John F. Hume, The abolitionists together with personal memories of the struggle for human rights

So intolerable did the situation become, that the Radicals from all parts of the State met in conference and decided to send a delegation to ask Mr. Lincoln to change the department commander, in the hope that it would bring a change of policy.

It is to be presumed that no President was ever confronted with such a motley crowd of visitors as the members of that delegation-between seventy and eighty in number — as they formed in line around three sides of the East Room in the White House. Their garments were a sight! Some of the men were in full military dress and some in civilian clothes, but the costumes of a majority were a mixture of both kinds, just as accident had arranged it, and pretty much all showed evidences of hard usage. One of the most forward of the delegates had neither cuffs nor collar, and his shirt had manifestly not been near a laundry for a long time. He apologized to the President for his appearance, saying that he had been sleeping in the woods where toilet accommodations were very indifferent. Two or three of the men bore marks of battle with the guerrillas, in patched — up faces, and one of them carried an arm that had been disabled by a gun shot in a red handkerchief sling. In speaking of these visitors, the President afterwards jocularly referred to them as “those crackerjacks from Missouri.”

A formal address was presented, the principal point being that, as the Missouri Unionists had furnished many thousand recruits to the Federal Army, they had a right to look to the Government for