. … Lyon … announced his intention of seizing the entire force at the camp, without any ceremony other than a demand for its surrender. … Putting his troops in motion early in the morning of the 10th of May; he surrounded Camp Jackson and demanded its surrender. As Frost could make no defense against the overwhelming odds brought against him, he was of course obliged to comply; and his men, having been disarmed, were marched to the arsenal, where they were paroled. … After the surrender, and whilst the prisoners were standing in line, waiting for the order to march, a crowd of men, women and children collected and began to abuse the home guards, attacking them with stones and other missiles. It is even said that several shots were fired at them, but this lacks confirmation. According to Frost, who was at the head of the column of prisoners, the first intimation of firing was given by a single shot, followed almost immediately by volley firing, which is said to have been executed with precision considering the rawness of the troops. When the fusillade was checked, it was found that 28 persons had been killed or mortally wounded, among whom were three of the prisoners, two women, and one child. … Judging this action by the reasons assigned for it, and by its effect throughout the State, it must be pronounced a blunder. So far from intimidating the secessionists, it served only to exasperate them; and it drove not a few Union men, among them General Sterling Price, into the ranks of the opposition and ultimately into the Confederate army."

_L. Carr, Missouri, chapter 14._

When news of the capture of Camp Jackson reached Jefferson City, where the legislature was in session, Governor Jackson at once ordered a bridge on the railroad from St. Louis to be destroyed, and the legislature made haste to pass several bills in the interest of the rebellion, including one which placed the whole military power of the State in the hands of the Governor. Armed with this authority, Jackson proceeded to organize the Militia of Missouri as a secession army. Meantime Captain Lyon had been superseded in command by the arrival at St. Louis of General Harney, and the latter introduced a total change of policy at once. He was trapped into an agreement with Governor Jackson and Sterling Price, now general-in-chief of the Missouri forces, which tied his hands, while the cunning rebel leaders were rapidly placing the State in active insurrection. But the eyes of the authorities at Washington were opened by Blair; Harney was soon displaced and Lyon restored to command. This occurred May 30th. On the 15th of June Lyon took possession of the capital of the State, Jefferson City, the Governor and other State officers taking flight to Boonville, where their forces were being gathered. Lyon promptly followed, routing and dispersing them at Boonville on the 17th. The State Convention which had taken a recess in March was now called together by a committee that had been empowered to do so before the convention separated, and a provisional State government was organized (July 31) with a loyal governor, Hamilton R. Gamble, at its head.

_J. G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of the Rebellion, chapter 10._

ALSO IN: _T. L. Snead, The Fight for Missouri._

_J. Peckham, General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861._

MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (July-September). Sigel's retreat from Carthage. Death of Lyon at Wilson's Creek. Siege of Lexington. Fremont in command.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).

A. D. 1861 (August-October). Fremont in command. His premature proclamation of freedom to the Slaves of rebels. His quarrel with Frank P. Blair. The change in command.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: MISSOURI).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (January-March). Price and the Rebel forces driven into Arkansas. Battle of Pea Ridge.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-MARCH: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (July-September). Organization of the loyal Militia of the state. Warfare with Rebel guerrillas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (September-December). Social effects of the Civil War. The Battle of Prairie Grove.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (August). Quantrell's guerrilla raid to Lawrence, Kansas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST: MISSOURI-KANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (October). Cabell's invasion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1864 (September-October). Price's raid.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

MISSOURI: End--------

MISSOURI COMPROMISE, The. Its Repeal, and the decision of the Supreme Court against it.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821; 1854; and 1857.

{2192}

MISSOURI RIVER: Called the River St. Philip by the French (1712).

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

MISSOURIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

MITCHELL, General Ormsby M.: Expedition into Alabama.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862(APRIL-MAY: ALABAMA); and (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

MITHRIDATIC WARS, The.

