ch floated the Secession flag.

Into these companies went numbers of young men from the best families
of the South, who had come to St. Louis to take advantage of business
opportunities, and young Irishmen, of whom there were many thousands
in the city, and who; having in their blood an antipathy to "the Dutch"
dating from William of Orange's days, were skillfully wrought upon by
the assertion that the "infidel, Sabbath-breaking, beer-drinking Dutch
who had invaded St. Louis" were of the same breed as those who harried
Ireland and inflicted innumerable persecutions in 1689. Very effective
in this was one Brock Champion, a big-hearted, big-bodied young
Irishman, of much influence among his countrymen, who played little
part, however, in the war which ensued. More conspicuous later was Basil
Wilson Duke, a bright Kentucky lawyer, 25 years old, who was Captain of
one of the companies, and afterwards became the second in command and an
inspiration to John H. Morgan, the great raider. The Captain of another
company was Colton Greene, a South Carolinian, a year or two younger
than Duke, a merchant, a man of delicate physique and cultivated mind,
but of great courage and constancy of purpose.

39

Everywhere in the State began a systematic persecution of the
Unconditional Union men and the bullying of the Conditional Union men.
Secession flags in numbers floated from buildings in St. Louis, Rolla,
Lexington, Jefferson City, Kansas City, and elsewhere. Union meetings
were disturbed and broken up in all the larger towns, the Star Spangled
Banner torn down and trampled upon, and the borders of Kansas and Iowa
were thronged with Union refugees telling how they had been robbed,
maltreated, and threatened with death, their stock killed, their houses
and crops burned by the "White Trash" which the Slave Power had turned
loose upon them.

When Maj. Bell had talked of "irresponsible mobs," he may have thought
of premature young fire-eaters like Duke, Greene, and Champion, eager
for the distinction of capturing the Arsenal, covetous of distributing
its arms to their followers. Most likely, however, he had in mind forays
from Illinois, or by the radical Germans of St. Louis, who were ill
disposed toward seeing their enemies equipped from its stores.

Gen. Frost had the Germans in mind as early as Jan. 8, probably
immediately following his interview with Maj. Bell, for he sent out a
secret circular to his trusted subordinates instr