Planter's House Hotel Meeting

Tuesday, June 11, 1861

The Planter's House Hotel, St. Louis. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

At the insistence of Governor Claiborne Fox Jackson, he, General Sterling Price, Nathaniel Lyon, and Frank Blair meet at the Planter's House Hotel in St. Louis to negotiate a peaceful settlement of Missouri's status during the secession crisis. Lyon, freshly promoted to brigadier general and to command of the Department of the West, instead says that rather than see a loss of Union control, "I would see you, and you, and you, and you, [pointing to each man in the room] and every man, woman, and child in the State dead and buried. This means war. In an hour one of my officers will call for you and conduct you out of my lines." With that statement, Lyon makes it clear that he will stop at nothing to keep Missouri squarely in the Union.