Produced by David Widger
By Winston Churchill
A cordon of blue regiments surrounded the city at first from Carondeletto North St. Louis, like an open fan. The crowds liked best to go toCompton Heights, where the tents of the German citizen-soldiers werespread out like so many slices of white cake on the green beside thecity's reservoir. Thence the eye stretched across the town, catching thedome of the Court House and the spire of St. John's. Away to the west, onthe line of the Pacific railroad that led halfway across the state, wasanother camp. Then another, and another, on the circle of the fan, untilthe river was reached to the northward, far above the bend. Within was apeace that passed understanding,—the peace of martial law.
Without the city, in the great state beyond, an irate governor hadgathered his forces from the east and from the west. Letters came andwent between Jefferson City and Jefferson Davis, their purport being thatthe Governor was to work out his own salvation, for a while at least.Young men of St. Louis, struck in a night by the fever of militarism,arose and went to Glencoe. Prying sergeants and commissioned officers,mostly of hated German extraction, thundered at the door of ColonelCarvel's house, and other houses, there—for Glencoe was a border town.They searched the place more than once from garret to cellar, mutteredguttural oaths, and smelled of beer and sauerkraut, The haughtyappearance of Miss Carvel did not awe them—they were blind to all manlysensations. The Colonel's house, alas, was one of many in Glencoe writtendown in red ink in a book at headquarters as a place toward which thefeet of the young men strayed. Good evidence was handed in time and timeagain that the young men had come and gone, and red-faced commandingofficers cursed indignant subalterns, and implied that Beauty had had ahand in it. Councils of war were held over the advisability of seizingMr. Carvel's house at Glencoe, but proof was lacking until one rainynight in June a captain and ten men spurred up the drive and swung into abig circle around the house. The Captain took off his cavalry gauntletand knocked at the door, more gently than usual. Miss Virginia was homeso Jackson said. The Captain was given an audience more formal than onewith the queen of Prussia could have been, Miss Carvel was infinitelymore haughty than her Majesty. Was not the Captain hired to do adegrading service? Indeed, he thought so as he followed her about thehouse and he felt like the lowest of criminals as he opened a closet dooror looked under a bed. He was a beast of the field, of the mire. HowVirginia shrank from him if he had occasion to pass her! Her gown wouldhave been defiled by his touch. And yet the Captain did not smell ofbeer, nor of sauerkraut; nor did he swear in any language. He did hisduty apologetically, but he did it. He pulled a man (aged seventeen) outfrom under a great hoop skirt in a little closet, and the man had apistol that refused its duty when snapped in the Captain's face. This waslittle Spencer Catherwood, just home from a military academy.
Spencer was taken through the rain by the chagrined Captain to theheadquarters, where he caused a little embarrassment. No damning evidencewas discovered on his person, for the pistol had long since ceased to bea firearm. And so after a stiff lecture from the Colonel he was finallygiven back into the custody of his father. Despite the pickets, the youngmen filtered through daily,—or rather nightly. Presently some of thembegan to com