What terrible thing had produced this panic? A rumor, flying on the wings of darkness, had reached the city that Colonel Blair, with two thousand troops, was on his way to the State capital. He was coming on the Pacific Railroad. Steam-cars moved rapidly and this hostile invasion must be met at once, if met at all. Without any delay the Governor and his staff began to remove war material from the city. Under the cover of darkness they sent twelve thousand kegs of powder into the country. An armed and tumultuous band of men moved eastward and burned the railroad bridge over the Osage. This relieved the fears of those at the capital, since Blair with his German minions would for a time, at all events, be hindered by that swollen and bridgeless river. But it was all a baseless fright. Colonel Blair and his soldiers were serenely sleeping at St. Louis, having been lulled to their slumbers by the satisfaction that in taking Camp Jackson they had done a good day’s work for the Union. The next day, the 11th of May, all the material captured at Camp Jackson was removed to the Arsenal. Then all the city knew, what Lyon had known before, the hostile nature of that captured camp. Its main avenue was named Jefferson Davis; one of its principal cross-streets Beauregard. Its arms, both muskets and cannon, had been stolen from the Arsenal at Baton Rouge. They had been consigned as marble[28] to “Tamoroa, Care of Greely and Gale.” This was of course a mere blind, since the firm of Greely and Gale was distinguished in the city for its outspoken loyalty. But the officers of the steamer on which these munitions of war were brought up the river to St. Louis were in sympathy with General Frost and his immediate counsellors, and, without raising any question, delivered this war material, not to those to whom it was consigned, but to those for whom it was intended. Among the cannon were the pieces that Jefferson Davis had ordered to St. Louis, that were to be placed, according to the plan of General Frost and the Governor, on the bluffs, overlooking the Arsenal, in order to capture it; but since the opportunity to plant them there had passed, they were taken instead to Camp Jackson. Everybody who did not know before, knew now that Camp Jackson was an ally of the Southern Confederacy.[29] Some of the young men within that camp, as has been claimed, may have been hoodwinked Unionists, but considering all the evidences of the disloyal character of the encampment, daily thrust before their eyes, if they were deceived, they must have been unusually stupid. CHAPTER VII RIOT, PANIC, SEARCH AND CONFISCATION