Morning dawned. It was Sunday, the 12th of May. The heavens were partially overcast, and there was a chill in the air. Very few besides the newsboys were seen in the streets. The general silence seemed in some way to foretoken the near approach of some overwhelming calamity. Abject fear had taken possession of many minds. The doors of hundreds of dwelling-houses were shut and bolted, and the windows darkened by blinds and shades were securely fastened. No one passing along the nearly deserted thoroughfares could escape a certain weird influence that enwrapped him and all things about him. Objects the most familiar wore an unusual and an uncanny aspect. What power was this which, from enfolding shadows, reached out its formless yet mighty hand and grasped thousands in our city and held them quivering with terror in its relentless grip? This, for want of a better name, men have called a panic. How it comes no one has ever been able to tell; how it departs never to return is equally mysterious. But on that Sunday morning, so long ago, it had thrown its horrid spell over St. Louis. And while men according to their varied constitutions were differently affected, none wholly escaped its dread touch. Still, what it was, no one was astute enough to explain, but that it was an awful reality thousands in the evening of that day of inexplicable alarm could testify. The day before, General Harney had returned from Washington and resumed his old command. Before the gray dawn of the day of panic, some prominent citizens, incited by fear of which they could give no rational explanation, implored the General to protect them against the murderous Dutch (Germans), who were about to kill them and loot and burn their houses. When Harney asked them for the evidence of their declarations they had nothing more substantial to offer than Dame Rumor. Still, wishing to quiet their fears, he decided to yield to their entreaties so far as he could do so with dignity. So he sent from the Arsenal detachments of soldiers to those parts of the city, represented to be most exposed to the incursions of what he himself believed to be purely imaginary foes. He also issued a proclamation and posted it up in all of the most frequented streets and public places, declaring to the people that he nowhere saw any evidence of special danger, and appealed to them to lay aside their groundless fear. These considerate acts of the General had exactly the opposite effect from what he intended; instead of quieting the people they excited them still more; instead of allaying, they intensified, their alarm. And such an outcome was altogether natural. Bodies of armed men marching hither and thither through the city and stationed at different points as guards, and a proclamation hurriedly issued on Sunday morning, seemed to them to be tangible proof of the existence of greater danger than they had supposed. And, as the hours of the morning wore away, the apprehension