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exclusively, would cause the
Northwestern States of the
Union to join hands with the insurgents, rather than lose the immense commercial advantages which the free navigation of that great stream afforded.
The scheme was foiled by the vigilance of the
Government and the patriotism of the people in the
Northwest; and, as we have observed,
Governor Yates, under directions from the
Secretary of War, sent
Illinois troops, at an early day, to take possession of and occupy
Cairo.
1 The secessionists, especially of
Kentucky and
Missouri, were alarmed and chagrined by this important movement, and never ceased to lament it.
By the middle of May there were not less than five thousand Union volunteers at
Cairo, under the command of the experienced
B. M. Prentiss, who had just been commissioned a brigadier-general.
They occupied the extreme point of land within the
levee or dike that keeps out the rivers at high water, at the confluence of the
Ohio and
Mississippi.
There they cast up fortifications, and significantly called the post, Camp Defiance.
A smaller one, called
Camp Smith, was established in the rear of it; and troops occupied other points near, on the banks o f the two rivers.
Heavy ordnance was forwarded from
Pittsburg, and 42-pounder cannon commanded the two streams, and bade every steamer and other craft to round to and report to the military authorities there.
Before the close of May,
 |
|
Military position at Cairo. |
the post at
Cairo was considered impregnable against any force the
Confederates were likely to bring.
It soon became a post of immense importance to the
Union cause, as a point where some of those land and naval expeditions which performed signal service in the
Valley of the Mississippi were fitted out, as we shall observe hereafter.
Adjoining
Missouri on the
South was the Slave-labor
State of Arkansas, in which, as we have seen attachment to the
Union was a prevailing sentiment of the people at the beginning of the year.
Unfortunately for them, the
Governor and most of the leading politicians of the
State were disloyal, and no effort was spared by them to obtain the passage of an ordinance of secession by a Convention of delegates who met on the 4th of March.
That Convention was composed of