A somewhat vaguely defined part of eastern Asia Minor, between Armenia, Phrygia, Cilicia and the Euxine, was called Cappadocia in times anterior to 363 B. C. Like its neighbors, it had fallen under the rule of the Persians and formed a province of their empire, ruled by hereditary satraps. In the year above named, the then reigning satrap, Ariobarzanes, rebelled and made himself king of the northern coast district of Cappadocia, while the southern and inland part was retained under Persian rule. The kingdom founded by Ariobarzanes took the name of Pontus, from the sea on which it bordered. It was reduced to submission by Alexander the Great, but regained independence during the wars between Alexander's successors (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301; and SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 281-224), and extended its limits towards the west and south. The kingdom of Pontus, however, only rose to importance in history under the powerful sovereignty of Mithridates V. who took the title of Eupator and is often called Mithridates the Great. He ascended the throne while a child, B. C. 120, but received, notwithstanding, a wonderful education and training. At the age of twenty (B. C. 112) he entered upon a career of conquest, which was intended to strengthen his power for the struggle with Rome, which he saw to be inevitable. Within a period of about seven years he extended his dominions around the nearly complete circuit of the Euxine, through Armenia, Colchis, and along the northern coasts westward to the Crimea and the Dniester; while at the same time he formed alliances with the barbarous tribes on the Danube, with which he hoped to threaten Italy.

_G. Rawlinson, Manual of Ancient History, book 4, period 3, part 4._

"He [Mithridates] rivalled Hannibal in his unquenchable hatred to Rome. This hatred had its origin in the revocation of a district of Phrygia which the Senate had granted to his father. … To his banner clustered a quarter of a million of the fierce warriors of the Caucasus and the Scythian steppes and of his own Hellenized Pontic soldiers; Greek captains, in whom he had a confidence unshaken by disaster—Archelaus, Neoptolemus, Dorilaus—gave tactical strength to his forces. He was allied, too, with the Armenian king, Tigranes; and he now turned his thoughts to Numidia, Syria, and Egypt with the intention of forming a coalition against his foe on the Tiber. A coin has been found which commemorated an alliance proposed between the Pontic king and the Italian rebels. … The imperious folly of M'. Aquillius, the Roman envoy in the East, precipitated the intentions of the king; instead of contending for the princedom of Bithynia and Cappadocia, he suddenly appealed to the disaffected in the Roman province. The fierce white fire of Asiatic hate shot out simultaneously through the length and breadth of the country [B. C. 88]; and the awful news came to distracted Rome that 80,000 Italians had fallen victims to the vengeance of the provincials. Terror-stricken publicani were chased from Adramyttium and Ephesus into the sea, their only refuge, and there cut down by their pursuers; the Mæander was rolling along the corpses of the Italians of Tralles; in Caria the refined cruelty of the oppressed people was butchering the children before the eyes of father and mother, then the mother before the eyes of her husband, and giving to the man death as the crown and the relief of his torture. … Asia was lost to Rome; only Rhodes, which had retained her independence, remained faithful to her great ally. The Pontic fleet, under Archelaus, appeared at Delos, and carried thence 2,000 talents to Athens, offering to that imperial city the government of her ancient tributary. This politic measure awaked hopes of independence in Greece. Aristion, an Epicurean philosopher, seized the reins of power in Athens, and Archelaus repaired the crumbling battlements of the Piræus. The wave of eastern conquest was rolling on towards Italy itself. The proconsul Sulla marched to Brundisium, and, undeterred by the ominous news that his consular colleague, Q. Rufus, had been murdered in Picenum, or by the sinister attitude of the new consul Cinna, he crossed over to Greece with five legions to stem the advancing wave. History knows no more magnificent illustration of cool, self-restrained determination than the action of Sulla during these three years." He left Rome to his enemies, the fierce faction of Marius, who were prompt to seize the city and to fill it with "wailing for the dead, or with the more terrible silence which followed a complete massacre" [see ROME: B. C. 88-78]. "The news of this carnival of democracy reached the camp of Sulla along with innumerable noble fugitives who had escaped the Marian terror. The proconsul was unmoved; with unexampled self-confidence he began to assume that he and his constituted Rome, while the Forum and Curia were filled with lawless anarchists, who would soon have to be dealt with. He carried Athens by assault, and slew the whole population, with their tyrant Aristion [see ATHENS: B. C. 87-86], but he counted it among the favours of the goddess of Fortune that he, man of culture as he was, was able to save the immemorial buildings of the city from the fate of Syracuse or Corinth. Archelaus, in Piræus, offered the most heroic resistance. … With the spring Sulla heard of the approach of the main army from Pontus, under the command of Taxiles. 