I will not volunteer as a soldier, because rightfully or wrongfully I feel unwilling to take a mere private’s place, and, having for many years lived in California and Louisiana, the men are not well enough acquainted with me to elect me to my appropriate place.

Should my services be needed, the records of the War Department will enable you to designate the station in which I can render most service.

Yours truly, W. T. SHERMAN.

To this I do not think I received a direct answer; but, on the 10th of the same month, I was appointed colonel of the Thirteenth Regular Infantry.

I remember going to the arsenal on the 9th of May, taking my children with me in the street-cars.  Within the arsenal wall were drawn up in parallel lines four regiments of the “Home Guards,” and I saw men distributing cartridges to the boxes.  I also saw General Lyon running about with his hair in the wind, his pockets full of papers, wild and irregular, but I knew him to be a man of vehement purpose and of determined action.  I saw of course that it meant business, but whether for defense or offense I did not know.  The next morning I went up to the railroad-office in Bremen, as usual, and heard at every corner of the streets that the “Dutch” were moving on Camp Jackson.  People were barricading their houses, and men were running in that direction.  I hurried through my business as quickly as I could, and got back to my house on Locust Street by twelve o’clock.  Charles Ewing and Hunter were there, and insisted on going out to the camp to see “the fun.”  I tried to dissuade them, saying that in case of conflict the bystanders were more likely to be killed than the men engaged, but they would go.  I felt as much interest as anybody else, but staid at home, took my little son Willie, who was about seven years old, and walked up and down the pavement in front of our house, listening for the sound of musketry or cannon in the direction of Camp Jackson.  While so engaged Miss Eliza Dean, who lived opposite us, called me across the street, told me that her brother-in-law, Dr. Scott, was a surgeon in Frost’s camp, and she was dreadfully afraid he would be killed.  I reasoned with her that General Lyon was a regular officer; that if he had gone out, as reported, to Camp Jackson, he would take with him such a force as would make resistance impossible; but she would not be comforted, saying that the camp was made up of the young men from the first and best families of St. Louis, and that they were proud, and would fight.  I explained that young men of the best families did not like to be killed better than ordinary people.  Edging gradually up the street, I was in Olive Street just about Twelfth, when I saw a man running from the direction of Camp Jackson at full speed, calling, as he went, “They’ve surrendered, they’ve surrendered!” So I turned back and rang the bell at Mrs. Dean’s.  Eliza came to the door, and I explained what I had heard; but she angrily slammed the door in my face!  Evidently she was disappointed to find she was mistaken in her estimate of the rash courage of the best families.