In this task a Union State Committee in St. Louis greatly helped him, and the large German population in that city was especially ready to enlist for the Union. Many of the German immigrants of those days had come to America partly for the sake of its free institutions. A State Convention was summoned by the Governor to pass an Ordinance of Secession, but its electors were minded otherwise, and the Convention voted against secession. In several encounters Lyon, who was an intrepid soldier, defeated the forces of the Governor; in June he took possession of the State capital, driving the Governor and Legislature away; the State Convention then again assembled and set up a Unionist Government for the State. This new State Government was not everywhere acknowledged; conspiracies in the Southern interest continued to exist in Missouri; and the State was repeatedly molested by invasions, of no great military consequence, from Arkansas. Indeed, in the autumn there was a serious recrudescence of trouble, in which Lyon lost his life. But substantially Missouri was secured for the Union. Naturally enough, a great many of the citizens of Missouri who had combined to save their State to the Union became among the strongest of the "Radicals" who will later engage our attention. Many, however, of the leading men who had done most in this cause, including the friends of Blair, Lincoln's Postmaster-General, adhered no less emphatically to the "Conservative" section of the Republicans. 2. _Bull Run_.