120,000 men, and ninety scythed chariots, were pouring over Mount Œta to overwhelm him. With wonderful rapidity he marched northwards through friendly Thebes, and drew up his little army on a slope near Chæronea, digging trenches on his left and right to save his flank from being turned. He showed himself every inch a general, he compelled the enemy to meet him on this ground of his own choice, and the day did not close before 110,000 of the enemy were captured or slain, and the camp of Archelaus, who had hastened from Athens to take the command, was carried by assault. We have before us still, in the pages of Plutarch, Sulla's own memoirs. If we may believe him, he lost only fifteen men in the battle. By this brilliant engagement he had restored Greece to her allegiance, and, what was even better, the disaster aroused an the savagery of Mithradates, the Greek vanished in the oriental despot. {2193} Suspicious and ruthless, he ordered his nearest friends to be assassinated; he transported all the population of Chios to the mainland, and by his violence and exaction stirred Ephesus, Sardes, Tralles, and many other cities, to renounce his control, and to return to the Roman government. Still, he did not suspect Archelaus, but appointed him, together with Dorilaus, to lead a new army into Greece. The new army appeared in Bœotia, and encamped by the Copaic Lake, near Orchomenos. Before the raw levies could become familiar with the sight of the legions, Sulla assaulted the camp [B. C. 85], and rallied his wavering men by leading them in person with the cry, 'Go, tell them in Rome that you left your general in the trenches of Orchomenos;' the self-consciousness was sublime, for nothing would have pleased the people in Rome better; his victory was complete, and Archelaus escaped alone in a boat to Calchis. As the conqueror returned from the battle-field to reorganize Greece, he learnt that the Senate had deposed him from command, declared him an outlaw, and appointed as his successor the consul L. Valerius Flaccus. The disorganization of the republic seemed to have reached a climax. Flaccus conducted his army straight to the Bosphorus without venturing to approach the rebel proconsul Sulla; while Mithradates, who began to wish for peace, preferred to negotiate with his conqueror rather than with the consul of the republic. To complete this complication of anarchy, Flaccus was murdered, and superseded in the command by his own legate, C. Flavius Fimbria; this choice of their general by the legions themselves might seem significant if anything could be significant or connected in such a chaos. But Sulla now crossed into Asia, and concluded peace with Mithradates on these conditions: The king was to relinquish all his conquests, surrender deserters, restore the people of Chios, pay 2,000 talents, and give up seventy of his ships. Fimbria … remained to be dealt with. It was not a difficult matter: the two Roman armies confronted one another at Thyatira, and the Fimbrians streamed over to Sulla. After all, the legionaries, who had long ceased to be citizens, were soldiers first and politicians after; they worshipped the felicity of the great general; and the democratic general had not yet appeared who could bind his men to him by a spell stronger than Sulla's. Fimbria persuaded a slave to thrust him through with his sword. His enemies were vanquished in Asia, but in Rome Cinna was again consul (85 B. C.), and his colleague, Cn. Papirius Carbo, out-Cinnaed Cinna. Yet Sulla was in no hurry. He spent more than a year in reorganizing the disordered province. … He even allowed Cinna and Carbo, who began to prepare for war with him (84 B. C.), to be re-elected to the consulship; but when the more cautious party in the Senate entered into negotiations with him, and offered him a safe conduct to Italy, he showed in a word what he took to be the nature of the situation by saying that he was not in need of their safe conduct, but he was coming to secure them."

_R. F. Horton, History of the Romans, chapter 26._

_Plutarch, Sulla._

After a second and a third war with Rome (see ROME: B. C. 78-68, and 69-63), Mithridates was finally (B. C. 65) driven from his old dominions into the Crimean kingdom of Bosporus, where he ended his life in despair two years later. The kingdom of Pontus was absorbed in the Roman empire. The southern part of Cappadocia held some rank as an independent kingdom until A. D. 17, when it was likewise reduced to the state of a Roman province.

MITLA, The Ruins of.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.

MITYLENE: Start--------

MITYLENE.

The chief city in ancient times of the island of Lesbos, to which it ultimately gave its name.

See LESBOS.

MITYLENE: B. C. 428-427. Revolt from Athenian rule. Siege and surrender. The tender mercies of Athens.

See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.

MITYLENE: B. C. 406. Blockade of the Athenian fleet. Battle of Arginusæ.

See GREECE: B. C. 406.

MITYLENE: End--------

MIXES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.

MIXTECS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.

MIZRAIM.

See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.

MOABITES, The. The Moabite Stone.