So the city had a number of hostile camps, which had been so secretly formed and maintained that many did not even know of their existence. These hostile bodies had been armed; but no one yet knew where the Minute Men, or secessionists, obtained their arms; and the secessionists did not even know that the Wide-awakes, the Union men, were armed at all. Yet there these opposing bands of men were, cherishing diametrically opposite purposes. Some of them had determined if possible to disrupt the Republic; some of them had determined to do all in their power to prevent such a catastrophe. To make good their respective purposes, they were secretly drilling, while the whole city was full of apprehension, often greatly depressed in spirit and sometimes wrapped in gloom. While these things were being done under cover, the people of the city carefully abstained from all outward manifestations of their patriotism. The fire burned in the bones of Union men, but for prudential reasons they did not permit it to flame forth. They determined if possible to avoid conflict and bloodshed within our gates. No preacher spoke for the Republic. No congregation sang, “My country, ’tis of thee.” No band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Outside of the Arsenal there was but one United States flag hung out in all the city, and that floated over the main entrance of a dry-goods store; partly, as we thought, from patriotic, and partly from mercenary, motives; but to all lovers of the Union, it was a cheering sight. And this flagless condition of the city continued till May of 1861, when gradually the houses, places of business, and in some instances even the churches of the loyal, began to blossom with national banners. Events outside of the city greatly agitated us. In December of 1860, the Governor of Alabama sent commissioners to all the slaveholding States, inviting and urging them to secede from the Union. He wished these States to act as a unit, to go out of the Union together, in order that the resulting Confederacy might from the start be as formidable as possible. One of these commissioners, Mr. William Cooper, presented this appeal from Alabama to Governor Stewart at our State capital, who received him with frigid courtesy and listened unsympathetically to his message. He then called on the Governor-elect, Claiborn F. Jackson, who unhesitatingly expressed his sympathy with the proposed secession movement.[4] This of course aroused our indignation, but it was what we should have expected of one who had been prominent among armed Missourians, that, at an earlier day, invaded Kansas, and by force deposited their votes in order to make it a slave State.