During the winter and spring of 1861, political tension and fear gripped Missouri. Slaveholding planters in the countryside eagerly wished to join the seven seceding states of the Deep South. Workers in cities like St Louis stood in opposition.

Advocates from both sides argued their case in print and in public. Conservative newspapers warned Missouri’s citizens to beware of heeding the advice of “scarlet red speakers.” Slaveholders denounced abolitionists, immigrants, and activists as “Pure red republicans! People rotten from the ground up, red all the way through to their kidneys.”

In the meantime, the city’s Unionists armed to prevent the secession of the state. Progressive Republicans, soldiers, and the German immigrant community took the lead. Revolutionary veterans from Europe, including such radicals as Heinrich Börnstein, editor of St Louis’s German-language newspaper Anzeiger des Westens, played a prominent role in helping to organize the new Union volunteers.