The victory was won. It was a momentous victory. Who won it? A little band of intrepid Union men, men of whom, with perhaps two exceptions, the nation at large knew little or nothing. They had come together in St. Louis from every part of the Republic and from foreign countries. That city was their adopted home. They had largely laid aside the prejudices that they brought with them from their former places of abode. Their contact with each other had made them larger, grander men. Upon them unexpectedly a day of darkness had fallen. Dangers thickened around them, but the very perils which beset them united their hearts in unswerving, burning loyalty to the Union. At last the only hope of keeping their State in the Union was the sovereign Convention called into being for the very purpose of taking it out of the Union. So, before God, they firmly resolved to use as well as they could the unpropitious instrument made ready to their hand. They could not directly control the deliberations and votes of the Convention. Forbidding as the prospect seemed to be, there was hope, however, if this sovereign body could be induced to carry on its deliberations in their adopted city. They must invite the Convention to do this. Not openly; such publicity would utterly defeat their purpose. They must work in secret. Fortunately some of their own number were members of the Convention. They were good men and wise and true. They did their delicate work with skill. The Convention, apparently self-moved, came to St. Louis. It deliberated there. Missouri stayed in the Union. What was the significance of this outcome to the nation at large? It had a mighty influence in keeping Kentucky, West Virginia, Delaware and Maryland in the Union. It cheered and strengthened our wise, conservative, patriotic President, whose manifold perplexities and vast responsibilities pressed upon him like the superincumbent weight of a mountain. It put into the Union army more than one hundred and nine thousand men, of whom more than eight thousand were colored,[13] besides the Home Guards in every considerable town of the State. It is probable, however, that part of this number, even if the State had seceded, would have found its place in the Union ranks; but the doctrine of State rights was so dominant that probably at least seventy-five thousand of that number would have followed the State and helped fight the battles of the Southern Confederacy. It is quite possible that this great military force added to the Federal army really decided the conflict in favor of the Union; and that when some future historian impartially surveys the whole field, he may be constrained to affirm that a band of patriotic men, most of them unknown to fame, in a border city, on the western bank of the Mississippi River, confronted with apparently insurmountable obstacles, by prudent, decisive action, not only saved their State from the madness of secession, but the whole Union from irretrievable disruption.