But it was now too late to form his encampment as he had proposed to the Governor on the hills overlooking the Arsenal; the lynx-eyed, energetic Lyon had already occupied those heights with an adequate force of infantry and artillery. So Frost called his militia together on the western border of the city, in Lindell’s Grove, near the intersection of Olive Street and Grand Avenue. There, at the time designated by the Governor, he went into encampment. As he had urged in his memorial, Colonel Bowen was ordered to report to him. This to every loyal onlooker was a suspicious circumstance. Professedly the encampment was formed for the purpose of drilling the local militia, and at the start soldiers who were doing duty in the extreme western counties of the State were ordered to join it. While some of them hailed from St. Louis, many of them did not. Four companies of Minute Men in our city, open and avowed secessionists, with alacrity and enthusiasm responded to Frost’s call and stood foremost among the troops of his encampment.[21] Young men from different parts of the State, one here and another there, also became part of this motley military force. It is true that some loyal young men had belonged to Frost’s command, and had been deceived as to his real character, but in the latter part of April, headed by Colonel Pritchard, they had abandoned it. Those that now gathered under his standard were homogeneous in sentiment. So by common consent, in honor of the Governor, they dubbed their encampment Camp Jackson. Still, every one that joined it took the oath of allegiance to Missouri and the United States. But this did not reassure us, since the significance of that act depended on each man’s view of State sovereignty and on his construction of the Federal Constitution. The citizens of St. Louis looked on thoughtfully. Some of them were happy; but that very fact tended to make those of opposite views apprehensive. If the new encampment had been just what it professed to be, simply a place for military drill, there was not a loyal man in the city who would have thought of disturbing it. But there were disquieting rumors that its real character did not appear on the surface; that it had been formed to promote the secession of the State, that it had been put on the western verge of the city so that, at a moment’s notice, it could be used to suppress any movement that might be made by its loyal inhabitants; that the secessionists, having failed to take the Arsenal, proposed now, when the opportune time should arrive, to seize the city, and that the professed defence of the State was simply its defence against United States troops. So from the beginning of the encampment there was earnest debate among loyal men as to what was the wisest course of action, which continued until the whole city was heaving with suppressed excitement.