To understand the fight for the Arsenal, it will be necessary for us to get before our minds as clearly as possible some of the principal characters that directed and controlled it. The first to claim our attention, though at the beginning of the contest subordinate in military rank is Captain, afterwards Brigadier-General, Nathaniel Lyon. He was a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of West Point. He had served with distinction in Florida, and in the Mexican War, brilliantly as an Indian fighter in northern California, and with moderation and wisdom in Kansas, when that territory was harassed by the lawless incursions of border ruffians. He was forty-two years old, just in his prime. He was only five feet seven inches in height. He was thin and angular, rough and rugged in appearance. He had deep-set, clear blue eyes, sandy hair and reddish-brown stubby beard. What he was in mind and heart, unfolding events soon clearly revealed. He reported for duty at the Arsenal about February 2d. He at once made himself familiar with its history. He learned that Major William H. Bell, by birth a North Carolinian, a graduate of West Point in 1820, had been its commander for several years; that the major, aside from his duties as an officer of the United States army, had amassed quite a fortune in our city in town lots and suburban property, and had come to regard St. Louis as his home; that his sympathies had been with the extreme pro-slavery men of Missouri; that in January he had pledged himself to General Frost that while he would defend the Arsenal against all mobs, he would not defend it against State troops; that as late as Jan. 24th, Frost had written this to Governor Jackson, at the same time claiming that Bell was in accord with them; that on the same day, to the honor of the military service of the United States, Bell had been removed from his command and ordered to report at New York; that he had refused to obey this order, and, instead, had had the good sense to resign his commission and retire to his farm in St. Charles County, Missouri. So at the start, the real situation of affairs in our city was opened up to Captain Lyon.