MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS 279 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN C. FREMONT 279 MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN MCA. SCHOFIELD 279 THE STORY OF A BORDER CITY DURING THE CIVIL WAR CHAPTER I ST. LOUIS I need not say that St. Louis is built on the western bank of the Mississippi River about twenty miles below the mouth of the Missouri, since everybody knows that. But the present generation thinks of the city only as it is to-day, with its more than half a million of inhabitants, extensive parks, palatial residences, well-constructed churches, imposing business blocks, great railroad bridges spanning the river, unrivalled central depot and attractive trolley cars. But all this has flowed from its wonderful development since the close of the Civil War. We write of it as it was immediately before, and during, that mighty conflict. In 1860 it had only one hundred and fifty-one thousand seven hundred and eighty inhabitants, about one thousand five hundred of whom were slaves. A large number of enterprising young men had flocked to the city from every part of the United States, so that the white males of the city exceeded the white females by more than ten thousand. Among the whites there were many thousands of intelligent, manly, thrifty Germans, a fact which needs to be borne in mind, if we would fully understand and duly appreciate the part which the city acted in the earlier stages of the Civil War. Most of the city stood then, as now, on bluffs or extended terraces that rise gradually one above the other. Its situation is both healthful and beautiful. But before the war its area was comparatively small. It extended along the river only six and a half miles and between three and four back from it. It contained only fifteen and a half square miles. The ground now occupied by the finest residences was then rough, open fields, lying beyond its western limits. The city was built of brick. The business blocks, warehouses, hotels, residences, schoolhouses, and churches were all of the same material. Most of the sidewalks were also made of red brick. Whichever way you looked your eyes rested on red brick, and wherever you walked you trod on red brick. I remember but one business block that had a stone front, and that was marble. The enterprising citizen who built it made quite a fortune out of it. Its very novelty made it attractive, and its rooms were readily rented to professional men. The city is still largely built of brick. The clay from which the brick is made is found in large quantities near the city, and its inhabitants naturally and wisely use this excellent building material that lies close at hand.