On August 3d, the new provisional Governor by proclamation set forth the lawless, turbulent condition of the State, and appealed to all within the commonwealth to put forth their utmost endeavor to secure, as speedily as possible, a reign of law and order, and commanded all State troops called out by his predecessor, Governor Jackson, to lay down their arms and return to their homes, promising them protection.[73] But a few days later[74] he found it necessary, in order to suppress marauding and violence, to call for forty-two thousand volunteers, infantry and cavalry. The Governor, while conservative in character, and an ardent lover of peace, was forced for the public good to put down anarchy by the strong hand of the armed militia of the State. But there was another series of interesting events running parallel with the foregoing. During the month of July, our fleeing Governor and Lieutenant-Governor were among their political friends in the Southern Confederacy. They visited Richmond and took counsel with Jefferson Davis. The Lieutenant-Governor having returned to New Madrid, on the 31st of July, while the Convention in session at Jefferson City was choosing provisional State officers, issued a proclamation as “acting Governor of Missouri, in the temporary absence of Governor Jackson,” eulogizing the President of the Southern Confederacy, welcoming to the State the Confederate General Pillow with his rebel army, declaring that in view of the rebellion in St. Louis against Missouri, and the war of the United States upon her, “she is, and of right ought to be, a sovereign, free, and independent State.” He also called upon Brigadier-General Thompson, commanding the Missouri State Guards of the district that included New Madrid, to join hands with General Pillow in his beneficent work of protecting “the lives and property of the citizens.” That he referred only to citizens in full sympathy with secession was made clear by Thompson’s proclamation on the following day. This proclamation, which, in bombast, stands without a peer among all written manifestoes of military commanders, was issued on the same day of the inauguration at the State capital of the provisional Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, and of Fremont’s river campaign to Cairo and New Madrid. Thus strange and stirring events overlapped each other. Antagonistic proclamations from men of diametrically opposite views met and clashed. To those uncertain of their ground the din was bewildering. But amid the confusion of these discordant appeals, Thompson’s turgid screed greatly amused all in whom there was even the smallest grain of humor. I remember how companies of men in our city, irrespective of their political sympathies, casually thrown together, read it to each other amid peals of laughter. A single extract from it cannot fail to amuse those of this generation and justify our comment upon it.