FELLOW-CITIZENS: In the month of June last I
was called to the command of a handful of Missourians, who nobly gave up home
and comfort to espouse, in that gloomy hour, the cause of your bleeding country,
struggling with the most causeless and cruel despotism known among civilized
men. When peace and protection could no longer be enjoyed but at the price of
honor and liberty your chief magistrate called for 50,000 men to drive the
ruthless invader from a soil made fruitful by your labors and consecrated by
your homes. To that call less than 5,000 responded; out of a male population
exceeding 200,000 men, one in forty only stepped forward to defend with their
persons and their lives the cause of constitutional liberty and human rights.
Some allowances are to be made on the score of a want of military organization,
a supposed want of arms, the necessary retreat of the army southward, the
blockade of the river, and the presence of an armed and organized foe. But
nearly six months have now elapsed; your crops have been tilled; your harvests
have been reaped; your preparations for winter have been made; the Army of
Missouri, organized and equipped, fought its way to the river; the foe is still
in the field as the country bleeds, and our people groan under the inflictions
of a foe marked with all the characteristics of barbarian warfare; and where now
are the 50,000 to avenge our wrongs and free our country? Had 50,000 men flocked
to our standard with their shot-guns in their hands there would not now be a
Federal hireling in the State to pollute our soil. Instead of ruined
communities, starving families, and desolated districts, we should have had a
people blessed with protection and with stores to supply the wants and
necessities and comforts of life. Where are those 50,000 men? Are Missourians no
longer true to themselves? Are they a timid, time-serving, craven race, fit only
for subjection to a despot? Awake, my countrymen, to a sense of what constitutes
the dignity and true greatness of a free people. A few men have fought your
battles; a few men have dared the dangers of the battle-field; a few have borne
the hardships of the camp, the scorching suns of summer, the frosts of winter,
the malaria of the swamps, the privations incident to our circumstances,
fatigue, and hunger, and thirst, often without blankets, without shoes, with
insufficient clothing, with the cold, wet earth for a bed, the sky for a
covering, and a stone for a pillow, glad only to meet the enemy on the field,
where some paid the noblest devotion known among men on earth to the cause of
your country and your rights with their lives.
But where one has been lost on the field three have been lost by
diseases induced by privation and toil. During all these trials we have murmured
not; we offered all we had on earth at the altar of our common country--our own
beloved Missouri--and we only now ask our fellow-citizens, our brethren, to come
to us and help to secure what we have gained and to win our glorious inheritance
from the cruel hand of the spoiler and the oppressor. Come to us, brave sons of
Missouri I rally to our standard! I must have 50,000 men. I call upon you in the
name of your country for 50,000 men. Do you stay at home to take care of your
property? Millions of dollars have been lost because you staid at home. Do you
stay at home for protection? More men have been murdered at home than I have
lost in five successive battles. Do you stay at home to secure terms with the
enemy? Then, I warn you, the day may soon come when you may be surrendered to
the mercies of that enemy and your substance be given up to the Hessian and
jayhawker. I cannot, I will not, attribute such motives to you, my countrymen.
But where are our Southern-rights friends? We must drive the oppressor from our
land. I must have 50,000 men. Now is the crisis of your fate; now the golden
opportunity to save the State; now is the day of your political salvation. The
time of enlistment for our brave band is beginning to expire. Do not tax their
patience beyond endurance; do not longer sicken their hearts by hope deferred.
They begin to inquire, "Where are our friends?" Who shall give them an answer?
Boys and small property-holders have in the main fought the battles for the
protection of your property, and when they ask, "Where are the men for whom we
are fighting?" how can I, how shall I, explain?
Citizens of Missouri, I call upon you by every consideration of interest, by every desire for safety, by every tie that binds you to home and country, delay no longer. "Let the dead bury their dead." Leave your property to take care of itself. Commend your homes to the protection of God, and merit the admiration and love of childhood and womanhood by showing yourselves men, the sons of the brave and free, who bequeathed to us the sacred trust of free institutions. Come to the Army of Missouri, not for a week or month, but to free your country.
Strike till each armed foe expires!
Strike for
your altars and your fires!
For the green graves of your sires,
God and
your native land!
The burning fires of patriotism must inspire and lead you or all is lost; lost, too, just at the moment when all might be forever saved. Numbers give strength. Numbers intimidate the foe. Numbers save the necessity often of fighting battles. Numbers make our arms irresistible. Numbers command universal respect and insure confidence. We must have men---50,000 men. Let the herdsman leave his folds. Let the farmer leave his fields. Let the mechanic leave his shop. Let the lawyer leave his office till we restore the supremacy of law. Let the aspirants for office and place know they will be weighed in the balances of patriotism and may be found wanting. If there be any craven, crouching spirits, who have not the greatness of soul to respond to their country's call for help, let them stay at home, and let only the brave and true come out to join their brethren on the tented field. Come with supplies of clothing, and with tents, if you can procure them. Come with your guns of any description that can be made to bring down a foe. If you have no arms, come without them, and we will supply you as far as that is possible. Bring cooking utensils and rations for a few weeks. Bring blankets and heavy shoes and extra bed-clothing if you have them. Bring no horses to remain with the army except those necessary for baggage transportation. We must have 50,000 men. Give me these men, and, by the help of God, I will drive the hireling bands of thieves and marauders from the State. But, if Missourians fail now to rise in their strength and avail themselves of the propitious moment to strike for honor and liberty, you cannot say that we have not done all we could do to save you.
You will be advised in time at what point to report for organization and active service. Leave your property at home. What if it be taken--all taken? We have $200,000,000 worth of Northern means in Missouri which cannot be removed. When we are once free the State will indemnify every citizen who may have lost a dollar by adhesion to the cause of his country. We shall have our property, or its value, with interest. But, in the name of God and the attributes of manhood, let me appeal to you by considerations infinitely higher than money! Are we a generation of driveling, sniveling, degraded slaves? Or are we men who dare assert and maintain the rights which cannot be surrendered, and defend those principles of everlasting rectitude, pure and high and sacred, like God, their author? Be yours the office to choose between the glory of a free country and a just government and the bondage of your children! I will never see the chains fastened upon my country. I will ask for six and a half feet of Missouri soil in which to repose, but will not live to see my people enslaved. Do I hear your shouts? Is that your war-cry which echoes through the land? Are you coming? Fifty-thousand men! Missouri shall move to victory with the tread of a giant! Come on, my brave boys, 50,000 heroic, gallant, unconquerable Southern men! We await your coming.
STERLING PRICE,
Major-General,
Commanding.