“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small, Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.” CHAPTER XII PRISONS AND PRISONERS It is not my purpose to give a complete history of the military prisons in St. Louis during the war. There were several of them. They were for the most part improvised to meet the exigencies of the hour. The military authorities seized certain buildings belonging to the disloyal, which, by a little alteration, were easily and quickly made suitable for the reception of political prisoners. Among these buildings was the slave-pen, mentioned in the preceding chapter, at the corner of Fifth and Myrtle Streets. Another was the McDowell Medical College on Gratiot Street. Dr. McDowell, who founded this college, and had conducted it successfully for many years, was one of the staunchest of pro-slavery men, and a pronounced and bitter secessionist. He was tall and imposing in appearance. His long, white locks, thrust back of his ears, hung down over his coat collar. His eyes gleamed from beneath shaggy, gray eyebrows. Any stranger would have noted him in a crowd as an unusual character. Although he was old, his step had the elasticity of youth. He was an antagonist that few men cared to encounter. For years he had been active in politics. On the stump he at times denounced those of opposite views in terms of unmeasured severity. On one occasion, having some apprehension that his opprobrious epithets might provoke violent opposition, just as he began his speech, as a warning to all antagonists, he drew his revolver and ostentatiously laid it down on the desk before him and then proceeded with his fiery harangue. At the beginning of the war he left our city for the more congenial society of the Southern Confederacy, and the military authorities confiscated his college building and made it serve the cause that its owner hated and denounced. [Illustration: GRATIOT STREET PRISON, FORMERLY THE MCDOWELL MEDICAL COLLEGE. [_Page 188_ ]